\u201cShe went missing,\u201d Mount Laurel Police Chief Timothy Hudnall said. \u201cOr she was last seen anyway, with her boyfriend at the time. They were out at a restaurant or a bar over in Philly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around the same time, Philadelphia police received a similar call about Petrone who also never made it home after leaving the bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 11:30, 11:45, they left Abilene\u2019s Bar. That was the last they were reportedly seen,\u201d retired FBI agent Vito Roselli said. \u201cThey both disappeared along with Richard Petrone\u2019s Dodge Dakota pickup truck.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imbo \u2013 who worked as a loan mortgage processor — was last seen wearing a dark colored jacket, cream colored sweater and blue jeans. She was also carrying a two-handle black purse at the time of her disappearance.<\/p>\n
Petrone was last seen wearing a gray Polo sweatshirt and blue jeans. He also has a tattoo of the word \u201cAngela\u201d on his left arm and a tattoo of clowns on his right arm.<\/p>\n
Petrone\u2019s pickup truck was a black 2001 Dodge Dakota with the license plate \u201cYFH 2319.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Danielle-Imbo-Richard-Petrone-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Danielle Imbo, Richard Petrone Jr.<\/p>\n
Petrone and Imbo were South Jersey high school friends who had been dating on and off in the months leading up to their disappearance. Imbo had a 1-year-old son with her ex-husband while Petrone had a 14-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a hard-working guy with a lot of friends. Outgoing,\u201d Roselli told NBC10. \u201cJust a typical South Philly dude. Danielle, same thing. Hard-working. Liked to have fun. But nothing nefarious in either one of their backgrounds or their families for that matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roselli said Mount Laurel Police and the Philadelphia Police Department\u2019s South Detectives quickly realized something was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey started working together, trying to track down last known locations, who they were supposed to be meeting,\u201d Roselli said. \u201cThey checked their bank accounts, their phones, their phone records.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roselli eventually took the lead in the case. He told NBC10 that law enforcement received an interesting tip early on.<\/p>\n
\u201cA murder-for-hire on behalf of the LCN,\u201d Roselli said.<\/p>\n
LCN stands for La Cosa Nostra, or the Italian Mafia out of New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was enough meat on that allegation for us to get proactively involved,\u201d Roselli said.<\/p>\n
While investigators weren\u2019t able to move that lead any further, it was not discarded. Roselli said a murder-for-hire scheme is still a possibility. Despite this, he\u2019s still unsure of who would want to have them killed under that scenario.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s my big challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was the whole challenge with this, you know, investigation. I couldn\u2019t figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roselli said there were other tips that came in over the years that mentioned a Camden drug gang, the Pagan motorcycle gang and a drug dealer in Philadelphia\u2019s Fishtown section being possibly involved in the couple\u2019s disappearance. Investigators even looked into those who had been close to the couple.<\/p>\n
\u201cStatistically, it\u2019s the estranged husband. You know, so we did a very deep dive into him and his family,\u201d Roselli said.<\/p>\n
Imbo\u2019s ex-husband has denied having any involvement with the couple\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n
Roselli said a major challenge in the investigation has been the lack of physical evidence or surveillance video. While Petrone told his friends at the bar that his vehicle was parked nearby, police never found the black pickup truck or any evidence of a struggle or break-in, such as broken glass or personal items that had been dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had two bodies missing. You had a truck missing. No crime scene,\u201d Roselli said.<\/p>\n
To this day, Roselli doesn\u2019t believe the couple\u2019s disappearance was an accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cCombing the Delaware River and different bodies of water and we don\u2019t find that truck,\u201d Roselli said. \u201cNot impossible, but, you know, highly unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n
A volunteer search group looked for the pickup truck in 2022 in the Schuylkill River but came up empty. Despite the disappearance remaining unsolved for 20 years, Roselli is still hoping for one tip that will crack the cold case. <\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully somebody has a pain or conscience or finally feels free to come forward to say something,\u201d Roselli said.<\/p>\n
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in Petrone and Imbo\u2019s disappearance. If you have any information on their whereabouts, please call your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate. The FBI can be reached at 215-418-4000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, marks 21 years since the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone Jr. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12223,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-118135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nbc10-investigators","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}