Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Disappearance of Suzanne Lyall

On the night of March 2, 1998, Suzanne Lyall (born April 6, 1978), an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Albany, left her job at the Babbage's in Crossgates Mall in the nearby suburb of Westmere after the store had closed. She is believed to have taken a city bus from the mall back to the university's Uptown Campus, where a classmate has said she saw Lyall get off the bus at Collins Circle, a short walk from her dorm. No one has seen her since then.

The next morning Lyall was reported missing. That afternoon her credit card was used at a nearby convenience store's ATM to withdraw $20. According to her boyfriend, only she and he knew the PIN. He had a verified alibi for the time of her disappearance, but due to his later refusal to cooperate with the police they have been unable to completely rule him out as a suspect. A man who used the ATM around the same time has been ruled out. New York State Police continue to investigate the case. It has been the subject of an episode of the Investigation Discovery channel's series Disappeared.

Lyall's parents have become activists on behalf of the families of other missing persons, founding an organization called the Center for Hope to support those families. They were present when President George W. Bush signed "Suzanne's Law", enacted as part of the PROTECT Act of 2003, which raised the age at which local police must inform the National Crime Information Center of a missing person from 18 to 21. Five years later, he also signed into law the Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act, part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, based on similar legislation the state passed the year after Suzanne disappeared, which requires college police departments to have plans for investigating missing-persons cases and serious crimes on campus. A "Suzanne's Law" passed by the New York State Senate several times, but not yet voted on in the State Assembly, would also increase the penalties for violent crimes on and near educational facilities should it become law.

Background

Suzanne Lyall was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1978, the youngest of Doug and Mary Lyall's three children. The family lived in nearby Ballston Spa; her two older siblings described her as "the darling of the family", a quiet girl who would run out of the shower with her hair still wet to write poetry in her notebook after the inspiration struck her, and was a great fan of the Canadian power trio Rush. She showed an early interest in computers, even building some from scratch. After Suzanne graduated from the local high school with honors in 1996, she first attended the State University of New York at Oneonta for a year, after which she transferred to SUNY Albany, since she felt the computer science courses at Oneonta were not sufficiently challenging.

Transferring to Albany brought her closer not only to her home but to her boyfriend Richard Condon, a fellow student several years her senior, whom she had started dating when they were both still in high school. He shared Suzanne's interest in computers; the two frequently chatted back and forth and he had set up her computer so he could access it from his. She supplemented her studies, and earned some income, through two jobs off-campus. One was at a computer company in Troy, the other at a Babbage's store in the Crossgates Mall, 2 miles (3.2 km) west of campus in the suburb of Westmere.

Suzanne called or emailed her parents, and/or Condon, almost daily. Mary Lyall recalls that the last time she actually spoke to her daughter, on March 1, 1998, Suzanne had complained about being low on cash and waiting for her next paycheck. However, she declined her mother's offer to lend her some money in the interim.

Disappearance

In late February 1998, Suzanne's manager at Babbage's recalled that she had been stressed about an upcoming midterm exam, which she said she needed not only to pass but excel on. She took it the morning of March 2 and attended other classes until 4 p.m. After that, she went from the school's North Campus, where she lived in the Colonial Quad dorm, to her job at Babbage's. According to her manager, she felt she had "done OK" on the exam and was somewhat subdued. She worked there until the store closed at 9 p.m., then got on to a Capital District Transportation Authority bus back to campus around 9:20 p.m. The driver, who regularly worked that route, confirmed later that he had seen her board his bus.