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Vallese, then 34, would be 71 years old now.
According to the state police’s “wanted and missing” website, www.troopers.ny.gov, Vallese may have been involved in organized crime activities in New York City.
He was last seen around 8:30 p.m. on May 14, 1979, driving north on the New York State Thruway, police said.
Nine days later, his blue 1977 Chevrolet was found parked at his house on Smithtown Road, but Vallese was nowhere to be found.
His estranged wife reported him missing after he failed to come pick up their children as scheduled, according to The Charley Project, an organization that maintains, it claims, one of the “largest and most detailed online databases of American missing persons cold cases."
According to www.charleyproject.org, investigators had been hoping to talk to an “associate” of Vallese’s named "Teddy Cohen."
Police have been unable to locate Cohen, and it may be possible that the name is an alias, www.charleyproject.org said.
Vallese was described by state police as 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighing 150 pounds and having brown hair and brown eyes.
At the time he vanished, he was balding and wore his hair long in the back.
He also had a bushy mustache and a tattoo on his right arm of a cross with a heart and the words “In Memory of Mom,” state police said.
Anyone with any information is asked to call state police, Troop K in Wappingers Falls, at (845) 298-0952 or email nysvicap@troopers.ny.gov.
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