A YUM Publication
No. 7 Vol. 1
Rosemarie D’Alessandro: Author and Advocate for Children
By Evan Wechman osemarie D’Alessandro does not believe in quitting. She didn’t believe in it as a child and still doesn’t believe in it today. D’Alessandro has lived in New Jersy her entire adult life. She has stayed in the small town of Hillsdale, New Jersey through several decades of intense difficulty. As a mother, she has endured more pain and heartache than most people would be able to handle. But she is not like most people. D’Alessandro, who is now in her senior years, gives thanks to her faith and her inner fortitude for her ability to thrive even in the darkest situations. “I’ve always been a fighter even when I was little,” she said. “All my experiences have made me stronger.” D’Alessandro has survived the worst thing that can happen to a mother. Her wonderful daughter Joan, whom she affectionately refers to as Joanie, was murdered when she was seven years old back in April of 1973. Joanie was a girl scout and a loving, trustful child. On April 19, 1973, which was Holy Thursday, she said good-bye to her mother as she went to deliver some boxes of girl scout cookies to her neighbor, three houses down from where she lived. Everything should have gone well, especially since the gentleman she was dropping the cookies off to was a Tappan Zee High School chemistry teacher named Joseph McGowan who worked about ten miles away in Rockland County, New York. McGowan was entrusted with mentoring and assisting young students almost every weekday. But Joanie was betrayed. She was sexually molested and murdered on that Holy Thursday. Her body was found three days later on Easter Sunday buried in a space between rocks in Harriman State Park, in nearby New York State. This would have been too much for almost any mother to handle. But D’Alessandro, over 50 years later, has remained steadfast in making sure such atrocities don’t occur to other parents. In her powerful book, The Message of Light Amid Letters of Darkness, which was published last year, D’Alessandro honestly recounts what transpired during the nearly five decades of pursuing justice for her daughter. In this stunning account, D’Alessandro briefly details what occurred 20 years after the loss of her daughter. At that time, she fought back against the legal system, which was allowing the killer, McGowan to come before the parole board seeking reentry into the community. D’Alessandro wanted to protect other children who may face McGowan upon release. She tirelessly collected over one hundred thousand signatures opposing his parole. Such efforts led to keeping her daughter’s killer behind bars and enacting laws in her home state and on the federal level allowing more rights for victims of such crimes. One of her proudest moments was in April of 1997 when Joan’s Law was signed by Governor Whitman. This said that anyone in New Jersey who murdered a child under 14 years
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Rosemarie at Harriman State Park, the site of where her daughter was buried. Courtesy of Rosemarie D’Alessandro.
Rosemarie’s daughter as a child. Courtesy of Rosemarie D’Alessandro.
of age in conjunction with committing a sexual crime will never be granted parole, nor see the light of day. A federal version was signed by President Clinton in1998. She also rallied her supporters once again in 2000 to help pass a law in New Jersey eliminating the statute of limitations for wrongful death actions brought in murder, manslaughter, and aggravated manslaughter cases allowing victims to sue their perpetrators if they come into money after the crime. A New York version of the bill was signed by Governor Pataki in 2004 in Harriman State Park, the site where Joanie’s body was found. Though these laws are noted in the book, the real pain and misery are detailed in the letters that D’Alessandro provides between McGowan and a pen pal he corresponded with for many years while in prison. She was given these letters by a family member of the woman who corresponded with McGowan, who eventually died in jail in 2021. The book is unflinching as D’Alessandro not only reveals the horrifying letters but details her own emotional responses to reading the words of her daughter’s killer. Though she received these letters shortly before his death, she couldn’t bring herself to read them until after he died. D’Alessandro explains that the letters were painful because it showed how little significance he gave towards the death of Joanie. “When he died, I read the letters even though it was hard. I said these letters must get out there. When I read the first letter, it was so despicable. It was so hard to see what the attitude was going to be of these letters, and so I got sick”, she said. According to her, he wrote about her daughter’s death in the same vein someone would write about the weather. He had absolutely no remorse for his actions. Several months after the book was published, filmmaker Vanessa Martino transformed the book into a harrowing
documentary, Daughter of Mine, which has since won numerous awards. It won “Best Documentary in the New York Shorts International Film Festival”, and more recently won the “Audience Award for Best Short in the Teaneck International Film Festival of 2024.” At most of these film festivals, D’Alessandro usually delivers a brief but strong speech which accompanies the film. Though many people may consider this constant reminder of her daughter’s death to be immensely difficult, D’Alessandro believes that it is all a “tale of victory.” For D’Alessandro, it’s about helping victims of abuse and their families. In the last several years, she has organized a non-profit organization, called The Joan Angela D’Alessandro Memorial Foundation. Through this entity, D’Alessandro can not only push for more stringent laws for abusers, but even works with schools throughout the area to inform teachers of possible signs of abuse in their students. More recently, D’Alessandro has been volunteering her time with parents who have gone through the tragedy of learning their child was subjected to abuse. She spends much of her free time counseling and mentoring parents who have lost their children due to such senseless violence. She connects with these mothers and fathers either inperson or virtually throughout the nation. Though such work can be difficult, she credits all of it to her late daughter Joanie, who continues to inspire her. “I have a relationship with her every day,” she said. “Her spirit is living and helping other people.” Of course, D’Alessandro acknowledges she wishes she had a more typical relationship with Joanie where she could visit her every day and see her grow up, but there is still a strong bond. “She (Joanie) inspired me. She wasn’t concerned about impressions and what people were going to think of her. cont. on page 2