At one point, detectives say, Mary's stepfather had been reportedly physically abusing her. The family moved around a lot from base to base. By this time, Charlotte had married William Houle and the couple had two kids of their own. Mary and Kathy were returned to their mother Charlotte. Sherrie Calgaro: We were separated when I was 6 years old. Sherrie was adopted by the foster family. In their early years, Mary, middle sister Kathy, and Sherrie were in and out of a foster home. Steve Cercone: The information we have through the sisters is that … it was a very dysfunctional household. As an adult, she filed a missing persons report and told the police about Mary's troubled childhood. Sherrie Calgaro: I wanted to know what happened to my sister, Mary.
It was Sherrie Calgaro, Mary's sister, who finally got authorities on the case. Sherrie Calgaro: I couldn't understand how a mother could not go to the ends of the earth to find her child.
Steve Cercone: I can't remember a time when a child was not reported by the parents. Maureen Maher: It's hard to believe … allowing a child to walk away or a child go missing and it's not reported. The mysterious disappearance of Mary Day 29 photos Mary's existence came close to being completely erased there's no record that her stepfather William Houle or her mother Charlotte had ever reported her missing. Steve Cercone | Seaside Police Department: Not a trace of her as an adult no Social Security record of her having a job, getting welfare benefits … we have nothing on this person's identity. Joe Bertaina: There was no evidence that she was alive.īertaina's boss at the time was Steve Cercone. Mary was gone - seemingly without a trace.ĭet. Joe Bertaina: The case was … a tangle of weeds that went all different directions. He'd been asked to lead the investigation into her disappearance.ĭet. Seaside, California, Detective Joe Bertaina first heard the name Mary Louise Day back in 2002. "And I'm like, "This case just gets weirder and weirder," said Cercone. Years later, after her sister got police on the case, they believed she was murdered, too.īut then there was a turn no one saw coming. "My mother told me that there were a lot of places in California that you could bury a body and they'd never be found," Calgaro said. When she became an adult, she reported her sister missing. The family was not allowed to talk about Mary, said Calgaro, who was haunted by what happened. Sherrie Calgaro, who was 10 when her sister disappeared, was told Mary ran away. "I can't remember a time when a child was not reported by the parents," former Seaside Police Chief Steve Cercone told "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher. There is no record of her parents ever reporting her missing. Mary Day was 13 when she vanished from her family's Seaside, California, home in 1981.