Anthony Casale was 25 when he disappeared from Omaha. His last contact with family is generally dated to April 1989. His sisters say they still have no answers about what happened to him.
The Omaha World-Herald reported that Casale stopped calling his mother in April 1989, and that she eventually reported him missing after he lost contact with the family. His sister Kathleen recalled that he visited her with a damaged $20 bill; she tried to exchange it at a bank a week or two later and called her mother to ask Anthony to call.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System lists April 7, 1989, as Casale’s date of last contact, according to his NamUs case file. A Websleuths thread also identifies the case as an Omaha disappearance dated April 7, 1989.
Family History and the Last Known Contact
Joe was the oldest of five siblings. His father died of stomach cancer when Anthony was about 3, and his parents divorced a few years before his father’s death. The family moved from East Harlem, New York, to Omaha when Anthony was around 11. His younger sister, Toni Casale, recalled that he enjoyed drawing.
The World-Herald reported that Casale married in his early 20s and that his son was born about two years before he disappeared. His mother told the paper that he left home after an argument with his wife, who later said that was the last contact anyone had with him.
His brother Joe told the World-Herald that Casale did not contact his best friend or his grandfather in New York before he disappeared. The family found the silence unusual.
Police Review and Current Leads
Their sister Trish filed the missing-person report and circulated flyers. Police told the family that, as an adult, Casale could choose not to disclose his location if found, though officers said they would try to confirm he was safe. Joe told the World-Herald that Trish and their mother were the family’s main contacts with police for years.
Kathleen said she received no updates from detectives, while the family believed the case remained active. When unidentified remains were found elsewhere, Kathleen recalled police asking her mother for his dental records to help rule him out. Trish died of stomach cancer in 1992.
Omaha police reopened the case in 2023, according to the World-Herald. Brett Schrage works in the department’s missing persons unit.
Police and the Family
Police said it is too early to speculate about foul play, which the family has long suspected.
Their mother died in 2020 without learning what happened to her son. Kathleen has said she hopes to find out before she dies.
The case resurfaces as Nebraska marks its third annual Missing Persons Day on Oct. 17, a date recognized statewide since 2024 under a law that designates Oct. 17 each year to honor missing people and the families left behind, according to the Nebraska Legislature. At any given time, roughly 750 people are listed as missing across the state, per the Nebraska State Patrol, as reported by Courier Nebraska. The outlet noted the state's Missing Persons Clearinghouse website drew an average of 10,000 visits a month in 2024, and that this year's observance is centered on media coverage and awareness rather than a Capitol event. Nebraska's roster of long-unsolved disappearances also includes Regina Bos, who vanished from downtown Lincoln in 2000 and whose case remains one of the state's most high-profile, according to the same report.
The National Missing-Person Picture
The FBI’s National Crime Information Center contained 93,447 active missing-person records as of December 31, 2024, according to FBI statistics. That is a year-end count of active records, not an annual tally of reports entered.
Anyone with information about Anthony Casale's case can contact Omaha police or Omaha Crime Stoppers.
