Alexander Eugene Sztanko

Alexander Eugene Sztanko was a teenager of modest and everyday virtues: a son who helped his family, a youth who enjoyed riding dirt bikes and playing soccer, and a member of his church’s youth activities. Born in late 1974, Alex had just completed the ninth grade at Potomac High School and was about to enter the tenth grade when his life was cut tragically short in June 1990. Neighbors and family recalled a boy who willingly took on chores — he mowed his grandmother’s lawn to earn money — and who sang in his church youth choir and attended Sunday school, the small commitments that often reveal a young person’s kindness and sense of belonging.

Family and community response to Alex’s death reflected how known and loved he was. More than 500 people gathered at Saint Paul United Methodist Church in Woodbridge for his funeral, where friends and relatives celebrated the moments they had with him and grieved the life that will never be fulfilled. Floral tributes and the presence of so many from his hometown stand as a quiet testament to the relationships he had built in school, church, and the neighborhood.

Public records and contemporary news accounts describe factual details about his disappearance and the investigation that followed. Those facts are part of the public record, but they do not define who Alexander was at his core. What remains most important for a remembrance is the young life he lived: a boy who rode his motorbike with friends, sang with his peers in church, helped his family, and whose absence was felt deeply by those who knew him.

In remembering Alexander Eugene Sztanko, family and community chose to honor the ordinary warmth of his days — the chores done for loved ones, the activities shared with friends, and the Sunday mornings in church — rather than allowing the circumstances of his death to eclipse the person he was. His name endures in the memories of those everyday gestures, and in the quiet hope that remembrance brings comfort to the family who loved him.