Grim clues haunt missing Bustleton man's family

NOW AND THEN, for a fleeting moment, Lucia Maglio's world feels normal.

Then the weight of the horrific new reality in which Maglio, 26, and the rest of her tight-knit Bustleton family have lived for seven weeks hits her like a freight train.

The family hasn't seen or heard from her father, Vito Maglio Sr., 69, since Dec. 14.

A grandfather with serious health issues including diabetes and an aortic aneurysm, he left that evening to have dinner at his nephew's restaurant and never came home.

"It gets better sometimes, but then sometimes when you're sitting there, you're just thinking about it and thinking about it," Lucia Maglio said at her family's home recently, surrounded by her mother and several relatives.

The few clues that police have uncovered have been ominous:

Vito Maglio's black GMC Yukon was found burning on a rough-and-tumble East Germantown block on Dec. 18. Days after Christmas, crime-scene investigators scoured the charred remains of the SUV and found a pool of blood under the driver's seat and a bullet casing. Arson experts determined that an accelerant had been used to torch the SUV.

Despite the collection of grim evidence, Maglio's disappearance has received little media attention, aside from a handful of stories when he disappeared.

Now, his family is pleading for answers and fighting to make sure he isn't forgotten.

"We're getting married in October and he's not going to be there, but we don't even have an answer," Lucia Maglio said, her eyes filling with tears as her fiance, Tom Thrasher, comforted her.

"And then people are asking you questions and you just don't know what to say. We want something to say. We want an answer."

When Lucia and her mother, Maria Maglio, 64 - who, like her husband of 40 years, was born in Italy - woke up the morning of Dec. 15 and realized Vito Sr. had never come home, worry set in.

They thought maybe he felt ill and went to a hospital alone, something he'd done in the past.

"[He] doesn't like to admit he's not feeling well, or he needs help, so he wouldn't always call us," Lucia said.

Even though Maglio sometimes didn't notify his wife or daughter when he went to the hospital, he still would let another relative know his whereabouts, usually reaching out to his son Vito Jr. or his son's wife, Sandi.

Lucia said she called her brother and his wife, but neither had heard from Vito Sr. But when Sandi called Aria Health's Torresdale hospital, where she said her father-in-law was "a frequent flier," the staff there allayed the family's fears.

"They said, 'Yes, he's here.' . . . We thought everything was OK," Lucia said.

But when Sandi, 38, got to the hospital and scoured the parking lot for Maglio's Yukon - which she would usually take home when he was admitted to the hospital - she couldn't find it.

"I got this eerie feeling that something was wrong," she said.

Lucia said a hospital employee explained there had been a mix-up; the record showing that her father was at the hospital had been from a previous visit.

"That's kind of when we realized this is a serious situation," she said.

In the days that followed, police put out a missing-and-endangered-person alert after learning about Maglio's health problems.

Relatives and friends searched parts of Northeast Philly where they thought he could be.

The man rarely deviated from his routine, they said: He would have dinner almost nightly at his nephew's restaurant, Macaroni's, on Old Bustleton Avenue near Welsh Road, where he often ate lamb chops, or "lollipops," as he called them. He seldom ventured out of Northeast Philly.

Then, on Dec. 18, gut-wrenching news: Investigators showed up at the Maglios' door, explaining that they'd found Vito Sr.'s SUV - burned to a crisp on a desolate block of Beechwood Street near Grange, in East Germantown, a run-down neighborhood 11 miles from Maglio's modest rancher.

His family said he had no ties to that area.

"That just kind of opened up Pandora's box for us, because we were like, 'Why would he be down there, who would've done that to his car?' " Lucia said.

In the SUV, more grim clues: a shell casing and a pool of blood, both of which police sources said are being tested to determine their origin.

Maglio, who once worked as a security guard at the Naval Support Activity base in Lawncrest, had a permit to carry a gun, and always had his gun with him, relatives said.

"He had a superstition that if he didn't carry his gun, something would happen to him," said Vito Maglio Jr., 35.

The family fears that the 5-foot-5 grandfather was carjacked, or that his penchant for random acts of kindness backfired.

"He didn't know when to say no," Sandi Maglio said. "It could have been as simple as [someone saying], 'Hey, can I get a ride?' He thought he could save the world. And you can't do that nowadays."

Maglio's family said he wasn't involved with drugs or anything illicit, noting that illnesses prevented him from even having a drink.

"Was he perfect? No, nobody's perfect," Lucia Maglio said of her father, who loved collecting stamps and coins. "But he doesn't deserve to not be home where he belongs right now."

The loss of Maglio has left a gaping hole in his close-knit family and his community, where he was well-known.

A mechanic, he owned gas stations for years, before opening a cafe at Tyson and Castor and more recently a social club, the Napoli Association in Rhawnhurst, his family said.

In November, the family said, Maglio sold his club and retired.

His children said he was kind to a fault, and recently had taken to compiling books of state quarters and handing them out to any kids he came across. "That's how he carried himself outside, is kindness," said his son Donato, 38.

What's particularly strange about the mysterious disappearance: Nobody saw him after he left Macaroni's that fateful night. He knew many people in the neighborhood, his family said.

Relatives pleaded for anyone who knows anything that might lead them to Maglio to come forward. They are exhausted from seven weeks of anguish. They said they aren't concerned with retribution - they just desperately need answers.

"In the beginning, I said to Little Vito, 'I don't know if I could forgive the people.' But now it's like I can forgive you, because I can't take that hate with me," Sandi said. "We just want him home. That's just what it comes down to now. We need closure so we can continue to laugh at him and just live through the memories."