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A Newburyport teen’s body was unidentified for 33 years. Now, his aunt and a cold-case aficionado want to bring him home.
"Anthony is going to be placed in the same place as his mom and my father and my mother and his brother, and I feel complete with knowing that.”
Almost 37 years after her nephew went missing, Carolann Angelli took a DNA test and received news she didn’t believe she’d ever hear.
“There was no news on Anthony from the day that they told me he was missing,” Angelli, 72, said. “Within about two or three weeks (after the test), I found out that we were a perfect match as an aunt and a nephew.”
Anthony Angelli Rea was reported missing from Newbury’s Harbor School in August 1988. Four years later, a teenage boy’s remains were discovered half-buried in Newburyport.
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With the help of genome sequencing, the remains were identified as belonging to Rea more than 30 years later.
“Anthony was a sweet child, and just taken from us way too soon,” his aunt said.
His only surviving relative, Angelli said receiving the news that Rea had finally been identified was “extremely emotional.”
When faced with the financial burden of obtaining Rea’s remains, an unexpected “guide” came to Angelli’s aid.
Ambrose: Rea was ‘a boy with his whole life ahead of him’
When Maya Ambrose was 15, she “fell into a rabbit hole” of the myriad of missing and unidentified persons cases across the United States, and wondered if there were missing people in her hometown of Newburyport.
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“I was absolutely shocked when I found out that there was a 15-year-old boy right in my own town who had been unidentified since the ’90s,” Ambrose, now 26, said.
Ambrose was struck by a highly lifelike reconstruction photo of Rea published by law enforcement — a reason the case stuck with her.
“I think for the past 10 years, I’ve driven my friends, boyfriends, family, crazy with theories,” Ambrose said of Rea’s case.
Ambrose, who graduated from Northeastern University with a master’s degree in criminal justice, said she “jumped up” when she learned Rea had been identified, and set out to learn everything she could about him.
While chatting in an online group discussing genetic genealogy cases, Ambrose was put into contact with Angelli, finally learning more about the boy whose case she’d been fixated on since she was a teen.
“I was on there as a teenager, going to community college and then going back and trying to figure out Anthony’s case,” she said. “I think the reward of helping somebody get justice or helping them get their name back outweighs the heavier side.”
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Ambrose set up a GoFundMe to assist Angelli with receiving Rea’s remains and burying him alongside their family members.
“All too often, when these long term Jane or John Doe’s are finally identified, it’s the end of their story and we never really hear what happened,” Ambrose said. “I wanted to make sure that he didn’t get completely forgotten, like some of these cases do.”
Angelli: ‘He could have been my only living relative other than my children’
Angelli is Rea’s maternal aunt, and his only surviving relative.
Rea’s life was filled with hardship, mainly at the hand of Huntington’s disease, she said.
The genetic disorder ravaged her and Rea’s entire family line, killing Angelli’s mother and her four siblings, including Rea’s mother. Later in life, it also claimed Rea’s 30-year-old brother, Darren, and his two children.
“We don’t know if Anthony could have had Huntington’s or not. He could have been my only living relative other than my children, and I feel like I’ve lost that,” Angelli said.
Anthony and Darren’s mother, Linda, suffered from Huntington’s disease. Angelli said it caused the boys to be separated from their mother and placed in their father’s custody.
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Angelli said Rea was sexually abused by his father, something she said she wasn’t aware of until recent years.
The brothers were put into the foster care system after their father was arrested, she said, and Rea was sent to the Harbor School in Newbury.
Rea was reported missing from the school at age 16. The school did not file a missing person’s report and told Rea’s family he had run away, according to Angelli.
“How can you not be accountable for a death of a child or loss of a child?” she said. “There was a lot of things wrong with that school.”
“The Department of Children and Families cannot confirm or deny whether a specific person was involved with DCF” due to privacy laws, a DCF official said.
The Harbor School shut down in 2012 due to dwindling enrollment.
Angelli: ‘It means everything to me.’
Ambrose, who is a part of online communities devoted to helping crack long-term, unsolved cases, said she had “faith” the community would show up to support Angelli.
“Nobody really anticipates that they’re going to be tasked with repatriating the remains of a boy they haven’t seen since the 90s,” Ambrose said.
The GoFundMe had garnered almost $3,000 as of Thursday, most of which was raised in the first 48 hours, Ambrose said.
“There is not enough words to say, for finding me and giving this child a name,” Angelli said. “Having him buried with his parents is the most important thing to me, so that he is not alone anymore.”
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For Ambrose, helping Angelli was not only rewarding, but a way to learn more about the case that initially drew her into her field of criminal justice and law enforcement, she said.
“Anthony is going to be placed in the same place as his mom and my father and my mother and his brother, and I feel complete with knowing that,” Angelli said.
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