Six Months Later, Memories but No Clues to Amanda

Marlene Przybylak has long since moved away from the apartment on Landis Street. Too much crime. Too many memories, most of them bad.

But, even after returning each night from her secretarial job to her new home in Santee, her mind is still on Landis Street in North Park, where 9-year-old girls like Amanda Gaeke still ride their bikes to McKinley Elementary School.

Today figures to be an especially hard day for Przybylak. Exactly six months ago, the body of her daughter, Amanda, was found at the bottom of a canyon near the school, so badly decomposed that the coroner’s office has never been able to determine the cause of death.

San Diego police say they have no suspects in the slaying, no leads and have returned four detectives who worked full-time on the case to their regular assignments.

Gaeke disappeared Oct. 3, and the discovery of her death brought immediate and intense pressure on police to solve the case. Eight officers and a sergeant were assigned full-time Oct. 16, two days after the body was found.

They sifted through 350 tips, interviewed more than 100 people and knocked on doors near McKinley Elementary, where Amanda was last seen. They spoke with registered sex offenders in the area, tested hair samples from the scene and inspected fibers from material wrapped around the child’s body.

They still have no clue.

Although the case is still officially open, and detectives will continue to collect tips and chase new leads, the original homicide team assigned to the case has other active murder cases to solve. Four other detectives--two from robbery, one from vice and one from the Western Division--returned to their regular work Feb. 24.

“We have done everything humanly possible and have just come up short,” said Detective Steve McMillan, who was assigned to the case from the Robbery Division. “I would have to say it was the most frustrating homicide case I’ve ever worked on because of who was involved. You come home, look at your own kids and just shake your head.”

Homicide Lt. Paul Ybarrondo said the department has six homicide teams of four detectives and a sergeant each. A seventh team consists of two detectives and a sergeant.

“We had a team and four other detectives working the case almost exclusively, and it is still under active investigation, but there are no good suspects right now,” Ybarrondo said. “When you run out of fresh leads, there are other cases that must be pursued.”

Przybylak, who lives with her 14-year-old daughter, feels the police have done a thorough job. But she cannot understand why one officer cannot be kept actively on the case, interviewing and re-examining suspects until something develops.

“I don’t know why some cases have to be put on the shelf,” she said. “Someone knows something. I want to keep this alive in people’s minds and never give up.”

There are a few outlets to keep Amanda’s story going. The television show “Unsolved Mysteries” has agreed to air a piece on the girl. On April 26, a tree will be planted in Amanda’s name at the school where she was a fourth-grader.

The evening of Amanda’s disappearance, Przybylak anxiously scoured the streets of North Park because her daughter had not come home from school at 5 p.m. as expected.

At about 7:30 p.m., while Przybylak was out looking for Amanda, the girl’s grandmother called the Landis Street apartment and spoke to Amanda. There was to be an open house at McKinley Elementary that night, and both Amanda and her mother planned to go.

The grandmother later recalled that Amanda was calm, said she was fine and was waiting for her mother to come home. Amanda, she said, even thought she heard her mother’s car in the driveway. But it wasn’t her mother, and the telephone conversation soon ended.

Przybylak arrived home about 8 p.m., and Amanda wasn’t there. The girl’s body wasn’t discovered for 11 days, and detectives speculated that it was probably dumped in the canyon the day she was abducted.

Even now, Przybylak cannot be sure her mother actually talked to Amanda on the day she disappeared. The grandmother had a habit of calling each day, and perhaps she had spoken with her another time, Przybylak said.

Detectives collected hundreds of clues during their investigation.

For instance, Amanda’s body was wrapped in material that neither police nor Przybylak will describe because it is one of the few pieces of evidence that provide some clue as to how the killer operates.

A bicycle thought to be Amanda’s was discovered last November in Lakeside, but detectives were never able to determine whether it really belonged to the girl.

And they grilled Fred Gaeke, Amanda’s father and Przybylak’s husband for two years, because he had spent several years in R. J. Donovan State Prison. Police downplayed and then eliminated the possibility that someone had taken revenge against the father.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the case is the investigators’ belief that the killer lived within a 100-yard radius of where the body was found, in the 3100 block of 32nd Street. After the discovery of the body, schoolchildren adorned a nearby fence with letters, flowers and candles.

“Put a mark where she was found and throw a rock as far as you can,” McMillan said. “The killer lives within 100 yards. We have talked to everyone in that area, and our prime suspects were all eliminated.”

McMillan said a dozen suspects were initially targeted, but the number was narrowed to three and then two. Detectives were split evenly on which of the pair it might be. Both suspects were eventually eliminated.

Each time investigators believed they were close, Marlene Przybylak’s hopes rose--then faded.

“It was like riding a roller coaster ride,” she said. “You think you’re on top, and you find out you are way down at the bottom. Right now, there’s someone out there who murdered my daughter, as free as can be, breathing fresh air.”

Leaving Landis Street to move to Santee, Przybylak reluctantly said goodby to a group of friends and neighbors who had given her strength in trying times. But she found it hard to walk from room to room where Amanda had lived. Or to see McKinley Elementary. Or the fence where all the notes and flowers were affixed.

“She kind of reminded people of what could have have happened to their own little child,” Przybylak said. “The neighborhood wasn’t so bad, but there were bad people around. She was warned about strangers. She was very alert that way. Someone had to lure her.”

The songs “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers and “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton drive Przybylak and her daughter, Shawna, to tears because they bring back memories of Amanda. So do television programs that Amanda liked.

Shawna was permitted to get a dog, a 2-year-old Labrador mix, as a diversion. Przybylak often hears from Amanda’s young friends, who try to cheer her up but can’t help but make her sad.

“One of her best girlfriends is coming by soon, and I know I’ll cry and fall apart,” she said. “They were two little peas in a pod, those two girls. But I want to be close to her because she was close to Mandy.”

For Przybylak, watching Amanda’s friends grow up brings more sadness, even anger.

“I miss Mandy, and it will make me feel better if this person does not get away with it,” she said. “Because she was a child, she never got to grow up like everyone else. I feel she was cheated, this girl who was so healthy and athletic.

“My little angel,” she said. “So full of life and love.”