As dusk fell over Emerson last Tuesday, what started as a hopeful day took a decidedly somber turn. Two-hundred and fifty law enforcement personnel and community volunteers who had spent 12 hours scouring a 375-acre swath of land for a missing woman, exited the woods shoulder-to-shoulder and empty handed. With nothing to show for their efforts, police declared the local search over.
"We’re reasonably confident that she is not in any of these areas," Emerson Police Chief Michael Saudino said of 42-year-old Liza Murphy, who disappeared on Sunday, Aug. 19, when she reportedly left her Broad Street home without any personal belongings after a heated argument with her husband, Joseph. An anonymous call tipped police off to the disappearance a day later, and by mid-week, search teams were out hoping to find a trace of Murphy in the nearby woods.
The initial search was halted that weekend as temperatures skyrocketed but resumed for the last time on Tuesday, Aug. 28, when police and volunteers re-searched the wooded area as well as the Westwood Cemetery, which Saudino said was a known hangout of Murphy’s, whose uncle is reportedly buried there.
The hope was to find anything from a piece of clothing to disturbed ground indicating a shallow grave. But apart from several stinky plastic bags that contained rotting turkey carcasses, the search, conducted on foot, by boat and by helicopter, yielded nothing.
"I thought, really, had she committed suicide, we would have found her locally," said Saudino. "If she had hitchhiked, I think we would have gotten a call from someone who’d seen her."
Saudino said that national media coverage of the case has gotten Murphy’s picture "out there," increasing the chances that someone would see and recognize her. While police have received calls from across the country, from people ranging from airplane passengers to psychics, none have provided a sufficient lead, said Saudino.
"I find it hard to believe that she is alive somewhere and hasn’t reached out to her family, especially her children," the chief said. "They’re the real victims in all of this."
The Murphy’s children, ages 7, 11, and 13, have been staying with their father’s sister since Joseph Murphy was hospitalized last week. Police have characterized the accident, in which Murphy suffered a broken pelvis and various facial and internal injuries, as a suicide attempt. As of Sept. 4, Murphy was out of the intensive care unit but still at Hackensack University Medical Center.
Saudino said that while the search is over, the case is far from closed. He said that police are currently re-interviewing witnesses, checking to see if they had forgotten to provide police with any information. But, said Saudino, the key interview is the one they can’t seem to get: Joseph Murphy.
Amid stories of previous suicide attempts by both Joseph and Liza Murphy, alcohol and prescription drug abuse by Liza, frequent arguments and an extra-marital affair, police discovered certain discrepancies in Joseph’s past. Murphy, an Irish immigrant, had reportedly changed his surname from Delahunty to Murphy in 2005 and went by the name Patrick several years ago. Additionally, the birth date on his birth certificate doesn’t match the one on his driver’s license.
Saudino said he can’t yet say what this means, but that investigators are looking into the new information. "It’s shedding a different light on things," he said.
Police questioned Murphy when his wife initially went missing, but since he retained an attorney, police can’t seem to get near him.
On an episode of MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams that aired Aug. 29, Saudino told the host that Murphy would not speak with investigators because he had retained an attorney, Joseph Rem.
When confronted by Abrams, Rem said that investigators will have to speak to him first, then he will decide whether or not they can speak to Murphy. "I need to find out what they’re going to do… There’s two different things. One is to find out where she is. The other is to see if they can get him to incriminate himself in their belief that something did occur. In fact, there is no crime scene. There’s no proof that there was a crime. There’s no evidence, even a scintilla of evidence suggesting that there was one."
And so, the investigation is stalled.
"Right now, the sad thing is we don’t have a crime," said Saudino. "It’s a missing person case despite the weird characteristics. We still realize that there could be extenuating circumstances and we’re looking into all of those circumstances."
Saudino added that he doesn’t want an open case like this hanging over the community. "I just want some resolve," he said. "Of course I hope and pray she is alive. But the longer the body is out there, the decomposition excludes us from determining a cause of death."
