On the night of March 2, 1998, Suzanne Gloria Lyall (born April 6, 1978),[1] an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Albany, left her job at the Babbage's in Crossgates Mall in the nearby suburb of Westmere after the store had closed.

Five years later, he also signed into law the Suzanne Lyall Campus Safety Act, part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, based on similar legislation the state passed the year after Suzanne disappeared,[3] which requires college police departments to have plans for investigating missing-persons cases and serious crimes on campus.

[8] Transferring to Albany brought her closer not only to her home but to her boyfriend Richard Condon, a fellow student several years her senior, whom she had started dating when they were both still in high school.

One was at a computer company in Troy, the other at a Babbage's store in the Crossgates Mall, 2 miles (3.2 km) west of campus in the suburb of Westmere.

Mary Lyall recalls that the last time she actually spoke to her daughter, on March 1, 1998, Suzanne had complained about being low on cash and waiting for her next paycheck.

[8] In late February 1998, Suzanne's manager at Babbage's recalled that she had been stressed about an upcoming midterm exam, which she said she needed not only to pass but excel on.

She took it the morning of March 2 and attended other classes until 4 p.m. After that, she went from the school's North Campus, where she lived in the Colonial Quad dorm, to her job at Babbage's.

[2] The next morning, March 3, Condon, who attended a different college in the Albany area, called Doug and Mary Lyall to tell them Suzanne had not returned to her dorm the night before and was missing.

[13] They called the campus police to formally report her missing, and were told that brief absences were not uncommon for college students, so they should not worry as it was likely that she would soon reappear.

[14] The Lyalls also called Suzanne's bank, who informed them that their daughter's debit card had been used to withdraw $20 from an ATM at a Stewart's Shops convenience store in Albany at approximately 4 p.m.[2] Two days later, a delay Doug Lyall later criticized, the campus police agreed after Suzanne missed another midterm test,[12] as well as her other scheduled classes,[14] that her disappearance was not a typical case of a missing undergraduate and called in the New York State Police for assistance.

[9] In the first two weeks of the investigation, police looked into 270 leads and searched 300 acres (120 ha) near Collins Circle, including the wooded area and Rensselaer Lake in the eastern end of the Albany Pine Bush just across Interstate 90 from that part of the campus.

[16] Lyall's parents said that Stewart's, at the intersection of Central Avenue and Manning Boulevard 2 miles (3.2 km) southeast of the campus,[17] was not in a part of the city that Suzanne frequented.

[2] The bank also told the Lyalls and police that their records showed that Suzanne's card was used to make two withdrawals from different ATMs on the day she disappeared.

[16] A convicted rapist who had violated parole and left the area around the time Suzanne disappeared was briefly considered a suspect, but police were able to interview and exclude him after he was returned to New York from Illinois.

[9] Based on the bus driver's uncertainty as to whether Suzanne had indeed disembarked at Collins Circle, police also began considering the possibility that she might never have returned to campus that night.

In May, her Babbage's name tag was found about 90 feet (27 m) away from the bus stop, in the parking lot, opposite from the direction she would have walked if returning to her dorm.

While nothing unusual happened during the brief stop, Mary said in 2012 that she wondered if her daughter had in fact given Condon a "Dear John letter" ending the relationship.

[20] Since Saratoga Springs is a short distance from Ballston Spa, the Lyalls' hometown, police and the family wondered if he might have been responsible for Suzanne's disappearance.

While Mary Lyall has dismissed them, noting that there are so many bodies of water in the Capital District as to make that information too vague to be useful, she nevertheless told Schenectady's Daily Gazette in 2016 that she has persistently experienced "an odd feeling" any time she has driven across the Crescent Bridge, along U.S. Route 9 over the Mohawk River, between Albany and Ballston Spa.

"[27] Within a year of their daughter's disappearance, Doug and Mary Lyall had begun lobbying for changes in New York law to address what they saw as shortcomings of the original investigation.

From a victims' support group, they learned of a California couple who had successfully lobbied legislators to make similar changes after their daughter, Kristin Smart, had gone missing in 1996 from a college campus in that state.

It passed, and on April 6, 1999, Suzanne's 21st birthday, Governor George Pataki signed it into law, with institutions of higher learning required to be in compliance by the beginning of 2000.

[3] The Lyalls then focused their efforts on getting federal law changed to increase the age at which local police must report missing persons to the National Crime Information Center from 17 to 21.