Remember Joan Today So Tomorrow’s Children Will Be Safe
By Vini Melwani, Contributing Writer & Digital Content Coordinator
It was Holy Thursday, April 19, 1973. Seven-year-old Joan D’Alessandro had a half-day of school, after which she and her sister decided to distribute orders of Girl Scout Cookies around their neighborhood. They had only four blocks to cover around their home in Hillsdale and approximately a dozen boxes to deliver.
After they visited most of the houses, they had only two boxes of cookies left. Joan’s sister had to attend a softball game, so she rode her bicycle to the nearby park. Joan went home.
While playing on her front lawn, Joan saw her neighbor three houses down pull in with his car. Joan ran into her house to tell her mother, Rosemarie, that she would be back in a couple minutes. Rosemarie recalls watching her daughter take the boxes from the foyer. “She was a very enthusiastic, vivacious, and outgoing child. When she saw something had to be done, she would do it, and when she saw those two boxes left, she knew what needed to be done. She wanted to be a big girl. She was going to be a big girl, she liked that,” Rosemarie says.
Joan took the last two boxes of cookies from the box and shouted to her mom, “Bye, Mommy, I will be right back.” Rosemarie watched Joan walk over to the house three down from theirs. That was the very last time Rosemarie saw her daughter.
After several minutes had passed and Joan had not returned, Rosemarie walked toward the house with her 10-year-old son and asked him to stay outside while she rang the doorbell. A man in his late 20s opened the door, and Rosemarie entered the house. She could sense something was not right.
Rosemarie recalls, “I went into the house because I knew that she had been the last one who stepped in that foyer, and I wanted to step in that foyer.” As she stood there, she remembers, “He stood in front of me and was like a machine. His eyes were not real. They looked like two black empty spaces.” She asked him if he had seen Joan, and he said he had not. He then separated himself from Rosemarie and ascended eight steps to his upper level while she stayed below. She noticed he looked like he had just gotten out of the shower. He had a thin cigarillo in his hand.
Rosemarie stood there and remembers thinking, “He has done something to my child. I know it.” Then she heard the loud sounds of a fire truck that drove by, along with the police she had already called. “Things would never be the same,” Rosemarie says.
Later that evening the police came back with a canine. With Joan’s old worn clothes, the dog, that was trained to use its senses to follow a trail, proceeded toward the house where Joan was last seen. It stopped outside the garage and wouldn’t budge.
Three days after her disappearance, Joan's body was found in Harriman State Park in New York. She had been sexually molested and murdered.
Joseph McGowan, who lived in the house three down from Joan, was her killer. He taught chemistry at Tappan Zee High School. After he pleaded guilty, they found many boxes of Girl Scout Cookies in his house. During questioning, he said he knew how to lure kids into his house. There were previous allegations of him stalking other students at his school, but nothing was done and no charges were filed.
Since the murder of her child, Rosemarie D'Alessandro has spent her life searching for answers. She doesn't shy away from details of what happened to Joan because she believes that the more information she can gives translates to more awareness to possibly protect another child in the future. She adamantly states, “I wanted to do something. I didn’t want Joan just to be in the ground or to forget about her suffering. I wanted to do something to honor her suffering and save other children. I did not want any more babies to go through what she went through.”
Her tenacity helped her successfully fight parole for her daughter's killer and win the passage of New Jersey's Joan's Law in 1997, which ensures that anyone who murders and sexually assaults a child under 14 will never be eligible for parole or leave prison.
A federal version of the law passed in 1998. The age of children protected in New Jersey was increased to include everyone under 18.
Rosemarie also went on to establish Joan's Joy, a foundation that funds recreational and educational programs for disadvantaged children. Joan's Joy also supports programs that help keep children safe.
In 2006, Rosemarie returned to the site where Joan was found. It was only the second time in decades that she had visited. As she approached the spot where Joan’s body had been placed, something caught her eye: a white butterfly that greeted her. It flickered around her, back and forth. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s her energy,’” Rosemarie reminisces. The butterfly has become symbolic to Rosemarie and is an integral part of her life as a symbol of hope, love, peace and positive change in society.
“Be the positive change you want to see in this world,” as Mahatma Gandhi said, and join hands with One Bread Foundation in our fight against crimes involving our youth. If you’re able, set up a recurring donation for as little as $1 per month to help us reach our goal of recruiting 1 million supporters to fund rehabilitation centers serving children rescued from sex trafficking in all 50 states.
Resources and Further Reading
Federal version of Joan's Law - 1998