On the evening of December 12, 1990, Norine Higuchi Brown told her husband she was running a quick errand to the Pathmark on Jericho Turnpike in Garden City Park. She needed ingredients for Christmas cookies. The store was less than a mile from their New Hyde Park home, and she often went shopping late at night to avoid the crowds.
At home, her two children were asleep: Anthony, 18 months old, and Alexa, five months old. Norine left around 11:00 p.m. and never came back. The following morning was her 32nd birthday.
A Life in New Hyde Park
Norine Higuchi was born on December 13, 1958, the second of four children in a close-knit Long Island family. Her mother, Margot, was a German immigrant who worked as a seamstress and housekeeper. Her father, Don, owned a carpeting store. Growing up in Uniondale, New York, Norine was athletic from an early age, excelling at swimming, gymnastics, skiing, and judo.
Her personality was warm and outward-facing. “Everyone loved Norine,” a childhood friend later said. She was popular at Uniondale High School in a way that stayed with people for decades.
After graduating, she worked briefly in an office and then in banking. It was during this period that she met John Brown, an FDNY firefighter. They settled together in New Hyde Park, on Nassau County’s Long Island, and built a young family. By December 1990, their son Anthony was 18 months old and their daughter Alexa had just turned five months. Elaine Commando, one of Norine’s closest friends, was Alexa’s godmother.
The Last Evening
December 12, 1990, began like any Wednesday in the weeks before Christmas. Norine spent the afternoon with her children and a friend, Christmas shopping at the mall, stopping so the children could have their photograph taken with Santa Claus. In the evening, she drove her sister home to Franklin Square before returning to New Hyde Park. She prepared dinner, settled the children into their bedtime routine, and was there when Anthony and Alexa fell asleep.
Sometime before 11:00 p.m., she told John she was going to the Pathmark to pick up what she needed for cookies. The trip was routine for her. She preferred shopping at off-hours. She took her pocketbook, which had $45 in it, and left her wallet and identification at home. She drove alone toward the store, less than a mile away. She was never seen again.
The Car in the Parking Lot
John Brown called Elaine Commando at 8:00 a.m. the following morning. He explained that he and Norine had argued before she left the night before, and he wondered if she might have stayed at Elaine’s house to cool off. Elaine told him she hadn’t heard from Norine. John asked if she could go check the Pathmark.
“I said to him, ‘Is there anything I can do?'” Elaine later recalled. “And he said, ‘Can you go to Pathmark and see if her car is there?'”
At the time, Elaine was not yet alarmed. She thought there might be a simple explanation. Then she arrived at the parking lot. Norine’s station wagon was there, locked. Inside were wrapped Christmas gifts and Norine’s pocketbook, the $45 still inside. The car was parked far from the store’s entrance in a spot that stopped Elaine cold.
“I wasn’t sure why she would park in that spot, at 11 o’clock at night,” Elaine said. “She probably would have parked closer to the store.”
Elaine called John from the store’s telephone. He came to the parking lot. John then called the Nassau County Police Department, who arrived but told them they could not file a missing person report until 24 hours had passed. The following day, when Norine still had not surfaced, an official case was opened.
Support came quickly. John was a firefighter, and colleagues from the firehouse joined the search. Friends circulated missing person posters across Long Island. Volunteer groups, family members, and police dogs combed nearby neighborhoods. Elaine and a group of friends even followed a psychic’s tip that Norine’s body had been left in a park in the Bronx. They drove out and searched. They found nothing. “That was really the only search we went on,” Elaine said.
What the Investigation Found
Detectives questioned Pathmark employees. Two remembered seeing Norine’s station wagon: one shortly before 11:00 p.m. and another at approximately 2:00 a.m. Whether the car had remained undisturbed through those hours or been moved and returned could not be determined. None of the staff recalled seeing Norine herself inside the store at any point that night.
Those who knew Norine were unanimous that she had not chosen to disappear. “She was a terrific mother,” Elaine said later. “Her kids were her whole life. There’s no way she would have just left.” At the time of her disappearance, her daughter was five months old.
Friends and family acknowledged that the marriage carried strain. Norine’s sister told News 12 in the early 1990s that she believed the couple’s relationship had been troubled and that she suspected John might have been involved in Norine’s disappearance. Suspicion among Norine’s circle centered on the parking spot: a locked car, gifts inside, purse with cash left behind, positioned far from the entrance in a spot Norine would not have chosen.
John maintained his innocence. Investigators found no physical evidence tying him to Norine’s disappearance and never formally named him as a suspect. A Nassau County Police Department spokesperson noted, however, that his cooperation with the investigation had been limited. He declined to allow police to search the family’s home and property, and investigators lacked the probable cause necessary to obtain a warrant.
John told News 12: “I’m not stopping them from doing anything, I’ve never stopped them from anything, other than when they started getting crazy with me, and my lawyer got involved.”
He also publicly stated his belief that Norine had been murdered, citing a report of an argument witnessed in the Pathmark parking lot that night. Police records contained no official report of such an incident.
John had Norine declared legally deceased. He cut off contact with her family entirely, denying them access to Anthony and Alexa. He remarried and had two more children.
Unanswered Questions
For years, the case sat cold. Then, in June 2017, Norine’s former classmates gathered for their 40th high school reunion in Uniondale. Her name came up. “There was a reunion when we all got together and everyone wondered about Norine,” her friend Maria Agosta Przybylski said. “We said we had to reopen the case. Even if we don’t find out what happened to her, just to find her and put her to rest and bring her home: that is what we want for her.”
Maria and Elaine began working with the Nassau County Police Department to keep the case active. They reached out on social media. They pressed for information. Friends launched a FindNorine Facebook page.
In 2019, a tip reached Norine’s friends suggesting her remains might be hidden in a well in the backyard of the apartment building where she and John had been living at the time of her disappearance. The friends brought it to law enforcement. A Nassau County Police Department spokesperson confirmed the well was considered a potential site of interest and stated it would be investigated. Whether any search was conducted has not been publicly confirmed.
No suspect has ever been named. No arrest has ever been made. The Nassau County Police Department has said investigators remain open to hearing from anyone with information. Their number is (516) 573-8800.
