A girl on a bike, a life cut short
- Maureen Boyle
- Sep 6
- 2 min read
Mary-Lou Arruda celebrated her fifteenth birthday 47 years ago today, September 6.
She would be dead two days later.
The abduction and murder of the high school cheerleader - grabbed just minutes from her home in what was then a rural section of Raynham, Massachusetts - sent waves of horror through the community in 1978. Hundreds turned out to search for her. Hundreds more turned out for her funeral when her body was found tied to a tree in a state forest.
To those in Raynham, the death of the teen represented a loss of innocence in what was then a small town. A cloak of fear covered daily life. Evil, they discovered, stalked not in the shadows but on a bright September day, just days after the school year started.
To her family, the loss was followed by years of unresolved grief and decades of legal wrangling which resulted in four murder trials before the suspect was finally convicted.
How does a mother get through the days knowing she must relive the day her daughter died in one endless court hearing after another, years after that dark day? How does a mother face the person accused of killing her child from the witness stand? The memory of the day needs to stay sharp as she testifies. The memory can never fade with the years.
It was what Mary-Lou's mother, Joanne Arruda, faced for years. It was what she believed she needed to do for her eldest daughter.
It is also what Mary-Lou's younger brothers, Tony and Joey, did as they recounted, repeatedly, the last time they saw their sister: Tony on a school bus, grabbing her books. Joey at a friend's house, watching her ride off on her bike.
Darkness covered the town of Raynham the day Mary-Lou was abducted.
Today, we should remember the day Mary-Lou was born, before the candle of her life was snuffed out. We should think about what she would have done with her life, how her family would have been filled with joy for decades rather than living with memories of her death.
We should remember a young girl who set out on her bike for home from a friend's house on a warm September day and never returned.