Nearly a month after a 75-year-old believed to be alone in the U.S. was shot and killed near a Dayton bus stop, her local family members have learned of the homicide.
Stephanie Rideout of Aurora, Ind. said she just learned of the death of her aunt Take Gangloff today. She said the family has been trying to locate her for years.
"We lost contact with her the past seven to 10 years," Rideout said. " We've often wondered what happened to Aunt Take? Is she alive?"
Rideout's mother Alice Fischbach said she tried to find her former sister-in-law many times over the years, and was shocked to find out she'd been murdered.
"I just can't believe it. I tried to find her for so many years and to find her this way it's terrible," Fischbach said.
Gangloff was found shot to death on the sidewalk near a Greater Dayton RTA bus stop on Norwood Avenue Sept. 13. Police arrested a 17-year-old suspect over the weekend, who they say shot Gangloff in the head during a robbery gone wrong. That teen is being held pending possible charges of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and criminal damaging in juvenile detention. A three-prosecutor panel will meet, possibly on Friday, to decide how to charge him.
Rideout said she got a call from her father in Dayton Tuesday morning alerting her to a story in The Dayton Daily News about the arrest and a funeral being planned for Thursday by members of the Okinawa Tomonokai of Ohio.
The immigrant group stepped in hold a service when Montgomery County authorities could not locate any family in the United States. That service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at Georgetown Village. Calvary Cemetery donated a plot and headstone for Gangloff.
Gangloff married Fischbach's brother Albert Gangloff while he was touring Japan as a Marine. He brought her to the U.S. in the 1970s, but they soon divorced.
"When my brother and her divorced I promised my brother I would take care of her... and she disappeared," Fischbach said. The family suspects contact was broken off because Gangloff started dating Fischbach's ex.
They said Gangloff got jobs as a maid, a nanny and worked for the family's apartment management company for a time.
"Take was a very loving person. She would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it," Fischbach said.
She said she wants to find out why the teenager accused of shooting Gangloff did it.
"Why did he do it? That's the main thing," she said.
News Center 7 and The Dayton Daily News spoke exclusively with Gangloff's family today. See more of the interview during the 6 p.m. newscast.