1983 murder of Lynn gas station manager unsolved

LYNN – On the night of Sept. 4, 1983, Vernon Mungin called his wife to say he would be home as soon as he finished his shift at the Old Colony gas station on Walnut Street.But he never made it. Instead, he was found lying in a 4-foot wide river of blood inside the locked station.Lynn Police Captain Mark O’Toole said the 33-year-old gas station manager had been shot once in the stomach around 10:30 p.m., during an attempted armed robbery.Witnesses say two white men in their 20s pulled up to the station in a rusted vehicle and began arguing with Mungin, who was outside retrieving coins from the Coke machine.A scuffle ensued and Mungin was shot and killed over what appeared to be not much more than the change from the machine. After staggering back to the station, Mungin managed to lock the door and collapsed against it, where two people found him after they pulled up for gasoline.”He yelled for help to the men, but wasn’t able to make a statement,” O’Toole said.Police smashed the glass door with their nightsticks in order to get to Mungin, who died of a massive hemorrhage at the former Lynn Hospital, about an hour after he spoke to his wife. The bullet apparently pierced an artery near his navel, and because Mungin had a problem with clotting, he quickly bled to death in the station that he worked at for six years.”This was very senseless and didn’t appear that Mungin was in any way a threat,” O’Toole said.The scene of the crime, which is now home to a Dunkin Donuts, is located near the Saugus line. The suspects allegedly fled toward Saugus, but disappeared and have been free for almost 28 years.While the investigation started off with extensive interviews and leads, O’Toole said little information has come through since. One tip was placed in 2008, but the caller later recanted the details.For nearly two decades after his murder, Mungin’s wife, Jeanette, who died in 2010, worked vigorously to keep her husband’s memory alive. She co-founded the North Shore chapter of Parents of Murdered Children and Other Survivors of Homicide and held vigils near the site on his birthday.”It was very commendable of her (Jeanette) to have done that and I hope that we can continue what she has done,” O’Toole said. “We want to keep the momentum going to develop stronger information and see if new information can be examined more closely.”Mungin was born in Philadelphia and had lived in Lynn for the past 10 years before his murder. He had recently purchased a new home with his wife and two children and was working a second job as a cleaner at Cindy’s Donuts on Union Street to make ends meet.Anyone with information on this cold case is urged to call the police at 781-595-2000. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by texting the word tiplynn and the information to tip411 or 847411. Tips can be submitted through the department’s website, www.lynnpolice.org, and clicking the submit tip icon.