Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
$50,000 reward offered in 2019 death
It was two years ago Friday that beloved Academy Park High School teacher Susan Morrissey Ledyard was found murdered in the Brandywine River. Her family is still searching for answers and is now offering a $50,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest in the case.
“I think it’s difficult to grieve fully when you don’t know the circumstances surrounding your loved one’s death,” said her sister, Missy Morrissey. “It’s hard to make it real without knowing how it happened. We might have to accept not knowing everything, but it would help to know more.”
Ledyard, 50, of Wilmington, was found dead at 7:29 a.m. along the Brandywine River by Northeast Boulevard in Wilmington. About an hour and a half later, Delaware State Police responded to Walkers Mill Road in the area of the Rising Sun Lane Bridge for a report of a suspicious vehicle. There, they found Ledyard’s black 2016 Honda Civic with her purse and cellphone still inside.
Delaware State Police detectives Dan Grassi and Amy Lloyd told reporters at a press conference in 2019 that Ledyard was active on her cell hone until about 2:45 a.m. the night she died. At 3:02 a.m., her car pulled out of the driveway from her home in the 1100 block of Riverview Avenue and turned onto northbound Pennsylvania Avenue – the same route she took to get to work, according to Morrissey. Two minutes later, her car parked on Walkers Mill Road and the headlights went out.
Grassi said investigators were able to pinpoint the Civic’s activity from surveillance cameras, but Morrissey noted the video was so dark that it was impossible to tell who was driving the car and whether Ledyard was alone.
Morrissey said she had been texting with her sister until about 12:30 a.m. the morning of her death and it was a perfectly normal conversation. She did not sense anything out of the ordinary, and showing the conversation to Ledyard’s best friends, they did not pick up on anything either, Morrissey said.
“I just can’t believe that two and a half hours later, she walked out the door and never came home,” Morrissey said.
From the outset, the cause of death was determined to be blunt-force trauma and drowning, but Grassi said investigators quickly ruled out suicide.
“I can’t get into the nature of the injuries, the location or anything like that, but let’s just say that the type of inures weren’t consistent with an accident and her behavior leading up to the morning she was found wasn’t consistent with a suicide,” said Grassi. “She had been texting with friends and family that night. Her behavior not only in the texts, but just her general behavior wasn’t consistent with what you would expect from someone who is thinking of committing suicide.”
Delaware State Police described Ledyard as a white female, 5 foot 4 inches tall, weighing 130 pounds, with shoulder-length brown hair and wearing a purple tank top.
Detectives have partnered with civilian experts and outside law enforcement agencies to continue pushing for new angles and leads in Ledyard’s death. That has allowed them to narrow down a four-and-ahalf hour gap in Ledyard’s activity the morning of her death, but exactly what happened in that span is still unknown.
“I honestly think we have the best shot solving this knowing the people (detectives) are consulting, and yet we still need tips from the public,” said Morrissey. “It seems like that’s going to be crucial and we hope that the reward will help generate some of those tips.”
An English teacher at Academy Park for about 13 years – and many more before that in California – Ledyard was described as a night owl during the summer months. Morrissey said her sister would have to get up at 5:30 a.m. when school was in session so she took advantage of summer nights when she got to hang out late with her husband, Ben.
Ledyard did not smoke during the day, but might step out for the occasional cigarette at night, according to Morrissey. And while it was conceivable that her sister would have been up late, Morrissey said 3 a.m.
was something of a stretch for her to be leaving the house.
Morrissey said her sister was not enough of a smoker to have had to go get cigarettes at that hour – and, in fact, did not drive in the direction of the easiest stores to visit at that time of night. There was also no communication with anyone else that Morrissey knows of indicating why she left. It’s just another question in the case that remains unanswered, she said.
“I don’t have anything that tells me she had a reason to go out or a plan to go out,” Morrissey said. “I knew the people that she
knew – most of them – and I spoke to everybody that night that texted with her that I know of.”
Detectives do not believe Ledyard’s death was connected to a robbery and they don’t think she entered the Brandywine River where her car was parked, about 3 miles from where she was found, due to obstructions in that area and shallow waters between the two points.
Grassi previously said detectives believe the Honda drove directly from Ledyard’s house to the location where it was found, given the timing. Ledyard was active for the next few hours, according to information gleaned from her wearable fitness tracker, but investigators do not know her whereabouts during that time frame and do not know what caused her to leave her residence, he said.
“Her (Fitbit) GPS was connected to her phone and her phone was still in her car, so we didn’t have any geo-location information, just the normal stuff you would get from a Fitbit – her heart rate and step activity,” said Grassi Friday.
Some information in heartbeat data showed increased heart activity in the 45 minutes before her death, said Grassi, but it is impossible to tell if Ledyard was running, fleeing, or possible fighting off an attacker from that information alone.
“The main piece of the puzzle we don’t have is that four-hour period between when she parked and when she died,” said Grassi Friday. “We still don’t know how she got down to the area where she was found.”
Grassi said investigators canvassed the area looking for surveillance videos the day Ledyard was discovered, but unfortunately the area is heavily industrialized and any cameras there are typically pointed away from the river.
But he noted the body was found about an hour after sunrise just downriver of Brandywine Park, which would have been populated by early morning walkers and joggers who may have seen something without realizing it.