On a late summer afternoon in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the life of a young girl took an unforeseen turn, leaving a void that has persisted for decades. Eleven-year-old Michele Jolene Lakey, a White female known to her loved ones as Jolene, vanished on August 26, 1986. That day, she had visited her mother, who was a patient at Mercy Hospital, bringing her a stuffed animal she had bought with her own babysitting money.
After leaving the hospital, Jolene, who had a small build for her age, was last seen walking along North Washington Avenue, heading toward her home. She was dressed in a white shirt with purple trim, dark blue sweatpants, and brown sandals. Her plan was to spend the night at a friend's house on Myrtle Street.
The initial hours after Jolene failed to arrive at her destination were filled with confusion. Witnesses reported seeing a girl matching her description possibly getting into an unidentified light yellow car just a block from her family's residence. Authorities were initially hesitant to classify her disappearance as an abduction in the absence of any ransom demands or signs of a struggle. The investigation that followed would span years and explore various leads, but the young girl with brown to blonde hair and brown eyes was never seen again. Her family felt shunned by the community in the wake of her disappearance and eventually moved away from Scranton.
Years later, a prime suspect emerged in the case: a local former auto mechanic named Frank Osellanie. Osellanie admitted to knowing Jolene, stating that she would sometimes visit his auto shop to play with his dog and that he had given her rides home on occasion. Her walk home from the hospital would have taken her past his business. In 1990, Osellanie was convicted of the kidnapping, rape, and murder of another young Scranton girl, nine-year-old Renee Waddle, and was sentenced to life in prison. He was considered a person of interest in Jolene's disappearance and other cases, including the 1978 disappearance of Joanne Williams and the murder of a 19-year-old student, Laureen Finn.
Despite being the primary suspect, Frank Osellanie was never charged in connection with Michele Jolene Lakey's disappearance and he always maintained his innocence in her case. Investigators explored tips, including one that placed him with a young girl at Lake Wallenpaupack around the time Jolene went missing, leading to searches of the lake and his former properties, but these efforts yielded no conclusive evidence. Osellanie died in prison in 2020, taking with him any secrets he may have held about the young girl's fate. To this day, Michele Jolene Lakey's case remains unsolved, a lingering mystery that began on a summer day in Scranton.
