RaVen Blackehart
June 16th, 2009, 07:55 PM
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The mom left her toddler son and his baby sister outside a Long Island supermarket, told her boy to be good and ducked inside to buy a loaf of bread.
Minutes later, when his mom returned, Steven Damman had vanished into thin air.
Cops found a stroller nearby with his baby sister inside. But the nearly 3-year-old boy was gone, along with the bag of jellybeans he was munching on.
It was Halloween Day 1955.
More than 50 years later, there may be a major breakthrough in one of New York's most baffling disappearances. A middle-aged Michigan man recently came forward to claim he is Steven Damman, sources told the Daily News.
"The development is being treated seriously," said a source familiar with the investigation.
DNA tests from the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., due back in about a month, could confirm the man's claim.
Jerry Damman, the missing boy's father, who was an airman attached to the base at Long Island's Mitchel Field at the time, was reluctant yesterday to discuss the case.
"Naturally, you kind of give up after that long, but anything's possible," Jerry Damman, 78, told The News in a phone interview from his 300-acre Iowa farm, where he grows corn and beans.
Steven's mother, Marilyn Damman, who is long divorced from Jerry, couldn't be reached for comment.
"I don't know to this day what truly happened, and I don't know enough about what is going on now to comment," the father said. "It's 50-something years ago, and it was awful. I really don't care for any publicity."
Sources would not disclose why the Michigan man believes he is the long-missing boy. He approached Nassau County cops in March with his story, and they contacted the FBI in Detroit.
The parents who raised him claimed to be his biological parents, the sources said.
Steven Craig Damman was two months short of his third birthday on the day he seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth.
Marilyn Damman had parked the baby carriage with Steven's sister Pamela tucked inside and little Steven standing next to it outside the Food Fair on Front St. in East Meadow at 2:45 p.m.
"There were three or four other carriages, with babies in them, outside the store," she told The Saturday Evening Post one year after the abduction. "I told Steven to be good, that Mama would be right back, and went in.
"It was something which I had done a thousand times, and other women still do. It is as common to a housewife as cooking eggs for breakfast."
When she came outside 10 minutes later, the carriage was missing.
A neighbor later found the carriage around the corner with Pamela inside. But Steven Damman and the bag of jellybeans were gone.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_lead_in_sensational_1955_long_island_kidnap_mys tery.html?page=0#ixzz0IdlCQLJH&D
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_lead_in_sensational_1955_long_island_kidnap_mys tery.html?page=1
(Page 1 of 2)
The mom left her toddler son and his baby sister outside a Long Island supermarket, told her boy to be good and ducked inside to buy a loaf of bread.
Minutes later, when his mom returned, Steven Damman had vanished into thin air.
Cops found a stroller nearby with his baby sister inside. But the nearly 3-year-old boy was gone, along with the bag of jellybeans he was munching on.
It was Halloween Day 1955.
More than 50 years later, there may be a major breakthrough in one of New York's most baffling disappearances. A middle-aged Michigan man recently came forward to claim he is Steven Damman, sources told the Daily News.
"The development is being treated seriously," said a source familiar with the investigation.
DNA tests from the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., due back in about a month, could confirm the man's claim.
Jerry Damman, the missing boy's father, who was an airman attached to the base at Long Island's Mitchel Field at the time, was reluctant yesterday to discuss the case.
"Naturally, you kind of give up after that long, but anything's possible," Jerry Damman, 78, told The News in a phone interview from his 300-acre Iowa farm, where he grows corn and beans.
Steven's mother, Marilyn Damman, who is long divorced from Jerry, couldn't be reached for comment.
"I don't know to this day what truly happened, and I don't know enough about what is going on now to comment," the father said. "It's 50-something years ago, and it was awful. I really don't care for any publicity."
Sources would not disclose why the Michigan man believes he is the long-missing boy. He approached Nassau County cops in March with his story, and they contacted the FBI in Detroit.
The parents who raised him claimed to be his biological parents, the sources said.
Steven Craig Damman was two months short of his third birthday on the day he seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth.
Marilyn Damman had parked the baby carriage with Steven's sister Pamela tucked inside and little Steven standing next to it outside the Food Fair on Front St. in East Meadow at 2:45 p.m.
"There were three or four other carriages, with babies in them, outside the store," she told The Saturday Evening Post one year after the abduction. "I told Steven to be good, that Mama would be right back, and went in.
"It was something which I had done a thousand times, and other women still do. It is as common to a housewife as cooking eggs for breakfast."
When she came outside 10 minutes later, the carriage was missing.
A neighbor later found the carriage around the corner with Pamela inside. But Steven Damman and the bag of jellybeans were gone.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_lead_in_sensational_1955_long_island_kidnap_mys tery.html?page=0#ixzz0IdlCQLJH&D
Pg. 2:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/16/2009-06-16_lead_in_sensational_1955_long_island_kidnap_mys tery.html?page=1