Twelve-year-old White female Susan Basile disappeared on June 10, 1975, in Port Orange, Florida. She was last seen exiting a school bus, wearing blue jeans and a white blouse, and carrying a shoulder purse. At the time, authorities initially believed she had run away, but her family insisted that was not a possibility. Despite community searches and public appeals, no trace of the young girl was found, and her body was never recovered.
Years later, in 1982, serial killer Gerald Eugene
Stano confessed to abducting and murdering 12-year-old White female Susan Basile. According to his confession, he lured her with the promise of a ride to the Starlite Skate Center on South Nova Road, a place she frequented. Instead, he strangled her and left her body in a wooded area, covering it with palm fronds—his signature method of concealing victims. The location where he claimed to have left her body was later developed, and her remains were never located.
Gerald Stano, who lived in nearby Holly Hill, Florida, was known to frequent the same skating rink and may have recognized 12-year-old White female Susan Basile from there. His confession came during a series of interviews with Detective Paul Crow of the Daytona Beach Police Department, who managed to elicit numerous murder confessions from Stano over several weeks. Despite his admission, Stano was never formally charged with the murder of 12-year-old White female Susan Basile, although her family and investigators accepted his confession as credible.
Stano was eventually convicted and sentenced to death for other murders and was executed in 1998. For the Basile family, the confession brought some closure after years of uncertainty, though the pain of losing 12-year-old White female Susan Basile without ever recovering her remains left a lasting impact. Her brother, Michael Basile, described the emotional toll on their parents, particularly their mother, who spent years watching out the window hoping for her daughter’s return. The family never stopped grieving the loss of the youngest member of their household.
