The Disappearance of Steven Damman: What Really Happened?
A toddler and his baby sister vanish; one is found safe a few blocks away, but the other is never seen again
Mystery on Long Island
On October 31st, 1955, 22-year-old Marilyn Damman left her two small children—2-year-old Steven and 7-month-old Pamela—outside of a grocery store and went in to buy a loaf of bread. According to Marilyn, no more than ten minutes had passed before she came back out, but to her alarm she discovered that both of her children were gone.
Pamela, unharmed and still in her carriage, would be located just a few blocks away but Steven was nowhere to be found. An extensive search for the toddler would be carried out, but ultimately no substantial clues ever turned up.
What happened to Steven Damman?
Steven Craig Damman
The oldest of two children, Steven Craig Damman was born in Iowa on December 15th, 1952, to parents Jerry and Marilyn. The family soon relocated to Long Island, New York, as 25-year-old Jerry was in the Air Force and stationed at Mitchel Field.
Stevie, as his family called him, was a sweet and well-behaved child, who was said to suffer from severe anemia.
“He never wanders. He’s kind of a momma’s boy,” his mother would say in the wake of his disappearance.
Because Stevie listened and was never one to wander away, Marilyn felt comfortable leaving him outside of the store with his baby sister for a short time while she went shopping at the Fair Food Market in East Meadow (a block and a half away from their home) on the afternoon of Halloween 1955. She would later justify her choice to leave her children alone by pointing out how commonplace this was at the time.
“It was something which I had done a thousand times, and other women still do.”
(Side note: In the 1950s, it was often the policy of stores to not allow strollers inside, as they were larger then than they are now and wouldn’t necessarily comfortably fit down the aisles.)
She purchased bread and left the store sometime between 2 and 3 p.m., only to find Stevie and Pamela missing. When she didn’t see them anywhere in the vicinity, she panicked and rushed home to seek help from one of her neighbors, Mary.
She and Mary went back together and began looking around, hoping to spot the Damman children somewhere. It didn’t take long before the two women stumbled upon Pamela’s carriage, with her still in it, around three blocks away from the Fair Food Market.
The baby’s harness had been unfastened, but she appeared to be unharmed. Oddly, the bag of jelly beans that Marilyn said had been in the carriage with her was no longer there.
Of far greater concern, however, was the fact that two-year-old Stevie was nowhere in sight, no matter where they looked. Marilyn went to the police to report him missing that afternoon.
Intensive Search Yields No Results
Marilyn, who was in shock and described as being “on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” was rushed to the hospital.
Law enforcement took Stevie’s disappearance seriously from the outset and worked to form a large search party. More than 2,000 people—including officers, firemen, Boy Scouts, and personnel from Mitchel Field—searched East Meadow, as well as the surrounding area on Long Island, combing waterways, golf courses, parks, and neighborhoods. Stevie’s grandparents would travel to New York to aid in the search efforts as well.
After her release from the hospital, Marilyn was driven through the city in a sound truck, as she called “Stevie, where are you?” into a speaker. He never answered.
No one thought that Stevie could have gotten very far on his own and it was noted that he struggled somewhat with walking.
The efforts to locate Stevie would be described by law enforcement as having been one of the most “thorough and intensive organized searches in the history of Nassau police.”
Sadly, despite this, no sign of the missing child materialized.
Ransom Notes & Fruitless Leads
The FBI joined the investigation early on.
In November, the Damman family began receiving distressing ransom notes, demanding ever-increasing amounts of money for the safe return of Stevie. The writer asked for $3,000, then $10,000, and finally $14,000 (equivalent to approximately $165,000 in 2025).
It was reported that Jerry and Marilyn wanted to comply with these requests, but this became unnecessary when the FBI discovered that the author was a college student named Robert Virgil Fontaine Jr.
Their investigation into Fontaine Jr. culminated in the conclusion that he had no part in the alleged abduction of Stevie Damman, nor did he possess any relevant knowledge about the missing boy. They believed that he was nothing more than an opportunist looking to profit from a grieving family. He was charged with extortion.
A local woman reportedly came forward with a tip, claiming that she had witnessed six Black people—four women and two men—abduct a small child from in front of the Fair Food Market in East Meadow on the day that Stevie vanished. Though she couldn’t be sure it had been Stevie specifically and, notably, her account made no mention of a baby in a stroller.
However, investigators followed this lead, launching a nationwide search for these individuals, but nothing ever came of this and the veracity of her story has never been confirmed.
Another tip came in from someone who stated that they’d seen a boy’s lifeless body floating in New York Harbor, not far from Governors Island. The Coast Guard and Harbor Patrol were dispatched to look for the body, but they ultimately turned up nothing.
Jerry Damman, who was originally going to be discharged from the Air Force in December, chose to extend his enlistment twice, wanting to remain in New York in case Stevie was found.
“Stevie would have been 3 tomorrow,” said Jerry on December 14th, “the same day that my wife and I celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. The next day I would have been discharged from the Air Force and we would have left for Iowa and home.”
He continued:
“People ask me if the pain is gone now. But it’s not. Every time I think the shock has worn off something happens and it all comes back again. Every morning I wake up feeling a little worse, because I remember that another day has passed and Stevie is a little farther away.”
The Breakdown of the Damman Marriage
The Damman family did eventually return to Iowa and by the fall of 1957, Jerry and Marilyn had separated. Marilyn told Newsday that she and her husband frequently argued ever since Stevie went missing.
“Jerry has been blaming me for it ever since it happened—and his parents have, too. He seems to think it was my fault for leaving Steven in front of the store…that I was careless. I can’t understand it.”
Still, she expressed a desire that she and Jerry would reconcile. However, a reconciliation was not to be and the couple divorced. Both went on to marry other people—Marilyn in 1958 and Jerry in 1959.
Abuse Allegations Introduce Another Possibility
In a video years later, Mary—the neighbor whom Marilyn had asked to help her search for her children on that day in 1955—made disturbing allegations against Marilyn Damman. Stevie, she said, had been the frequent victim of abuse at his mother’s hands. Mary often heard him crying and witnessed Marilyn forcing the child to clean his own diapers every time he soiled one.
On another occasion, she allegedly saw Marilyn “whack the heck” out of Stevie on the playground. Another woman who was there that day found the sight so distressing that she left in tears. Mary feared for the boy’s safety and asked her husband to report the abuse. He went to the Air Force chaplain and explained what was going on, but was told to mind his own business. Nothing was done.
It’s also important to note that one of Stevie’s arms was healing from a fracture at the time he went missing. The cause of this injury was never revealed.
If Marilyn truly had been abusive towards this poor child, it introduces another theory for what might have happened to him. Did Stevie vanish, not because a stranger abducted him, but rather because Marilyn’s abuse escalated and this time Stevie did not survive? Did she then concoct a story to cover up this heinous act?
No one ever corroborated her version of events or stated that they’d seen her with both children that day. In fact, the Dammans’ neighbors said they actually hadn’t seen Stevie since the day before he vanished.
Additionally, Marilyn apparently went out to the grocery store three times that day, yet the only time she was noticed by anyone happened to be when she was on her own. She explained this by saying that she’d left Stevie and Pamela at home two out of the three times she went shopping that day. (Side note: It’s unclear who was watching them in her absence, as Jerry wasn’t home.)
Yet if she did lie and Stevie was never in town that day, then this would mean that she’d been the one who pushed Pamela’s stroller three blocks away and abandoned it there—and it’s worth noting that no one ever came forward to report having witnessed this either.
So what really happened that day?
In the video, Mary also noted that in the wake of Stevie Damman’s disappearance, she began smelling a “sweet, sick smell” outside, the precise source of which she couldn’t determine. A friend of hers, a nurse, said that it smelled “like death.”
The Damman property was never searched by authorities.
Other Developments
It was once theorized that Stevie was the “The Boy in the Box”—a severely abused and malnourished child who was discovered dead in Philadelphia in 1957—due to their similar appearance and age.
However, DNA testing ruled out this possibility in 2003. And, in 2022, the boy’s true identity was finally revealed: Joseph Augustus Zarelli. Joseph’s murder is still unsolved and being actively investigated.
In 2009, a Michigan man named John Barnes came forward, having become convinced that he was actually Steven Damman. The reason for this suspicion is unclear and his family expressed confusion over it.
“I can’t begin to know why he would think this,” said John’s sister Cheryl. “Everybody in my family thinks John looks just like my dad.”
His DNA was tested against that of the Damman family.
FBI Special Agent Andrew Arena:
“DNA samples analyzed by the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, show John Barnes and Pamela Damman Horne, Steven Damman’s sister, do not share the same mother.”
In other words, John Barnes was not, in fact, Steven Damman.
There haven’t been any significant updates in Stevie’s case since then.
Marilyn and Jerry have since passed away, in 2013 and 2020, respectively.
Some still hold out hope that perhaps Stevie was abducted by someone who wanted to raise a child and that maybe one day genetic genealogy will prove this.
70 years later, the strange disappearance of Stevie Damman remains unsolved.
If you have any information regarding Steven Damman’s case, you are encouraged to contact the Nassau County Police Department at 516-573-7000.
Additional Sources
“True Cold Case Mystery-Steven Damman 1955 missing child Mystery. neighbor's statement” - Annie Erewhon, YouTube
Maybe I am just jaded but.... that mom killed that boy. It wasn't investigated properly because no one could conceive a mother might kill a kid. I wonder what they'd find if they dug around the property.
It’s so sad when families don’t get any kind of closure. I hope that with DNA testing, one day he might be found, but the mother’s actions give me pause. Great job, Michelle!