MISSING WOMAN'S CASE GETS WEB EXPOSURE

Bernadette Caruso, as pictured in the mid-1980s (above and middle) and by Wesley Neville of the Doe Network, guessing at what she would look like today at age 41 (bottom).

18 years since she was seen

Bernadette Caruso vanished without a trace 18 years ago last week. But you can find her all over the Internet.

The Unsolved Mysteries.com Web site. The State-to-State Unsolved Crimes Forum. Marylandmissing.com. The America's Most Missing Persons Web site. The Doe Network Web site. The message boards at the North American Missing Persons site.

All of them ask: "Is there anyone out there who knows anything?"

Caruso, then 23, left her job at Shaw's Jewelers in Eastpoint Mall on Sept. 27, 1986, and drove off in a 1983 gray/green Chevy Cavalier.

Neither Caruso or the vehicle has been seen since. There are no leads. There are no official suspects. There's only hope and a tireless quest for information.

"Certain people think they have committed the perfect crime. Let's prove them wrong," says a July 8 message board posting.

"Someone out there knows something, and years pass, relationships change. Perhaps now is the time someone will speak up about something they wouldn't before," pleads an e-mail from Kylen Johnson, the Maryland director of The Doe Network, a Web site designed to assist police in locating missing persons and generate public awareness about them.

The Internet has proven to be a great help in locating missing people, Johnson said. The Web site has helped solve three cases in Maryland during the last two years.

"The higher profile helps," Johnson said. "More people see information on the Internet and have the chance to connect it to something else they know. That's why we really push to get cases posted online."

The assistance of the Internet has come at a good time for Bernadette's family. Eighteen years is a long time to suffer the loss of a child.

"Believe me, this takes a toll on you. And the family," Caruso's mother, Pat Stevenson of North Boundary Road, said last week. "It takes a toll on everybody."

One year after Bernadette's disappearance, Stevenson formed the Missing and Exploited Children's Association Family Support Group.

The group would hold an annual Mass in late September for families with a missing child or adult member.

The last Mass was held two years ago.

"I was the one who organized it, and I've been too sick," said Stevenson, who is now 70. "We just [hold a Mass] privately now."

Due to Stevenson's age and health, the task of searching for Bernadette and keeping her case in the public eye is being handled by her two sisters, Susan Bowerman and Darlene Huntsman.

The two women are constantly sifting through reports of unidentified people and bodies. Their efforts have put Berna-dette's name on Internet lists all over the country.

Bowerman's main goal, however, has so far not been attained. She has been trying to interest a television show, like Unsolved Mysteries or America's Most Wanted, to do a program on Bernadette.

"She's tried every one, over and over again," Stevenson said. "But, because it's an older story, she's had no luck."

Bowerman and Huntsman could not be reached for this article.

At the time of her disappearance, Bernadette was separated from her husband, former Baltimore County police officer P. Michael Caruso. According to Bernadette's family, the two were going to be divorced and were headed for a custody battle over their then-3-year-old daughter.

Michael Caruso has since remarried. The daughter, Nicole, is now 21.

Police interviewed Michael Caruso in 1986, but neither he nor anyone else has ever been called a suspect.

Over the years, he has refused interview re-quests, saying that past news coverage has unfairly made him appear to be a possible culprit.

In an odd twist, Stevenson said she was contacted in April 1987 by someone at a business who said Bernadette had recently filled out a credit card application.

"The police haven't been able to give me any updates on that," she said.

Ofc. Shawn Vinson, a spokesman for the Baltimore County Police Department, said investigators are aware of the credit card incident. But, because Caruso's disappearance is still considered an ongoing investigation, details cannot be released.

Bernadette's relatives won't give up on their own investigation. They'll continue scouring the Internet and asking television shows to take up her case.

"The only people out there who do not want these cases in the public eye are those who perpetrated the crimes," Johnson said.

Bernadette's family still believes they will eventually find an answer.

"You always hope," Stevenson said. "But it seems like the ball has been dropped from the beginning. The police dropped it at the beginning with the way they did it, the way they interviewed people."

There's also always the chance that someone, somewhere who knows what happened will finally yield to the stirrings of a guilty conscience. Maybe.

"I don't think some people have a conscience," Stevenson said.