As the search for 45-year-old 14th Street resident Marion McCleneghan languishes into its third week, concerned friends and family members are preparing an intense grid search of Park Slope and its environs in an attempt to pick up her trail.
McCleneghan was reported missing on the week of February 8. While initial accounts have her disappearing following a party near her home on 14th Street, a further investigation revealed that McCleneghan was seen in the neighborhood at least once the day after the party. She reportedly told a clerk at a local deli that she was going to Long Island.
Her surprise disappearance had everyone fearing for the worst — especially after her boyfriend, Richard Eric Sosa, whose house she left “in a huff” following the party, suddenly refused to cooperate with investigators. And, although he’s not being considered a suspect at the time of this writing, Sosa was also found sporting a scratch on his face after McCleneghan had vanished, according to published reports.
Yet the further sighting of McCleneghan has given everyone hope.
“At the beginning of the investigation, I thought she was Laci Petersoned,” said one police source, referring to the California woman who was killed by her husband, then reported missing. “Now, who knows? There’s a fifty-fifty chance that she’s fine. Maybe she just needed to take a break from everyone.”
McCleneghan’s mother told the Brooklyn Paper, a CNG sister publication, that the 45-year-old was seeing a therapist and was “having a rough year” marred with a separation from her husband and the loss of her father and other family members.
Police said that after the party, either McCleneghan or someone else entered her apartment and removed her laptop computer and several journals.
Yet until she resurfaces neither the police nor worried friends and neighbors are going to stop looking for her.
Earlier this week there was an internet call for volunteers to help in a widespread search for McCleneghan. The search, originally scheduled for Tuesday but postponed to Saturday, was expected to encompass Park Slope and Prospect Park.
The call to action was reportedly generated by a Facebook page, although a cursory search of the social web site turned up nothing.
Anyone with information regarding McCleneghan’s whereabouts is urged to come forward.
Calls can be made to Detective Gibbons at 718-636-6483. Please refer to case #109, complaint #445.
