On February 10, 1979, Ferrara received a phone call at her salon.[1] She told her 19-year-old niece, Maria Sanacore, that she was meeting someone at a nearby Long Island diner, and Sanacore should come looking for her if she did not return in 15 minutes. Before leaving the salon, Ferrara left behind her purse, car keys, and mink coat. Ferrara also told Sanacore, "I have a chance to make $10,000." Ferrara did not return from the meeting.

On May 18, 1979, a dismembered female torso was found floating in Barnegat Inlet, near Toms River, New Jersey.[2] An autopsy performed at the Saint Barnabas Community Medical Center in Toms River confirmed, through recent breast augmentation surgery, that the body was Ferrara's. To date, no one has stood trial for Ferrara's murder. It is believed that Theresa Ferrara was one of the two women to be murdered in connection with the 1978 Lufthansa Heist.