It was a blistering hot day on July 15, 1977 and 18-year-old Audrey Lyn Nerenberg strolled down Flatbush Avenue and Kings Highway in cut-off jean shorts, a blue tube top and clear plastic sandals, with a small brown purse slung over her shoulder.
She was never seen again.
Today Audrey would be 43 years old, and although her family hasn't heard from her in almost 25 years, they continue their painstaking search for their long lost daughter.
"Audrey is on 40 different Web sites and still nobody knows what happened to her," said her father, Milton Nerenberg, who now lives in Florida. She was diagnosed as schizophrenic at 15 and was under strict doctor's care. "She was a sick girl, she was on medication, but she was getting better." Nerenberg said.
Audrey's illness may have provided extra vulnerability for a criminal on the prowl, but could the attractive young woman with long wavy brown hair simply wander off, forget who she was and never return? Memories of a neighborhood ex-con, a Staten Island kidnapper, an alleged incident with an ice cream shop owner and one mysterious phone call from a self-proclaimed kidnapper have tormented a father for over two decades.
Today, with hope that she may still be alive, Nerenberg wishes to finally close a chapter in his life and find out what happened to Audrey Lyn Nerenberg.

A Father's Story
The summer of 1977 in New York was a time of turmoil and strife. It was July 14 and the hottest day on record in New York City at 104 degrees. The city was broke, a blackout led to looting rampages and "Son of Sam" serial killer David Berkowitz was still on the loose after shooting five people, not to be captured until August 10, 1977.
But on a smaller scale, another mystery was unfolding a close-knit Brooklyn neighborhood.
"We were living at 1253 Ryder Street and I heard over the portable radio that Staten Island had power but in New York City there was no electric," remembers Nerenberg. "It was still very hot, people were staying in the shower. My wife Evelyn, my son Steven, Audrey and I hopped into the car and drove to Staten Island."
Audrey's older sister, Brenda, stayed home to help a friend with a school paper by the glow of battery-powered flashlights.
The family headed over the Verrazano Bridge to the air-conditioned Jerry Lewis Cinema hoping to shield themselves from the heat of day. By the time they got home at 10:45 that night, the blackout was over.
Nerenberg remembers the details of the day his daughter disappeared as if it were yesterday.
"The next day I got up to go to work at Key Food on Foster Avenue and 86th Street in their computer center," he said. "I was one of the first programmers in New York City back in 1958." Brenda and Steven were at school that day, and Audrey was home with her mother. Her father had recently been asked to take her out of school because her condition worsened and required increased treatment.
It was around noon on July 15, 1977 when Audrey took the walk that would somehow hinder her from ever seeing her family again.
"Audrey told my wife she was just going for a walk to get a pack of cigarettes and she'd be right back," Nerenberg said. "She just went right around the corner. She never came back and nobody knows what happened."
Case Closed?
"It was very strange," said the still grieving father as he began to unravel the events of that dismal July day. Because Audrey was 18, Nerenberg had to wait 24 hours before he could file a missing persons report. "So, I go looking for her I spent all day looking for her. I searched high and low and asked people if they had seen her - nothing."
What happened next is both chilling and tragic
"In the afternoon I received a call from a kidnapper who told me he had my daughter," Nerenberg said.
"Get as much money as you can and I'll call back," the caller told him. Then, he hung up. "I should have worked with that kidnapper, but the first thing that came to my mind was to call the FBI,” Nerenberg said. "But what do I know of what to say or do with a kidnapper?"
An hour later, six FBI agents "came running up to my house all dressed in dark pinstriped suits, and sat in my living room to wait for the call-back." But between three in the afternoon and 6:30 p.m. the phone did not ring.
"The supervising agent of the Brooklyn-Queens FBI office got up and said to me, 'Mr. Nerenberg, this is a fluke. This is a very big fluke. If he was a rea l kidnapper he would have called back for the money.'"
Nerenberg was shocked. "He had no right to say that because a kidnapper could have been across the street and saw half a dozen guys come running up to the house - or could have been a friend of my son."
Nerenberg charges the FBI didn't properly investigate Audrey's disappearance and he has since written the FBI twice asking they reopen the case. "I'm not going to give up, I have the right to have that case reopened due to improper handling."
The devoted father is also disappointed with the NYPD Missing Persons Squad.
"They have had this case for the last 24 1/2 years," Nerenberg said. "They think she's still alive because nothing ever turned up."
The various possibilities surrounding Audrey's disappearance are an enigma even to a father who has pursued all avenues hoping one leads to his youngest daughter's whereabouts.

The Ice Cream Man
A year before she disappered, Audry went out for an ice cream cone at a Flatbush Avenue shop that has since closed.
"She used to go in twice a week, she liked ice cream," remembers her dad. But this particular trip to the ice cream shop was unlike any other for Audrey.
"She came home that day and said the store owner had raped her. She was only 17," he said.
Nerenberg looked at his daughter but said she wasn't disheveled and had no visible bruises.
Skeptical but worried, he took her back to the shop to confront her alleged assailant. "There was only one guy working at the store, and I asked her if this was the person who did that to her. She said yes," he recalls. Nerenberg asked his daughter where it happened and she pointed to a bathroom the size of a closet. "It was no bigger than a telephone booth."
The man behind the counter denied he even knew who Audrey was.
Nonetheless, Nerenberg reported his daughter's story to the police, believing she may have indeed been attacked. Detectives soon knocked on the Nerenberg's door and collected Audrey's underwear. He didn’t press charges, but wanted the incident on file.
When Audrey disappeared over a year later, Nerenberg immediately thought of the ice cream shop owner. "The Missing Persons Squad said they couldn't find the guy because he had closed the shop," Nerenberg said.
Child Molester, Kidnapper, and Suspected Mass Murderer: Andre Rand BOLD
The Nerenberg's family trip to Staten Island the day before Audrey's disappearance may be another possible link in the case of the missing teen.
The movie theater the Nerenberg's visited had been on Forest Avenue in Mariners Harbor. Nearby - a campsite used by convicted kidnapper Andre Rand, who was mentioned as a suspect in Nerenberg's case.
Rand, whose real name is Frank Rashan, was charged with the 1981 Staten Island abduction of Holly Ann Hughes, who vanished on July 15, 1981 (exactly four years after Audrey's disappearance) and the murder of a 12-year-old with Down syndrome named Jennifer Schweiger in 1987. Rand was convicted of kidnapping Schweiger, whose body was found in a shallow grave on the grounds of the former Willowbrook State School, and is now serving 25-years-to-life. He comes up for parole in 2012, but is now being investigated for the murder of Hughes almost 21 years after her disappearance.
Authorities also suspect Rand may have been involved in the Staten Island disappearances of Alice Pereia in 1972 and Tiahease Jackson in 1983, along with three missing adults. There has also been speculation that Audrey Nerenberg may have fallen into his clutches if she became confused and traveled back to Staten Island alone on July 15, 1977.
Although schizophrenics are known to sometimes repeat their actions, Audrey's father argued that she would not have been able to take a bus from Kings Highway to Staten Island. Nerenberg admits though, Audrey had been known to hitchhike.
Was it possible for Rand to hop into his car, possibly the same green Volkswagen witnesses saw him get into with Holly Ann Hughes, and follow Audrey back to Brooklyn?
It's important to note, Rand did not only strike in Staten Island. In 1969, he was caught attacking a 9-year-old girl in the Bronx.
"A Neighborhood Boy"

Nerenberg's son, Steven, was 16 when his older sister disappeared. Five years later, one of Steven's close childhood friends was sentenced to 18 years in jail for stabbing a woman 15 times in her Manhattan apartment in 1982. The victim survived.
Nerenberg had always been suspicious of the boy, never allowing him to enter his Ryder Street home when he called for his son. But after hearing of his conviction in 1982, the forlorn father had the Missing Persons Squad visit the convict in Elmira Prison to find out if he knew anything about Audrey's disappearance.
"He lived a block away on Kings Highway," said Nerenberg, who also spotted the ex-con in the area after he was released in 2000. "After she disappeare d, he never came to the terrace to call my son anymore. Instead, he used to meet my son outside on the street," Nerenberg said. "I didn't see him for three years - from 1977 to 1980."
The father alleges that the detective who interviewed the attempted murderer was set to retire that very week. When Nerenberg insisted the man be given a lie detector test, police said it was his choice to abstain. He did.
Audrey's father remembers a strange conversation with the man just before the Nerenbergs moved out of their Flatbush home in 1980.
"I saw him walking on Ryder Street and he saw me standing there looking out, and came right up to me and said to me, 'Mr. Nerenberg, I'm sorry your daughter disappeared.'"
Nerenberg remains suspicious. "She could have walked past the building where he lived on her way home. It was just five years after my daughter disappeared that he stabbed the girl."
But police found no connection between the 1982 crime and Audrey's disappearance.

Psychic Reading
A psychic told the Nerenbergs that Audrey is "in the water 15 miles south of where we live, which is Coney Island." Nerenberg combed the beach in search for his daughter. He came up with nothing.

Audrey's Illness
A nurse with over 30 years experience dealing with schizophrenic patients told Audrey's family it was possible she had been taken by a family and given a different name and Social Security number, possibly receiving disability benefits. She also could have been, or still be, hospitalized as a Jane Doe and never identified. She may have even died a Jane Doe.

24 1/2 Years Later
Although Nerenberg hasn't gotten many answers from the NYPD or the FBI, he's not alone in his search.
Last summer, teacher's assistant and amateur detective Micki Gardner of Woodbridge, Virginia came across a missing persons Web page detailing Audrey's case. She decided to take it upon her self to help find Audrey.
"I've been writing police stations and newspapers and doing work over the internet looking for a Jane Doe, alive or deceased, with her description, " Gardner said.
She speculated as to what could have happened to Audrey so many years ago. "24 years. I just can't imagine, I don't understand how there hasn't been one shred of evidence," Gardner said. "Someone had to have seen her. Maybe there's a Jane Doe alive somewhere and she doesn't know her name."
Gardner, who completed private investigative courses three years ago, often volunteers her services in an attempt to solve unsolved mysteries. "It isn't easy," she said. "There hasn't been any positive feedback."
Inspired by Audrey's father's undying love and devoted quest for his daughter, Gardner retains hope. She promised to work on Audrey's case until "we figure out what happened to her or where she is."
"I truly believe there has got to be a reason and answer and someday it's going to be found. I really, truly believe that," she said.
In the meantime, it remains Milton Nerenberg's life's labor to reveal just what became of his missing daughter.
"I deserve to know what happened to my daughter," he said. "I raised her to 18 years and 10 months old. I deserve to know."

If you have any information on the disappearance of Audrey Lyn Nerenberg please call The NYC Missing Persons Squad at 212-473-2042. There is a $10,000 reward offered for accurate information leading to the whereabouts of Audrey, living or deceased. To find out more about Audrey, please visit: https://www.angelfire.com/miltisnere/index.html

Audrey's Act and Kristen's Law http://www.modlink.com/kristen/home.htm
Audrey's Act, a bill to amend The Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1974 to include children over the age of 18 with a certified mentality of children under the age of 18 will not be enacted into law, according to Florida Congresswoman Karen Thurman's office.
"She does not have plans to reintroduce it because a different bill passed last session that she feels addressed the issue in a slightly different way but in an adequate way," said a spokesperson for Thurman. Kristen's Act, signed into law on November 9, 2000 provides grants for the assistance of public and private non-profit organizations to find missing adults. The grants will fund programs to help both families and law enforcement find missing adults. Specifically, Kristen's Law will provide for the creation of a national interconnected database to track missing adults who are determined by law enforcement to be endangered due to age, diminished mental capacity or the circumstances of disappearance, such as foul play.
The law is named after 18-year-old Kristen Modaferri, a sophomore at the School of Design at North Carolina State University who traveled to San Francisco in early June, 1997 to spend a summer studying at Berkeley. On June 23, the day before classes where to begin, Modaferri left her job at a cafe never to be heard from again. Her case remains unsolved.
Kristen's Law was authored by Congresswoman Sue Myrick or North Carolina.

Vital Statistics
Name: Audrey Lyn Nerenberg
Date Of Birth: September 24, 1958
Age at Time of Disappearance: 18
Height: 5'4
Weight: 115 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Brown hair and brown eyes, freckles on her nose and across her cheeks, a small gap between her upper front teeth
Medical Conditions:
Audrey was diagnosed with hebephrenic schizophrenia and was taking the medication Torrozine when she disappeared.