ABC is taking another look at Robin Murphy missing from a New York shopping center in 1995, with a new 20/20 episode airing Friday at 9 p.m. ET. The broadcast, titled Hiding Beneath The Surface: The Putnam County School Girls, streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
For Jamie Murphy, the case still begins with a phone call that changed everything. He said he was at work when he learned his sister had never come home, and that something felt wrong immediately. Robin was 17 when she vanished on April 9, 1995, after meeting up with a friend at the shopping center where she worked.
What happened in the days after she disappeared gave investigators and her family pieces, but not an ending. On April 13, four days later, coworkers and friends organized a civilian search of the woods behind the ShopRite. Searchers found a work schedule and paystub belonging to Robin, and her wallet and ID were later found near a dumpster behind the same shopping center.
Carmel police canvassed the shopping center and interviewed Howard Gombert, who worked at a laundromat in the same complex. He told police in 1995 that he had met with Robin for 10 minutes the night she went missing, and said she then walked toward a fast food restaurant where her boyfriend worked. He denied knowing what happened to her, but police later said DNA testing on one item found in his residence matched Robin. They also said a search turned up a tan suitcase with Ziploc bags of women’s underwear, along with jewelry, ladies’ handbags and purses.
Jamie said the evidence hit hard because it made the mystery feel real. “It was good to find something, but that was like a stab in the chest because now it's getting real,” he said. After learning police had found what they said was his sister’s underwear, he called it “sickening.”
The questions that remain are the ones that have followed the family for more than 30 years. Robin’s disappearance is still unresolved, and the new episode is expected to pull the case back into public view on Friday night, even as the basic unanswered question stays the same: what happened after she was last seen walking away from that shopping center.
