Robert “Bobby” Suny had the hair of a “king.” He was about 4 when a lousy cold landed him in the hospital. Soon into Bobby’s nearly weeklong stay, Marilyn Suny Dougherty began hearing nurses remark about her son’s thick, dark mane.
“They called him Elvis,” Marilyn recalled with a faint smile. Bobby got over his cold, but the nickname stuck. “Bobby did love his hair, and as he got older, he liked wearing it long, not the buzz cut he would get every year before (elementary and middle) school started,” his mother said.
“His hair was beautiful.” Bobby was an athlete, a Boy Scout, and a motorhead. He was also an artist, a deep thinker, and a teenage romantic.
He loved music, comic books, animals, and his circle of friends and family. At 87, Marilyn has lived half of her life with only memories of her first-born son, slain nearly 45 years ago. Bobby would be celebrating his 64th birthday on May 31.
“I miss him every day,” she said. Bobby was barely 19 on July 12, 1979, when a discharge from a long rifle cut short his busy, happy life, without any provocation or mercy. The single .
22-caliber round pierced his chest as he was walking along railroad tracks, a shortcut home to Darby from a Catholic church carnival in southwest Philadelphia. According to authorities, that familiar — and final — path led Bobby into the sight of a group of youth drinking and doing drugs in the dark, isolated area. One of them was armed.
Treasure-trove of memories When Bobby.