Author: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: December 2020
Update: October 3rd, 2025, she remains missing
Update: October 7th, 2025, new evidence confronted
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.
Last seen or contact date: August 18th, 1971 (Wednesday); August 8th, 1971 at CharleyProject
Where last seen: Glen Falls, New York
Ethnicity/Race: White
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 13 years old
Hair: Brown to light brown
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 4'6" and 85 pounds
Mary Wesolowski Missing 1971: New Leads & 1978 Fire Connection Explored | Glens Falls, NY
The case of Mary Wesolowski (NamUs MP2876) is the kind of case that takes you in two different directions. From one perspective, you have to wonder if she was abducted. She was last known to be walking to Havilland Cove on the Hudson River. A known abductor, Kenneth Arnold Yarter Jr., didn't work that far away from where Mary lived. With that in mind, it's hard not to think about an abduction.
But Wesolowski, in my opinion, is more likely to have run away. She left a note for her mother saying "I'm leaving. I might miss you."
That's present tense in the first sentence and future tense in the second, the latter indicating a look to an uncertain future. It's an interesting note in that the second sentence communicates mixed emotions for her mother. That certainly hints at problems at home for this child, something that has been communicated at various sources about this case, like at Charley Project.
The note creates a bit of a connection to the missing person's case of Beverly Sharpman. She is a long-missing American teen who left a note stating that she was leaving on her own account. A lot of people who have written about Sharpman's case, myself included, felt that she survived her disappearance event. I think Maryanne survived her disappearance event as well, but died in a housefire several years later.
Ambiguity Regarding the Name
Charley Project offered a lengthy description of Mary's disappearance. One excerpt states "Some agencies give Mary's name 'Mary Ann' or 'Maryanne.'
Interestingly enough I found a woman in northern New York who died in the late 1970's with a name match, regardless of the spacing between Mary and Ann or not. It may be worth a look despite a one-year difference in age.
If we assume that she ran away, I think it's safe to assume that she made it a little way out of Glen Falls, New York. Chances are if she stayed put she would have been found. How far could she make it with whatever means she had? Probably not too far. Maybe getting out of New York would have been hard.
Take a look at the following two articles. They both describe the same person and event despite different name spellings and different ages:
Name matches to missing person but Mary Ann Wesolowski but the age is one year off. Tue, Nov 21, 1978 – Page 14 · Poughkeepsie Journal (Poughkeepsie, New York) · Newspapers.com
The problem with the articles is that one describes a "Mary Ann Wesolowski, 21" and the other describes a "Maryann Wesoloswki, 22." Note the difference in spelling of both the first and last names but Wesolowski spelled correctly for Billy. Also, note the different ages. Furthermore, note all the other similarities because they practically eliminate the chance of these two people, "Mary Ann Wesolowski, 21" and "Maryann Wesoloswki, 22" actually being different people. Clearly, the two news articles cover the same event.
Lastly, and importantly, note that our Mary Wesolowski, NamUs #MP2876, was neither 21 nor 22 on November 21st, 1978. She would only have been 20. But it's funny how she was referred to as Maryann and Mary Ann and that's how different agencies described her as well. That the age doesn't match is important -- in fact, in some cases that's a rule out. In this case, I can't ignore the journalism that didn't care to get her age right or name spelled right. Maybe they were working with shoddy sources themselves.
The Mary described in the news articles was likely white. One photo had a picture of the dying Billy, Mary's child, and he was white. It's not a slam dunk to have the same color of skin as one of your parents but that's the way it usually goes. Our Mary, the missing person, was also white.
For me, this all means that this "Maryann Wesoloswki, 22" or "Mary Ann Wesolowski, 21" should be looked at as a rule-out for Mary Wesolowski, #MP2876. A good idea would be if websleuths or amateurs took to the databases they have memberships for and looked for the Mary that died in this house fire. We're interested in someone with a different birthdate, a different photo, or something that rules her out because the crummy journalism doesn't do that for me.
On the matter, I did look at ancestry.com for the deceased two-year-old Jennifer Wesolowski. I found someone by that name in the Buffalo area that was born in 1976, someone that had an address in N. Tonawanda, New York, USA. I wondered if that was the Jennifer mentioned in the article because the age would match. I'm thinking that this address might be a clue in this case.
If Mary from the housefire is our missing person, then be aware that she did die from the injuries sustained from the fire. This would be about closure and not a reunion.
I do wonder if, perhaps, she changed her age somehow after running away. Runaways do often lie about their ages to access jobs, services meant for an older group, or to gain emancipation prematurely. If Maryann did something like this, then in the age before digitalization she might have ended up with ID that made her look two years older than she was. That would mean she could be the Maryann Wesolowski that died in the house fire.
This might simply be her right here: Maryann Wesolowski on Findagrave.
Update on October 7th, 2025: On this date, new evidence was confronted, credited to KCromwell on Websleuths for pointing to an article from the Buffalo-Courier Express. This articles indicates that Mrs. Wesolowski, who died in the fire, recently moved into flat 15 days ago with her children after staying with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert G. Luksch and that she was separated from her husband, John.
This suggests the woman who died in the house fire married into the Wesolowski name, with her maiden name likely being Luksch, aligning with her parents' surname. This strongly indicates she is not the Maryann Wesolowski who went missing in 1971. I will leave this article up as is in order to prevent others from pursuing this same rabbit hole, avoiding unnecessary confusion.
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Shane, my number is 8455324975, if you want to call me, thanks, Paul Wesolowski
ReplyDeleteThanks. Feel free to contact me at websleuths using the private-message system if you like. I posted the link to this article in Mary's case forum there. Interested to know if you think this article has any substance, if there's anything to add to it, or especially if the guess can be demonstrated to be certainly false.
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