The disappearance of Charles Murphy: Family memories and questions left unanswered

When her uncle went missing in April 1982, Joanna O'Toole was only 4 years old.

Although she has no memory of him, O'Toole has spent much of her life wondering and asking questions about her uncle, Charles "Chip" Murphy, who dropped off a friend after a night out and was not seen again until earlier this year when his remains and the vehicle he was last seen driving were found submerged in a creek in Ridgefield Park.

Over the last four decades since his disappearance, O'Toole has spoken about it with her father, grandfather, siblings and aunt, growing more interested in the case as she got older.

Now, into adulthood, she has continuously pursued her uncle's whereabouts, downloading articles, combing through social media pages, reaching out to his old friends and more, trying to piece together the puzzle that has perplexed her family for over 40 years.

Although Murphy has since been found, several unanswered questions remain, including the one of what actually happened the night he disappeared that led him to ending up in the creek.

The disappearance of Charles Murphy

Murphy, 25, of Maywood, disappeared during the early morning hours of April 28, 1982.

According to an article in The Record from June 14, 1982, Murphy and his friends went to a game at Yankee Stadium and then out for drinks. After that, he dropped a friend off in Ridgefield Park. He was last seen driving a 1974 silver Chevrolet Camaro.

An attendant at an all-night gas station on Route 46 reported seeing a young man that fit Murphy's description.

The case went cold until early May, when Murphy and the Camaro were found submerged in Overpeck Creek in Ridgefield Park, just over 42 years since he disappeared.

O'Toole was informed of the news a few days after he was found when her sister, showed up to their house at 7 a.m., only a few hours after the O'Toole family returned from vacation, unaware that a search for Murphy was even taking place.

"It was surreal, it was unbelievable," said O'Toole, whose father was Murphy's oldest brother. "It's something that, you know, I've known of this story. It was always bizarre to me, even growing up, that I have an uncle that's missing, and nobody knows what happened."

She continued, "My grandfather died not knowing what happened to his son, and my father and his siblings, likely the same thing would've happened to them."

O'Toole said that her father, grandfather and other family members were told for years that Murphy probably went into the city, and something went wrong or something bad was done to him.

At the time of Murphy's disappearance, police said that it occurred under "foul or suspicious circumstances." However, two years later, a Bergen County Sheriff's Department investigator told The Record that "there was never an indication of foul play."

Investigator Don Pecile said in 1984, "Aside from talking to the family and the friends, we never had a lead in this case."

Throughout all of these years, O'Toole's family members have searched everywhere they could for Murphy, to no avail. However, her father always believed that his brother was somewhere in the Hackensack River.

From O'Toole's understanding, her father requested that the authorities search the river for his brother, but it had never been checked until earlier this year when a private, nonprofit organization called the United Search Corps located Murphy's remains in the creek, an offshoot of the Hackensack River.

When Murphy was recovered in May, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office said that after "extensive forensic testing," it was able to confirm that the found remains were Murphy, but the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are still under investigation.

The Bergen County Sheriff's Department said on July 24 that, as of May 6, there is no new information on this case.

Doug Bishop, founder of the United Search Corps, told NorthJersey.com in May that the type of technology utilized in cases like Murphy's did not exist at the time of his disappearance and, even today, law enforcement on average is not capable of performing these types of searches.

"This was a case that officers worked really hard on. They did a lot of work. I have seen the case file. It's just the technology that I utilize to discover this vehicle did not exist," said Bishop, referring to this type of searching as a "gray area within law enforcement."

Unanswered questions on Bergen disappearance

Although Murphy has finally been found, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

What actually happened that night that led Murphy to end up in the water?

While O'Toole's father believes that Murphy must've simply grown tired after a long night and driven into the river, she believes that there is more to the story.

"While he was ultimately found in the water thanks to Doug Bishop and his crew, and we can't be thankful enough for them, I myself question it ... I know my father thinks he fell asleep... I don't necessarily believe that is true," said O'Toole. "I think there are people that knew or people that still know what happened and they are choosing not to say."

O'Toole says that she wants to know more about the car, which remains submerged in the creek.

Are any of the windows open? Is the door ajar?

In an attempt to gather as much information as possible, she has spoken to several people who knew her uncle or were there the night he went missing. She came in contact with some of these people after they commented or posted about Murphy on local social media groups.

"I reached out to quite a few of them, and there were people who could have told you every single thing. What the weather was like that night, big details, small details, they remembered everything," she said. "And then there were a few people who responded with 'It was a long time ago I don't remember anything anymore.' ... I got a couple of those responses. Some read my message and didn't respond at all."

She continued, "I found it strange because you are that vocal on a public site, but when I tell you who I am and why I am reaching out to you all of a sudden I get nothing. So, I question that."

Overall, the story just does not sit right with O'Toole, who finds it hard to believe that her uncle fell asleep while driving, especially due to the fact that his last known location was close to the water where he was found.

"Where he allegedly dropped him off, the proximity to the water was only a couple hundred feet. In my brain, even if you're exhausted, even if it's 3 o'clock in the morning, even if you're drunk, you don't pull up to somebody's house, have them get out of the car, the light of the car comes on, you're chatting and saying goodnight, you don't fall asleep like that and drive into the water and then not even wake up," said O'Toole. "Nobody hears the splash, the scraping of the car going down the rocks? It just doesn't sit right with me."

She continued: "I want to know. Obviously, we can't tell if he was dead before he went into the water. We don't know if he got beaten up, if he was buckled into the car and pushed in, I don't know. But I would like to know, I would like to know that he wasn't aware that he was drowning if he drowned."

Laying Murphy to rest after 42 years

Amid the uncertainty and all of the questions that are left unanswered, O'Toole and her family were able to lay Murphy to rest in June.

"My father and my aunt, it was hard on them, it was something that they did not expect I think, especially at this stage in their life. They live close to each other, they're neighbors ... it was a lot for them. It was very stressful," she said. "I think there was a huge sense of relief. My father was a lot older than his brother and so was my uncle, but my aunt and him were a year and a half apart, they were close ... but I think after it was a relief that he's back, it kind of turned into a feeling of 'I can't believe he was there all that time, and we never knew, and we never found him."

She recalled the countless number of times that her and her siblings dined at Tracey's Nine Mile House in Little Ferry, which overlooked the river.

"We sat at that restaurant and ate dinner I can't tell you how many times, and he was right there, and we had no idea," she said.

She continued, "I can think about it as, this is my uncle who I do not remember, but then I think about the fact that he was not much older than my own children when he disappeared ... obviously they sheltered the young kids from it, but I can't imagine how torturous it was then."

Charles Murphy's recovered belongings

Found and recovered alongside Murphy's remains were several items of his, many of which were mentioned in the original missing person's flyers such as his sunglasses, gold cross necklace and the green jacket that he was last seen wearing, all of which are fully intact and in decent condition.

"The gold was sparkling, it was amazing," said O'Toole. "All of these things I had been reading about for 42 years was just what they said. It all came up. I figured when they said the green jacket that we would get like a scrap of it, but it's intact."

Other items that her and her family received included the car's arm rest cover, which still had electrical tape on it, and the door to the Camaro's glove compartment, which O'Toole's sisters remembered.

"It's funny because when my older sisters saw it, they said they remember sitting in the front of the car, tracing the 'Camaro' with their fingers. So, obviously it is important that we kept stuff like this," she said.

Another item that that was brought up to the surface was a wallet that contained identification that did not belong to Murphy, an artifact that furthers O'Toole's suspicion that there could be more to this story.

Was somebody else in the car with him?

"One of his friends said to me that it didn't make sense that everybody said he went into the city to get into a fight. He said, 'Listen, he wasn't afraid to shy away from a fight, but he would never go looking for one,'" said O'Toole. "He liked to have a good time with his friends, he was in a good mood, he was a nice guy, a good guy. He would go camping, he loved his cars, he loved his dog ... he was a 25-year-old kid. He was just a good guy who wasn't afraid of people but wasn't a troublemaker."

She continued, "It just doesn't sit right with me, and I truly hope that people still look into this. I'll push for it."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Charles Murphy's niece discusses missing uncle, found 42 years later