Welcome back to the Path with Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. September thirteenth, nineteen
ninety two, Boston, Massachusetts. While working as the ramp supervisor for Northwest
Airlines at Logan International Airport, twenty seven year old Sue rasca Witz leaves in
the middle of her shift to purchase food for her crew. She never returns
and is found murdered inside the trunk of her car if the following morning.
One year later, Sue's mother finds her diary and reads that Sue is the
victim of non stop sexual harassment at her workplace. Some of Sue's harassers are
later indicted for their role in a credit card theft ring, but the identity
of her killer remains unknown. After that, the Path Went Chili, So
the case were going to be covering today also happened to be featured on Unsolved
Mysteries the nineteen ninety two murder of Sue Tarrascowitz and fair Warning, this is
definitely one of the most rage inducing cases we've ever explored. I originally covered
this on The Trail Went Cold in September of twenty seventeen and released the episode
of the exact twenty five year anniversary if Sue's Murder, and sadly, here
we are six years later, and we've recently passed the thirty one year anniversary
and the crime is still unsolved, So I thought it would be a good
idea to revisit it on the Path went Chili. It's going to seem pretty
unbelievable that this case has gone on sold for thirty one years, because there
are likely quite a few people out there who knew the truth about what happened.
This is a pretty maddening story of a woman who found success in a
male dominated industry, but some of our co workers just couldnot handle that,
so she was tormented for years by a NonStop stream of sexual harassment. It's
been out for debate whether the harassment itself was the primary motive for Sue's murder,
or if she might have been killed because of a legal activity going on
in her workplace. Whatever the case, this is a pretty disturbing story,
but it needs to be told. Okay, so I'm already on board because
you said it's the most rage inducing case we've ever explored. So bring it
on, Robin. But also, I mean, we're talking about a young
girl twenty seven years old who is working at an airport, and she's a
ramp supervisor already at age twenty seven. This is in nineteen ninety two.
We are still today and very vocally talking about out sexual harassment in the workplace,
women's rights in employment, and back in ninety two that was not so
much the case. You were expected to deal with it, particularly in a
male dominated field, and to almost feel privileged if you were appointed to a
certain position. And so I'm very concerned about Sue being harassed to a point
where she's writing this in her diary saying that the harassment won't stop at work,
that if she were to mention at work, it definitely makes you a
target. And the fact that she's found in her trunk of the car the
next morning, surely someone is seeing something happened to Sue between the times I'm
assuming leaves work and makes it out to her car. So I need to
know more. I'm already on the edge of my seat. Our story begins
in Boston in nineteen ninety two. Our central figure is twenty seven year old
Susan tarasco Is who goes by the name Zue. Sue lives in Saga with
parents Ronald and Marleine Tarrascowitz, and is currently an employee of Northwest Airlines and
works at Boston's Logan International Airport. She went to art school and originally dreamed
of being a cartoonist, but instead she decided to break new ground by achieving
success in a very male dominated industry. Sue started out her career at Northwest
in nineteen eighty seven by cleaning the interiors of jets and became a ground service
employee within the next two years, only the second woman in the history of
the company to ever hold that position. She continued working her way up the
ladder and eventually earned a promotion to the position of Equipment Service Crew Chief.
Her job involves supervising round porkers who unloaded mail and baggage from the airplanes,
and this time Sue became the very first woman to ever hold such a position
at Northwest. Wow. Okay, so here she is twenty seven years old,
and not only is she moving up and being a superior, but she's
break these massive barriers where she's the second woman to hold this position. The
first woman to hold another supervisory position. I'm very interested in knowing how the
men who were working underneath of her, and even the females who were working
below her and were not promoted to those positions, how are they reacting to
Sue at work. It sounds like perhaps that alone could be a big reason
why people were really targeting her and trying to make her uncomfortable, perhaps in
a way to get her to not be the person supervising them. There's a
lot of people, including young men, who are sitting there going I don't
want some woman and a young woman at twenty seven telling me how to do
my job. And what do you both think about the fact that these guys
likely saw Sue from the beginning of her career at Northwest when she was cleaning
the planes, and the fact that this upward mobility for her seemed to be
just incredibly fast. She was obviously doing a really good job. If within
two years she got another promotion and then she's promoted to round supervisor like that
career trajectory says this woman is going to be a star. I can imagine
that there would be some resentment from the men around her who weren't being promoted
at that rate. Oh, definitely, I think that was one of the
big issues there. And Ashley just asked about the other female employees. As
far as I can tell, there really were not that many female workers at
that particular airport, especially working in the baggage industry at that time, so
there were only a handful of them. But as far as I can tell,
Sue was still very close with them, and they were very supportive of
her because I think they had the mentality that in this industry, a woman
breaking ground and climbing up the ladder that quickly and becoming going into like a
supervisory position is a pretty big deal. So I think they respected her for
being able to pave the way for And I think, as we're going to
find out, one of the reasons Sue would stay at this position and not
quit even after facing a steady stream of harassment, is that she knew what
would make it tougher for all the other female employees if she just decided to
leave and not fight all the harassment she was facing. Oh man, been
there, done that, Where it's like it's almost on you as a young
woman to say, if my voice isn't heard, if I don't stick this
out, then it's going to be just the next girl behind me. And
so you feel this incredible responsibility, even at your own health risk, to
stay and to put up with it. I know you've dealt with that in
the workplace, Ashley, and you know how difficult it is. But can
you imagine what it would feel like if in your workplace it was you and
only men. Oh, it would be pretty intense. I think there'd be
the both sides of the coin, which we talked about a lot. There
would be the people who treated you like a sister and daughter and respected you
and we're in awe of your progress and really proud of you. And then
I do think there would be a whole other party that's sitting there, going
this young girl like I don't think so there's not a place for her here.
I'm to make her as miserable as possible so that she leaves. And
I think she would be dealing with both of those camps in her position and
the ones that want to basically reduce you to a sexual object because it makes
it a lot easier for them, and they know that it can break down
a woman over time, and clearly that's what Sue is dealing with and she's
such a hero like I just can't get over the fact that she continues to
with this incredible fortitude because she wants to not allow them to make her quit
her job. She wants to be strong and put herself in a position that
would support other women who want to potentially take that position. I just think
she's an incredible twenty seven year old woman. So on the evening of Saturday,
September the twelfth, Sue showed up to work the eleven PM to seven
am graveyard shift with her crew. Sometime around one am on the thirteenth,
she volunteered to go on a food run to a nearby Samwich shop. After
taking orders from her co workers and leaving the airport, Sue did not return
for the rest of her shift. On the morning of September fourteenth, Sue's
car was found parked at an auto body shop in nearby Revere, and after
a passer by noticed blood dripping from the trunk, the police were notified.
When the vehicle's trunk was opened, Sue's body was inside. She had been
beaten and stabbed multiple times. Sue was not sexually assaulted, and the only
item of hers which appeared to be missing was a necklace she usually wore.
So what could have been the motive for her murder? Oh, my goodness,
beyond the sexual harassment. I got to go back to this idea of
Sue really was only at work for about two hours when she is the one
who says, Hey, I'm gonna go grab some food at this nearby sandwich
shop. Two questions, do we know if she ever made it to the
sandwich shop or was she somehow kind of apprehended between the her walk from work
to the car. And is there any way that this food run could have
been staged, like someone on her shifts saying, Hey, I'm hungry,
do you think you could go get us food? So that she was then
outside of the building at that point. I see no indication that she ever
made it to the sandwich shop. There's no record of her having ever purchased
anything. And while we have no idea when exactly she was murdered, I
have to assume it's a very short time after leaving the airport. And I
don't get the impression that the food run was staged, because I think it
was Sue's idea to go and buy food for her entire crew. But of
course, as we're going to talk about later, one of the most disturbing
elements is that she never returned with anyone's food even after taking their orders,
and no one seemed overly concerned enough to notify the police. Wait, so
no one said where's our food? Where's Sue until some time after the end
of her shift, exactly like, no one really reacted at all. She
just did show up for the rest of her shift, and they just seemed
to go on business as usual, and then she's discovered in her car like
the following day, as we're going to talk about, that's one of the
major red flags in this case, that no one was overly concerned when she
just went missing for around thirty six hours. Then you almost have a question,
is this a conspiracy of many because nobody's asking a question, where is
Sue? This dependable person. Then it seems almost as likely that you could
ask what asked she was asking, and that was this whole food run stage,
because either they're all conspiring to not report the two's missing or hasn't returned,
or they're conspiring to say that there was a sandwich run or a food
run when maybe one of the guys went and talked to Sue, something happened
and he ended up putting her in the trunk or ended up causing her some
kind of harm. But it just feels like they're covering for somebody well right
from the outset. Alarm bells were raised for Sue's family when they learned that
after she failed to return from her sandwich run on her shift, no one
attempted to report her missing for the next thirty six hours. Since Sue usually
worked overnight and did a lot of overtime, her parents did not find it
unusual when they did not see her at their home on September thirteenth, But
on the morning of the fourteenth, Marlene to Raskowitz received a call at work
from her other daughter, Debbie, who told her she had received a phone
call from one of Sue's co workers. In addition to disappearing during her shift
on the morning of the thirteenth, Sue did not show up at all for
her next shift. On the evening of the thirteenth, When Marlen went to
the Saugust police station to report her daughter was missing, she was informed that
Sue's body had already been found. It would turn out that, in spite
of her disappearance, Sue's time card was punched to indicate that she completed her
shift on the morning of the thirteenth like normal, and even though she failed
to show up for her shift later that evening, her time card was punched
again. Some of Sue's coworkers claimed they only did this to cover for her
so she wouldn't get into try, even though Sue had never missed a shift
without explanation during her entire tenure with the company. WHOA, all right,
there's a lot to unpack there. So when mom is going and trying to
report her daughter missing, she said, oh, by the way, we
found her body. So this must have been a very odd coincidence of time
where they're finding her body shortly before she comes, I hope, And there
aren't hours that passed before Mom's informed that her daughter's body has been discovered.
But also when we're sitting here and we're talking about Sue's time card, someone
punched her out at seven am, which wouldn't be that weird if like she
had left it five or something or six, and they're like, oh,
crud, she didn't come back. We're all going home but it was six
hours and she was supposed to be bringing me food back, So there's a
lot of like Sue had a plan. We all knew she was going to
the sandwich shop. She had a duty to bring us food back so that
we could eat during our shift. And I suppose, if I'm trying to
be a good friend, I don't want her in trouble, so I might
punch her out. But as my supervisor and someone that does have a history
of being at work following through being very responsible and punctual, I almost feel
like my gut would be something's wrong, and there would have at least have
been a discussion with some of us to say, hey, I'm concerned,
let me follow up with Sue later this morning or something. If I covered
for there was still more for me to do at that point to make sure
Sue was okay. If that makes sense. Oh yeah, exactly. Like
when you look at her history with the company, like if Sue had a
habit of leaving shifts or not showing up without calling, there's no way that
a woman in her position would have ever been promoted to ramp supervisor. So
this was very out of character, which is why it just seems like a
red flag that they didn't become more concerned that she did show up. She
disappeared in the middle of one shift, didn't show up for her next shift,
and they just decided to go on business as usual and punch her time
card in it. I mean, if this was someone who had a history
of slacking off and having people cover for that'd be one thing, but this
was just so uncharacteristic. So in spite of this odd piece of business,
the investigation into Sue's murder went nowhere and failed to turn up any solid leads.
For over a year. However, Sue's mother, Marlene, would make
a shocking discovery which took the investigation in an entirely new direction. For a
long time after Sue's murder, Marlene could not handle the grief of going into
her daughter's room, but finally decided to do so around Christmas time in nineteen
ninety three. Marlene found a briefcase inside the closet containing Sue's diary, but
when she opened it, Marlene was horrified to read Her daughter described many disturbing
accounts of sexual harassment which took place at her workplace in nineteen eighty nine.
According to the diary, Sue faced this harassment because her male co workers did
not like the idea of a woman entering their world. Sue never told her
family about this, so Marlene was forced to read about the harassment for the
first time in the diary. And I think it's important to put into context.
This is again nineteen ninety two. So while now we have things like
hashtag you know me too, and we have these movements where women are truly
using their voice to make a difference not only for themselves but for other women,
Sue is this kind of revolutionary groundbreaker at that point where she's saying,
I'm going to endure this and take it, but it's really devastating to me
as a career woman. And it's exactly what I thought when you were at
the first paragraph. To me, you have this young woman. She's young.
That matters as well. This is not some fifty five year old careered
woman who men could look next to him and be like, yeah, she's
been here forever. You know, I get it, she's young, and
you know that there's people who have been there longer than her, that are
older than her, who have more experience than her. That we're not picked
for these promotions, and so especially when she's the soul woman and you have
a bunch of men looking around, it is easy to move you aside and
push you aside. Because I harass you long enough, you'll get uncomfortable enough
and you'll step aside without saying anything. That's just a typical EMO in that
kind of wolfpack aggressive behavior. And I think that's exactly what people were likely
doing to Sue. Is they're saying, we will make it so miserable for
her that she'll just step aside, and then one of us will get it
because we deserve it more than her. And oh, I'm already upset.
And poor Mom is sitting here reading this after her daughter has passed away.
You know, there's a lot to the grief process where she's saying, what
if I had known, could I have helped Sue. I wish Sue would
trust me enough to share. And you know, that set off a whole
another grief journey for Mom. Even though Sue was very well in control of
what she was doing. There's a reason she protected her mom for that info.
But I can only imagine Mom sitting on the floor of that bedroom and
reading that and just wondering what if, like Sue, I would just wish
you had told me I might have been able to save you. And that
just breaks my heart. You think that we'd come leaps and bounds, being
that it is twenty twenty three. Literally yesterday I was reading all of these
tweets from surgeons in the NHS, female surgeons in the UK talking about sexual
harassment in the workplace and sexual assault, and this prominent surgeon who just recently
retired called them all snowflakes and told them to toughen up and that these types
of situations will happen and you're just going to have to deal with it.
This was a prominent male doctor who's saying you're just going to have to deal
with it. And all of these women are brave enough to share their stories,
but it's become so normalized that women are going to experience sexual harassment and
sexual assault that people feel that it is okay to just say, just deal
with it, sweetie, just deal with it, because it's going to happen.
Boys will be boys, and it's uncomfortable for people to look at the
facts of the impact of that, and that people need to be accountable and
change their behavior, even though historically it's been accepted and allowed. I remember
asking for help and talking to my very close family friend who's an older lady,
and I remember her saying, oh, come on, ash, like
we used to have men put their hands up our skirt at work, and
like you just this is minor, this is not a big deal. I'm
going wait, excuse me, Like okay, because that was normal for you,
then it's acceptable, and therefore other generations should be treated the same way.
Like normalcy doesn't mean right, and normalcy and history doesn't mean that it's
should be allowed to happen. But you're right, Jewels, it's twenty twenty
three, and while we've come a long way, while we've gotten stronger voices,
behaviors haven't necessarily change. It takes unlearning behaviors and making changes from generation
and generation to make an actual difference here. Yeah, it takes raising little
boys that you're raising them with empathy and compassion and not with this kind of
gendered idea that like of masculinity being this kind of overarching theme in a man's
life where he cannot express his emotions and he can't be in touch with his
feminine side because that would make him like, quote unquote weak. And it
also takes women reinforcing that behavior and making it okay. Like you see it
all the time right where it's like, oh, a guy just made a
mistake, let's not ruin his life. You see women saying that in regards
to somebody who's sexually assaulted a woman, and it's like, you'd think you
would stick up for other women, But it's been so conditioned into us that
it's going to take generations of unlearning. But I've got a lot of faith
in gen Z. Yes, gen Z is going to save us. Yes,
But to mention that point is like, I've always wondered if that's one
of the reasons that Sue decided never to tell her mother about the harassment that
she may have felt. If I tell my mother about this, she's probably
going to tell me the same thing, that it's to be expected, and
then I just have to put up with it, and it would have disappointed
her. Though of course, now that we know that Marlene found out about
it and was outraged, I'm sure she would have told her daughter that you
don't have to put up with this, you can complain to someone. But
I think Sue is just being selfless saying that I just don't want to and
my mother with what I'm going through, and that's why I'm going to keep
this from her. I think there can be a lot of shame associated with
it as well, right, there can be like a multitude of reasons not
wanting to burden your mother, but being in a situation like that, you
can feel like, what did I do, even though you haven't done anything
to deserve it. I know when I've been victimized in the past, I've
certainly asked those questions myself, and I'm sure ash you probably have in situations
too, even though you know logically that you did nothing wrong, nothing to
bring that behavior upon you. Well, knowing and feeling are two very different
things. Like I'm very logical and sensible, but then i also have a
huge heart and you know, my own mental health to battle. So it's
interesting when you're logic and you're you know, mental health kind of conflict with
each other. But you're right, you also don't want to burden people around
you, and you also don't want to feel like you're quote weak or that
you can't handle things like it's part of it, Like we're raised to think
it's part of it, and you fight through it. And I really don't
want to bother anyone or have anyone ask questions or tell me to leave,
you know, like I want to be able to be here and be strong
and tough and stay put in this position and not have someone run me off.
And so I think there's a lot of that kind of internalization and a
lot of fear and shame you bring on yourself anticipating people's reactions, even though,
like you said, her mama probably would have embraced her with open arms
and said hell, yeah, let's fight this, or I'm here to listen.
But we anticipate a lot of negative reactions from people, and so we
don't turn to them. Yeah, And I think we worry in those situations
that the narrative around us will shift to people having to walk on eggshells and
that it will be like the quote unquote victim, right, And a lot
of people don't want that. I've in the past been like I don't want
to share this because I feel as though it makes me look weak or I
feel as though it makes me appear to be a victim. But I mean
I've kind of reframed that in my brain now where you know, it makes
me a survivor, and it means that you're strong when you share that.
I think that it can be that knee jerk reaction and did You're a problem,
and it's going to make it worse exactly. Here are just a few
examples of the harassment Sue was forced to face. On numerous occasions, she
discovered explicit and demeaning graffiti written about her at the airport, usually in the
men's room. At one point, she found a new drawing of her in
a sexual position in the cargo hold of one of the jets. Sue frequently
filed complaints with management at Northwest Airlines as well as her union, the International
Association of Machinists, but very little was ever done to stop the harassment,
and the union often advised her not to rock the boat. In fact,
one of management's most common responses to Sue's complaints would be to assign her unappealing
jobs such as cleaning and emptying the airline toilets. Yep, we'll help you.
You're a problem, so we're going to help you on your way out,
is what they typically do in these kinds of institutions. When you speak
up, you now become a liability. And so instead of firing you or
letting you go because that's illegal, they're going to make it as hard on
you as possible. And that's exactly what they're doing here. Oh you had
a problem, I'm so sorry. Also, could you go clean the toilets
for us? It also didn't help that Sue was technically the highest ranking woman
in the company, so anyone she complained to is going to be male,
and they probably have the same mindset as a lot of the people who are
doing harassments, so you can understand why nothing was done to stop it.
Other female employees at Northwest would corroborate Sue's stories, claiming that some of the
men there went out of their way to create a hostile work environment. Some
of their tactics included using derogatory language to describe Sue and other women, scattering
pornographic magazines throughout the lunchroom, and hanging women's undergarments and feminine hygiene products from
the ceiling. Even those who's diary to only chronicled harassment, which took place
until near the end of nineteen eighty nine, her family would learn that it
continued to escalate in the ensuing years. It even spread outside of her workplace,
as Sue's car was vandalized and she started getting anonymous, threatening phone calls
in the middle of the night. On one occasion when Sue launched a complaint
against her co worker's behavior, her sister Debbie's car was vandalized in her driveway.
If any of Sue's co workers, both male and female, attempted to
support her, they would find their own vehicles vandalized and receive death threats.
This is so sad because here's Sue is and she's trying to really do the
right thing right and every time she turns around she has worsening harassment. So
you know she's sitting there going like, what do I do. I've done
the like actual tactics I've been told to do, which is go to my
superiors, ask people to stop, ask them to leave me alone. I
try to ignore it. It seems like nothing's working, and it just keeps
getting worse. And then when you watch people who are defending you also have
retaliation against them. That's a lot to handle because you're watching with this sense
of responsibility, like, wait, they're getting hurt they're getting vandalized, they're
at risk with their position because they're protecting me. Like, that's a lot
for a twenty seven year old to deal with. In spite of this hellish
situation, Sue continued to perform stellar work for Northwest and applied for the position
of equipment service crew chief. Another male employee in Sue's union initially got the
job instead of her, but then she discovered that he had illegally bid for
the position, So Sue filed a grievance about this, and after she won,
the job was hers and she was officially promoted in February of nineteen ninety
two. While not surprisingly, there was some male employees who had serious issues
with the idea of a woman being in a supervisory position, so things became
even more tense it were. Graffiti continued to be written about Sue, but
it became more threatening. At one point, Sue opened her locker and discovered
and discovered that a drawing of a coffin with her name on it had been
scrawled in side. Wow, so it's become even more invasive and intense.
It goes from kind of sexual harassment to more of death threats. Is what
a coffin drawn inside of my locker looks like and this is because now someone
in their brain, their perception is you've messed with me, and now you're
going to pay for that. And instead of the jokes and instead of thinking
that they're kind of doing this foul, gross humor to make her uncomfortable,
it's turned to pictures of a coffin. So in here you have Sue saying,
listen, maybe it's already bad. So when I am the one qualified
for a job and I watch somebody next to me illegally obtain that position and
I was overlooked for it, she gets a union behind her to support and
eventually she gets this promotion. You know that now people are looking at her
and saying, wow, this crazy kid and woman and actually messes with people's
family and money. She's got to go, like, it's up to the
auntie from just being this pain in people's butts to people feeling threatened by her
even though she did the right thing. And yeah, the escalation is very
scary. When you read that there was a drawing of a coughin the hair
on my arms stood up. I went, wow, we've crossed the line.
At this point, beyond sexual to a physical risk. To me,
these guys are super creepy. The fact that they want out of their way
to get feminine hygiene products in the beginning, and they were putting it like
in the break room and hanging up women's panties. It's like, where did
you procure this? You certainly put a lot of time and effort into this,
but you could almost see that they were trying to be almost like a
little bit cute or funny about it, leaving the pornographic magazines around. You
could see them laughing amongst themselves. But then when it starts to get to
that point where Sue's complained, she's given all of these duties like cleaning toilets,
so there's no consequences for their actions. No one's there to check their
behavior. And when you're left free to behave like that, you're left to
be able to escalate that behavior to a point where, like you said,
Ash, they're feeling like they're threatened, you know, their livelihood, and
they're seeing themselves all in this guy who illegally bid I'm sure, because they're
trying to find any excuse to hate Sue. And so this is a perfect
one but just the threatening nature of that, Like, I can't imagine what
poor Sue must have felt like. Like it's one thing to have to look
at pornomegs spread everywhere. It's a whole other thing to see a coffin with
your name drawn on it. Oh yeah, And you would think that would
be the line that you could not cross, and that Sue would finally get
action from complaining. But nope, once again she tried to do so,
and it didn't help. When she attempted to report this issue to the higher
ups at Northwest, things did not go well during a meeting, so she
broke down crying. She later told a female co worker that she felt a
shame for crying in front of them, but I was not going to quit
because that would send a message that the harassers had won and only make things
more difficult for other women who entered the industry. Also, though, Two,
what's interesting is when you're sitting here looking at the dynamics of where she's
working and jewels, you just said this. I just popped into my head.
You know it too. The guys there in some ways it wasn't even
probably really directed towards Sue. The silly stuff. You know. It's like
I remember working at a police department and so obviously it was me and a
bunch of men, and I remember like just their jokes and language and things
like that, and then like you know, three hours into they be like,
oh my god, Ashley, I'm so sorry. I forgot you were
here, and like genuinely we're like, ah, sorry about that, sorry
about that, and I'm like, yeah, been here the whole time.
It's just so ingrained, especially back in the nineties, to have those I'm
very sexualized humor jokes, pictures things like that. Now, for Sue,
she can tell that she's the brunt of it, which makes it different.
But when it crossed that line to risk a physical threat now and I'm threatening
your life, not just your kind of safety and security of your womanhood,
but I'm also like telling you I'm going to kill you. There's no way
you could explain that in a way as like this just crude humor that wasn't
really shunned at the time, right, So I don't know, I'm just
I feel sick because I you know what's coming, and everyone around her was
watching this treatment of her, and it's like you stood up, you got
silenced and you were at risk. And so in time, a lot of
people just keep their mouth shut and watch in horror with Sue and say,
hey, my job is important. I gotta protect my family and that kid
is going to have to survive on her own. Was there not one man
there that was looking at this behavior and went, WHOA, Like this is
too much. I have to stand up and say something. Or is it
likely that one of the guys was like the alpha and they were afraid to
step to him, and he had his eye on Sue getting fired or doing
some thing horrible to her. I think it takes a lot for someone,
Robin, you can speak to this more. It takes a lot for someone
to stand up while everyone thinks is that this is hilarious and say this is
wrong? Like same, you know, like now it's like you know,
say see something, say something, or when a racist joke's told, when
a joke about a you know, someone getting assaulted is told, I turn
around and I shut it down. But it takes I mean, my gut
flips when I do it. Do you know what I mean? It takes
a big like ah, there's a survivor in this room somewhere, you need
to keep your mouth shut, or like, you know, your jokes aren't
funny, but everyone else looks at you like you're a monster and you're crazy
when you stand up for people, And especially back then, I don't I
don't know why it is, but it seems to be very difficult for people
to stand up and say something. Yes, we're going to talk about that
later. That there was one male coworker who did confront someone who was harassing
Sue, and they got threatened themselves. And I think there was just such
a bad culture of fear there that everyone knew that something bad could happen to
me if I try to defend Sue. And of course the fact that she
just disappear from her shift and miss another shift and none of her male co
workers would do anything to alert the police or or launch an alarm because Sue
was missing, shows that everyone there must have been so terrified about what would
happened if they tried to do the right thing. It's that whole idea of
like, how dare you call me out on my bad behavior? I'm now
the victim because you've called me out and you are the villain, And it's
just it's so insane. How you can see things like that turned on their
head and ask you just described it perfectly with the situation where you're calling out
a really poor joke and somebody is very offended that you decided to say,
hey, this could be really hurtful, and you know, I really don't
like it, and it's like, how dare you say that? I'm rude.
Yeah, people aren't comfortable being like taught that maybe their way of thinking
it's not right, And I mean I get it. I don't either,
Like I have people that are like, oh you don't. We don't use
that word anymore, right, And I'm like, wait, what what?
And then you're humiliated, you're embarrassed. But like, my response as I've
gotten older is not to defend myself and explain it away. It's to go,
oh, I'm so sorry, will you teach me why? Like and
that's a change generational thing, right, But instead of saying no, this
is how I've always said it or this is what I've always heard, I'm
like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Will you please teach me
why that is not an appropriate word? And thank you for educating me.
I'm going to change my verbiage now. But that takes some emotional intelligence and
maturity to say, like, whoa, maybe everything I've been doing for thirty
nine years is wrong and it doesn't have to be a personal attack on me.
You're trying to help me be a better person or make those around me
safer. I'm okay with that. But it takes saying I'm willing to learn
that what I know is not acceptable behavior. Takes humility, right, yes,
deep humility to go whoa, eke, I'm so sorry, I'm so
sorry, not my intention teach me instead of oh well, not a big
deal. No, if someone has the courage to say don't say that,
or hey, and I and you can say it in a way that's really
helpful, like hey, I know you didn't mean anything, but can I
can I say like, hey, that was my daughter? That would make
me really uncomfortable that you had said that. Maybe we should clean it up
and like watch how we speak around sue. You know, like there's a
sweeter way than like hey man, you're a dick. You know, there's
a nicer way to say it and be like hey man, if that was
my wife, I'd be like appalled. Did someone talk to her like that?
We should. We should watch it and protect her a little bit,
and then it's not as threatening to somebody. I don't think these guys would
respond well to sweet. They probably they'd respond more to you're a dick.
Fine, fine, I'll go that route with them when they when they look
at me like I'm crazy. In the weeks preceding her death, Sue apparently
told friends that she was in fear for her life. Needless to say,
all of those revelations about Sue's years of constant workplace harassment opened up a potential
motive for her murder, so her family started making waves. Sue's parents,
Marlene and Ronald, eventually took legal action by finally complaint with the Massachusetts Commission
against Discrimination about the failure of Northwest Airlines and the International Association of Machinists to
stop their harassment against their daughter. They also sued Northwest Airlines for sexual harassment,
and the two sides would reach a settlement where the airline agreed to pay
seventy five thousand dollars just use a state and put up a two hundred and
fifty thousand dollar reward for information, which led to the arresting conviction of Sue's
killer. However, it turned out there might have been a different reason for
Sue's death, which had nothing to do with sexual harassment. Well good for
them. You know, here's Marlene. Remember she opens up a diary she
finds in Sue's bedroom and in a hidden briefcase. Years later, and all
of a sudden, she goes, oh, my god, my daughter was
not only murdered at work, but she also had been subject to this horrific
harassment. And had someone stepped forward and listened and not just listened, but
acted and held people accountable for their actions, would my daughter still be alive
today? Because it seems very clear that something around the airport likely led to
Sue's death. I think there's a very very very small percent chance that Sue
met a stranger that killed her. But we know that's not likely. We
know Sue had people angry with her, Sue had people who were threatening her,
and then Sue ends up dead. It's much more logicble at someone that
she knows. But here her parents say, you know what, you didn't
answer while she was here, and now someone's going to answer. We're going
to make sure that Northwest Airlines and the International Association of Machinists is held accountable
for what they failed to do while she was alive. I'm incredibly proud of
them. They took up a fight the same way they would have taken up
a fight if Sue had called on them to act while she was alive.
But here this is almost like a symbolic way to bring her justice without really
having an offender to hold accountable. I don't think at a moment this was
about a financial payout for them, because this doesn't come close to pain for
my child's life. But it is a symbolic screw you for failing my child
because I wasn't in tight are privy to this information. I wasn't given this
information while she was alive, and you were, and you failed her.
And so bravo Marlene and Ronald. I'm incredibly impressed that they said, you
know, maybe the next young lady or young man who comes in your office
and says they're scared that they're mistreated, maybe you will step forward and say,
guess what the culture is about to change in this department. Exactly what
you just said is what I was thinking when you were talking, like this
is the legacy that Sue Tarrascoitz would want to leave, and her parents picked
up where she left off and was like, we're gonna hold your feet to
the fire and we're gonna make you pay for your inaction with our daughter.
And the next human that walks through here that is dealing with something similar to
what our daughter was dealing will be treated in a different way because you will
think of the lawsuit that preceded whatever is happening to them, and you'll go,
Okay, WHOA, we don't want to have to deal with that again.
Let's take the appropriate actions. I also think it's poetic that the majority
of the payout went to a reward to find the killer, because it's kind
of symbolic to say, well, because you didn't do any effort to stop
this and prevent a murder from taking place, we're going to take your money
and use it to find the person who did this. So during the summer
of nineteen ninety two, a federal investigation was launched against Northwest Airlines because it
turned out that some of their baggage handlers were participating in a stolen credit card
ring, which netted over seven million dollars. It was a massive investigation involving
the FBI, the Secret Service, and the US Postal Service. Whenever at
Northwest Jet transported shipments of new credit cards from Minneapolis to Boston, which were
supposed to be delivered to customers, these handlers would steal some of the cards
from the mail bags. The people involved in this scheme would generate phony driver's
licenses which at the names on these cards, which were then used for nefarious
purposes. One of their biggest scams was to use the card to take out
large cash advances at casinos, and they would sometimes use this money to gamble
there and make even more money. Other times, the stolen cards would be
sold off through a fence. The advantage here is that the cards were stolen
in transit, so the thieves would have several days to profit off them before
the customers even noticed their cards hadn't arrived yet. So okay, let me
get this right. You have the baggage handlers are the ones who are actually
running this scheme, So it's actually the people working right underneath of Sue pretty
much. Yeah, like they didn't know this at the time, but some
people are going to get into a lot of legal troll who turned out we're
working under Sue, which is why this theory has come up that perhaps she
found out about illegal activity that was going on there at the airport and that's
what led to her being murdered. Yep, that would be a massive red
flag beyond even the sexual harassment. That's what I was saying, Like,
I think part of them thought it was cute that they were sexually harassing her.
They thought they were like in the good old boys club and they're being
silly. But in nineteen ninety two, seven million dollars would be fifteen and
a half million dollars today one hundred and eighteen percent more like fifteen million dollars
by little baggage handlers that are working underneath of Sue. And if she did
have any knowledge that even something was wrong, that is a massive, massive
federal crime. And so the risk of her opening her mouth I think calls
for silencing her way more than a sexual harassment or kind of oh I got
this position or you lost this position, it didn't get your promotion. I
think this speaks amplified volumes over the sexual harassment. One month before Sue's murder,
several baggage haddlers were subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury.
In the end, a total of thirty seven people were indicted and convicted
on federal charges for their involvement in this scheme, and ten of them were
baggage handlers at Northwest. In fact, some of these handlers just happened to
be named in Sue's diary as employees who'd been sexually harassing her, and two
of these people really stood out. One of them was Joseph Nuzo, the
ring leader among the baggage handlers, who wound up getting a three year prison
sentence In nineteen eighty nine. Sue filed a harassment complaint about Nuzo after she
attempted to break up a fistfight between him and two other employees, and he
responded by calling her a very derogatory term. Nuzo soon wound up getting fired
from Northwest, though he was hired back six months later under a last chance
policy. Yikes. So he's on thin ice anyway, and Sue is actually
one of the people who is part of his problems at the airport. So
not only is he involved in this handler scheme, but then he gets in
a fight and there is Sue coming forward and saying, listen, I'm going
to file a harassment charge against you. You called me a derogatory term.
You're a dangerous person here and again she's standing up not only for herself but
the environment and the integrity of the department that she's leading, and Nuzo has
to look at her as a massive problem, kind of a thorn in his
side. But when you then turn to say, oh my god, he
was also involved in this federal crime that's going on at the same time,
Sue becomes a very dangerous person in his script in the way that he's kind
of living out this employment on incredibly thin ice. I've had. It's so
laughable, this whole last chance policy thing for her a guy who had like
a history of harassment, and in the end, karma got back to them
because he wound up his last chance of fence was literally stealing credit cards worth
millions of dollars. So I think it's safe to say that that policy doesn't
actually work. I don't think Northwest policies were all that great at the time,
given that would complain about sexual harassment end up cleaning toilets and Joseph Buzo
gets to screw up here, there, and everywhere and have fi fights with
people, and he gets to come back six months later on a last chance
policy, only to basically embarrass the airline greatly. It just really hoped that
they revised their policies after all this. By the sound of things, Nuzo
had committed a number of disciplinarian fractions, and the incident involving Sue and the
fist fight was not the only reason he got fired, but he seemed to
hold a massive grudge against Sue and was believed to be the instigator of some
of the worst harassment against her, including the vandalism of her car and the
threatening phone calls. When the subpoenas were handed down in the credit card ring
investigation in August of nineteen ninety two, Nuzo was finally fired from Northwest for
good, and reportedly told people that he believed Sue was a snitch who had
ratted them out to the authorities. However, the investigation concluded that Sue had
no involvement or knowledge of the credit card ring and never been asked to assist
in the investigation or testify in front of a grand jury. So what month
was she killed? Timber Okay, so literally a month before new Zo is
given a subpoena, right or is in charge or in dited for this.
Let me start over. So literally a month beforehand, you have newso subpoena
about this credit card ring and then he's telling people listen that you know,
you know, he's calling her nasty names, that little brat is the one
who snitched on me. I know she did. She's always had a problem
with me. Oh my god, it's going to ruin me. And then
she's dead a month later. Keep in mind, if he truly believed that
she is a snitch, wouldn't she be one of the individuals called to testify
or to at least be, you know, asked what happened in that workplace.
And that's what's said about this whole thing, is that she may have
been murdered because people believe that she was involved in this credit card ringing,
was working as an informant when an actuality. She knew nothing about it.
So she may have been killed for nothing. And maybe not even by news.
Oh maybe by someone he told, oh, Sue's the snitch, and
they go, oh, shoot, right, like that girl's got to go.
Well, you're about to find out another guy from Sue's diary here.
Oh Lord, bring it on. So another participant in this scheme who really
stood out and had been named in Sue's diary was a baggage handler named Bobby
Brooks. Sue and Bobby supposedly had a brief affair, but he became increasingly
hostile towards her after it ended, particularly when she became involved with another coworker.
Things reached a boiling point after an incident in the employee break room where
Bobby grabbed Sue's radio and smashed it on the floor. Sue's boyfriend at the
time confronted Bobby and demanded he replace the radio. When Sue confronted Bobby about
this herself, he blew her off and threatened to beat up and kill her
boyfriend. Yikes. So you have someone who not only was violent with her,
but also involved with her and then rejected by her, and then he
is working alongside her and her new boyfriend. I assume, so incredibly dangerous
situation for someone who seems unstable like Bobby and someone who seems pretty darned strong
like Sue. That's going listen, I'm gonna live by life. We didn't
work out. It is what it is. But you're sure not going to
disrespect me. You're not going to be violent in my workplace, and you're
not going to threaten my boyfriend and I. And it's almost as if you
can just feel the tension and the anger and the rage that's boiling inside of
Bobby that he can't have Sue or that it didn't work out and he is
forced to work with her and watch her move on with her life anyway.
When the subpoenas were handed down in nineteen ninety two, Bobby Brooks immediately requested
a transfer. He moved out of state and got a job as a bagga
chandler at Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport, but he was eventually indicted in the
credit card scheme. In exchange for testifying against Joseph Neuzo, Bobby received a
sense of three years probation. One question about Sue's murder, Bobby claimed he
was working the late shift at the airport in Minneapolis on the night she was
killed and that he never had any communication with Newzo at all that entire weekend.
Well, they're clearly involved in this scheme together. Can we confirm that
he was working, and did we know if they could confirm with records that
he didn't communicate with Neuzo. No, we're about to talk about that.
That Bobby's alibi is not exactly rock solid. No shock, Okay? Cool.
However, in nineteen ninety seven, Bobby found himself in hot water again
when he was indicted on three counts of perjury and two counts of obstruction of
justice. It turns out that is alleged to alibi for Sue's murder was not
exactly rock solid, as time cards showed that he was not actually working at
Minneapolis Saint Paul International Airport that night, and even though Bobby had testified under
oath that he had no communication with Joseph Newso that weekend, there were records
of a phone conversation between the two men on the same day Sue was killed.
In the end, Bobby agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice,
and when sentenced to fifteen months in prison, but as part of his plea
bargain, he would not have to face further questioning about Sue's murder. What
kind of plea bargain is that, Hey, you're in you're in for this
credit card ring. We're going to have you testify against new Zo And if
you do that for us for this credit card ring, that little murder that
happened, we won't ask you anymore about that. Like that seems incredibly backwards
that I'd be more concerned about the murder that I was the credit card ring.
And how do you just say, oh, you're helping us here,
so we won't talk to you about any other crimes that took somebody's life.
Does this remind you both of the case that we literally just covered the Blount
family bombing and there was the one guy had like charges of interfering with miners
or like you know, molesting children or whatever it was, and he basically
had his charges. You know, they didn't charge him with that because he
gave evidence against who is it Tony? Yeah, Michael roy Towny. Yeah,
unbelievable, Right, the worst crime you could possibly commit, a crime
against a child. They're like, ah, we're just gonna look away from
that if you'll help us with this. Yeah, like what in order to
put an innocent man in prison? So it didn't do anybody any good.
And Yeah, this thing with Bobby Brooks, I've never heard of this before
a plea bargain where you're exempt from being questioned about another crime which is considerably
worse than the crime that you're being indicted for. It's it's so weird and
I'd like to see the terms of this pleak Reeman. But it sounds like
if they did find evidence that showed that Bobby was responsible for Sue's murder,
they could charge him for it at a later time. But I guess these
terms was we can't ask him about or to question him about it. So
he's essentially getting a free pass for a crime only got him fifteen months in
prison, So it doesn't seem like a fair trade off. Okay, one
thing I'm confused about. So Bobby originally did a plea bargain, he got
the three years probation when he spoke out against new Zo and Neuzo's role in
the crime, and then this later plea bargain. What is this later plea
bargain about? Why do they have to do a plea bargain with him?
Are they just trying to ensure that they get a conviction because he's already done
testifying against new Zo? What do they really need to plea down this thing
and go, we're never going to ask you about anything about Sue. To
Askowitz again, like that seems like a really weird ad that they didn't need
to do. It is because he technically got probation for testifying against new Zo,
but he technically violated the terms of the probation because they caught him in
a lie because they uncovered the phone records which showed that they had communication that
weekend, even though he had testified under oath that they didn't. So they're
holding all the cars. They really don't have to offer him anything. They
could just give him like a fifteen month prison sends and he's got nothing in
exchange to offer, So I don't know why they threw those terms into the
plea bargain. Sadly, Sue's death took a huge toll on her parents' marriage,
as Marlene and Ronald tarasco Its eventually divorced. Sadly, they would be
forced to endure the pain of losing another child when Sue's brother, Ronald Tarascus
Junior, i'd expectedly passed away in July of two thousand and seven at the
age of thirty five, though I'm not sure what the cause of death was
Ronald Senior himself passed away four years later at the age of sixty nine,
so the only surviving members of the Tarrasqwitz family are Marlene and her daughter,
Debbie. Marlene is now eighty two years old, but she continues to work
diligently to keep her daughter's case in the spotlight. Every year, on the
anniversary of Sue's murder, Marlene holds a solitary vigil outside Logan Airport while carrying
a sign containing all the information about the case. She is also paid to
put up billboards for at the Boston An area featuring Sue's photograph and contact info
for the authorities. During one interview for Inside Edition, Marlene stated, quote,
these people that did this are looking over their shoulder every year because I'm
not going anywhere. I'm a fighter. My daughter was a fighter. End
quote. This is incredible. It's really sad that you have a marriage that
dissolved in this moment. And one of the things I found when I worked
with families of these unsolved murders is that whatever the marriage was like before the
murder usually gets amplified. That's not always the case, but let's say you
were kind of struggling anyway, then it quickly dissolves it. If you were
incredibly strong and your marriage is at the forefront of your family, then it
usually brought people closer together. But as time goes on, you would start
to see a husband and wife or a mom and son grieve very differently and
fight very differently, one wanting to constantly be working on the case, one
wanting to constantly be talking about the victim and their loved one someone who wanted
to constantly be working with the media, and the other one wanting to try
to move forward, not on, but forward, while keeping those antennas up
but still needing to move forward to heal. And it's very possible that happened
here. I'm obsessed with Marlene because she's just like her daughter was. Sue
refused to lie down when the fight got tough. She said, I'm gonna
be strong. I'm going to show people why I got promoted to these positions.
I'm a fighter, like her mom said. And then you have in
her death her mom saying, bring it on. I don't care if I'm
one hundred and eight right, I'm going to be tap dancing to my grave,
fighting for my daughter because I'm a fighter, and then get this people,
My daughter was a fighter, and it's unbelievable to me the strength of
these people have. I feel so much kind of just sadness and pain for
every single family member. They not only lost their marriage, they lost another
baby. And then Mom's sitting here going well, I might be losing a
heck of lat in life, but I will not lose my fight to protect
my kids. So even though Northwest Airlines merged with Delta Airlines in two thousand
and eight, Delta told the Tarrascoit's family that they would still honor at the
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars reward if it led to an arrest in Sue's
case. In addition to being featured on Unsolved Mysteries and Dateline, this story
also inspired a two thousand and three episode of Law and Order Criminal Intent titled
Baggage, about a female airline baggage supervisor who is murdered after enduring constant harassment
from her male co workers. But unlike that fictional episode, the real life
story would not have a conclusive ending. After thirty years, there's still no
answers about who actually killed Sue Tarrascowitz. So I guess you could say the
path went chilly. So I think this would be a good time to bring
an into Part one. Join us next week for Part two as we continue
to discuss the murder of Sutrascoitz