Disappearance of Susan Walsh

Susan Walsh (born February 18, 1960) was an American writer and freelance journalist who disappeared outside her home in Nutley, New Jersey on July 16, 1996. Walsh's disappearance was widely publicized into the late 1990s, especially after several newspapers and media outlets published articles alluding that her disappearance was potentially linked to the Russian mafia, as well as New York City's underground vampire community, both subjects that Walsh had investigated while writing for The Village Voice.
Walsh's case has been profiled on multiple television programs, including Unsolved Mysteries in 1997 and Disappeared in 2012, and was also the subject of a 1998 book titled Piercing the Darkness: Undercover with Vampires in America Today by Katherine Ramsland.

Walsh was born on February 18, 1960, and aspired to be a poet from a young age. Her upbringing was described as "troubled." Walsh attended William Paterson University where she studied English and writing, working as a journalist for the college's newspaper. Walsh worked intermittently as an erotic dancer and stripper to pay her tuition, and struggled with drug addiction and alcoholism while in college; nonetheless, Walsh graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1988, and afterward worked as a writer for engineering and business publications. She later worked as a writer for Screw magazine under Al Goldstein. Walsh gave birth to one son, David, in 1985, with husband Mark.

On July 16, 1996, Walsh left her apartment complex in Nutley, New Jersey, which she shared with her son; her estranged husband, Mark, lived below Walsh. Walsh had left to run errands and make a telephone call at a pay phone across the street, leaving her son in the care of her ex-husband. This was the last time she was seen. At the time of Walsh's disappearance, she was enrolled in a Master's program in English at New York University, which she had halfway completed, and was working as a freelance journalist, meanwhile supporting herself and her son by working various jobs as a stripper. At the time of her disappearance, Walsh's friends worried she was struggling with substance abuse problems after having maintained eleven years of sobriety.

Police quickly ruled out Walsh's ex-husband as a suspect, and it was later noted that the page for the month of July 1996 had been mysteriously torn out of Walsh's calendar in her apartment. Though police had few clues to go off of while investigating Walsh's disappearance, rumors circulated that her disappearance may have been connected to the investigative research she had been doing at the time. Walsh had written an in-depth report on a strip club ring in which members of the Russian mafia were allegedly forcing young girls into the sex industry, which was published in The Village Voice. Following this article, Walsh also explored an underground vampire community in New York City, but the newspaper did not run the story as they felt Walsh's writing on the matter was not objective. Ultimately, police were unable to establish any connections between Walsh's disappearance and her work on either article. Walsh established a friendship with journalist James Ridgeway during her time writing for The Village Voice, with Ridgeway referring to her as his "most reliable" writer.

At the time, Walsh had also participated in a documentary produced by her friend, Jill Morley, titled Stripped, which detailed women working in the sex industry. Walsh was recorded in a group interview for the film on July 14, 1996, two days before her disappearance, during which she made a reference to having a "stalker." She had also hired herself out to a German documentary crew making a film about Russian immigrants becoming go-go dancers, and was also in the midst of developing a documentary on the subject with BBC shortly before her disappearance. Walsh's last work was her contributions to the book Red Light: Inside the Sex Industry by James Ridgeway and Sylvia Plachy; Walsh served as the primary researcher for the book and also contributed photographs and personal writings within a month before her disappearance.

Known bibliography

• Screw Magazine
• The Village Voice (2 articles)
• Red Light: Inside the Sex Industry by James Ridgeway; Sylvia Plachy (primary researcher, contributor) ISBN 978-1576870006

Filmography

• Stripped (1996) as herself