Milwaukee Journal Sentinal Article - December 12, 2005

Family holds vigil, seeking help on missing woman

Karren Kraemer believes her daughter, Becky Marie Marzo, was killed two years ago this week by the man she lived with in the 3100 block of N. 5th St.

He had a history of violence, and her daughter had asked authorities to prosecute him for battery related to a beating she suffered several months before her disappearance, Kraemer, of Oconomowoc, said Sunday at a public vigil for the young woman at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

More than 60 people attended the vigil, which Kraemer scheduled to tell the Milwaukee community about Marzo. She is still officially listed as missing.

Katrina Randall of Milwaukee also is convinced the man took the life of her friend.

She had been with Becky at several north side nightclubs on the evening of Dec. 13, 2003, a Saturday, Randall said. She dropped her friend off at the N. 5th St. home that night and made plans to meet her the next day.

The next day, however, Marzo did not answer the telephone, and neither she nor the man came to the door of the residence when Randall came knocking.

Police are watching the man, 37, who frequently moves within Milwaukee, but there has been no arrest, Kraemer said Sunday. Marzo was 23 at the time of her disappearance.
"We're hoping that someone will come forward and tell us what happened to our baby," Kraemer said. "My Becky made a bad choice. She fell in love with someone who was abusive and violent.

"We need to find her body. We need to have closure."

Though Kraemer and other speakers at the vigil identified the man by name, the Journal Sentinel is not publishing his name because he has not been arrested or charged with a crime in this case.

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the recovery of Marzo's remains, said Patti Bishop, a representative of the Coalition of the Missing in the Midwest. Bishop, of Indianapolis, spoke Sunday at the vigil and at a briefing for media earlier in the day at the Wyndham Milwaukee Center hotel. Reward funds would come from the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation of Modesto, Calif.

The family is working with investigators from the Milwaukee Police Department's homicide and sensitive crime units.

At the time of her disappearance, Marzo was described as 5 feet 1 inch tall, with blue eyes and blond hair, a scar on her left wrist and colored tattoo on her lower back, and double pierced ears. She was a 1997 graduate of Oak Creek High School and was taking accounting classes at Milwaukee Area Technical College in 2003, her mother said. Marzo was divorced from her first husband, Michael T. Marzo.

Kraemer and her husband, David, did not talk publicly until this month about the December 2003 disappearance of their daughter on the advice of Milwaukee police, she said in an interview. The couple had moved to Oconomowoc from Oak Creek in 2001.

In December 2003, police told family and friends that it was likely Marzo did not want to be found due to the earlier assault by her live-in boyfriend, Karren Kraemer said Sunday.

The purpose of Sunday's vigil was to notify the public of their daughter's disappearance.

"We want to help the Milwaukee Police Department solve this case," she said in an interview. "We want to put the person who did this to her behind bars."

The couple were accompanied Sunday by two daughters, Katie and Sabrina, and two sons, Jimmy and Robert.

Anyone with information on Marzo is asked to call the Milwaukee Police Department at (414) 935-7403.

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.