Jennifer Schweiger, a 12-year-old white female from Staten Island, New York, disappeared on July 9, 1987, after setting out on what was supposed to be an ordinary walk in her neighborhood. She was known in contemporary reporting as a child with Down syndrome, and the ease of that summer day turned into panic when she didn’t come home.
As the hours stretched into days, Staten Island mobilized.
Searchers and police pushed into the large, brushy expanse around the grounds of the former Willowbrook facility—an area of deep woods and abandoned buildings that locals already regarded with unease. While the community looked for any sign of her, investigators focused on a drifter they believed had been seen with her: witnesses reported seeing her walking hand-in-hand with a man they identified as Andre Rand.
Rand was arrested and brought before the court within weeks of the disappearance. Records of the proceedings describe him being arraigned on August 4, 1987, on charges tied to her vanishing, after which he was sent for psychiatric evaluation at Kings County Hospital to determine competency. Even before anyone knew where Jennifer was, the case had already narrowed to a single name in the public mind, and investigators treated the area around Willowbrook as both a search ground and a crime scene.
Thirty-five days after she vanished, the search ended in the bleakest way possible. Her body was discovered on August 12, 1987, buried in a shallow grave on the grounds at Willowbrook, and case documents later described the grave as being roughly 150 yards from a campsite allegedly used by Rand. Accounts of the discovery describe a retired New York City firefighter, George Kramer, noticing something in the earth that didn’t look right and returning with police, who then unearthed the remains and confirmed her identity.
After the body was found, prosecutors pursued Rand not just as a suspect, but as the man they believed had taken her there. In the later trial, he faced accusations that included kidnapping and murder. Ultimately, a Staten Island jury convicted him of first-degree kidnapping, but could not reach a verdict on the murder charge, leaving the homicide aspect unresolved in court even as he was sent to prison for the abduction.
