A cold case out of Manhattan is getting fresh attention from the NYPD, 45 years after a 13-year-old girl was beaten to death and her killer vanished without a trace. The victim, Vickie Lynn Rust, disappeared from Pennsylvania in September 1981 and was found murdered in New York City just days later. No one has ever been identified, charged, or arrested in connection with her death.
According to NBC New York, the NYPD is giving new attention to Rust's case, and reporter Gus Rosendale detailed how both police and Rust's family are now asking the public for help in the long-unsolved murder. The station reported that the girl was beaten to death in Manhattan, and that her killer was never found. Details about exactly where in Manhattan she was killed, or what led investigators to the location, have not been made public.
Separate case records help fill in the timeline of Rust's final days. Per the Independent Detective archive, Rust went missing from Pennsylvania in September 1981 and was found murdered only a few days later. A Find a Grave memorial for Rust lists her dates of birth and death as October 24, 1967, to September 14, 1981, placing her death just weeks after she vanished.
A Family Still Searching for Answers
The memorial account, which was not produced by law enforcement, states plainly that Rust was 13 years old when she ran away and was later found murdered in New York City, and that her killer has never been found. It also notes that her body was eventually sent back home, where she was buried in Mount Washington Cemetery in Mercer County.
That same account says Rust's family requested information from the Manhattan area as recently as 2023, an indication that relatives have continued pressing for answers decades after her death. The memorial additionally states that DNA established that Vickie was the child murdered in New York City, though that claim comes from the memorial itself rather than an official source and has not been independently confirmed.
One Case Among Thousands
Rust's file is one of a staggering backlog facing New York City investigators. A Bureau of Justice Assistance award tied to the city's cold-case efforts states that New York City is estimated to have 25,876 unsolved homicides dating back to 1965. The same award describes forensic genetic genealogy as a tool intended to help identify and potentially arrest perpetrators and prosecute additional violent-crime cold cases in the city, though nothing in the available record indicates that technique has been applied to Rust's case specifically.
Other long-dormant NYPD investigations have resurfaced in recent years after new leads emerged. PIX11 reported on the unsolved 1999 death of a man in Queens that remained a mystery for 26 years before investigators said they received a surge of tips and began revisiting the case. Whether a similar wave of tips has prompted renewed interest in Rust's killing has not been reported.
For now, the central facts of Vickie Lynn Rust's case remain what they were in 1981: a 13-year-old girl who disappeared from Pennsylvania, was found beaten to death in Manhattan days later, and whose killer has never been identified. Her family and the NYPD are asking anyone with information to come forward, 45 years after she was laid to rest in Mercer County.
