Small Michigan Town Has No Answers About 2 Girls Who Went Missing 50 Halloweens Ago
Halloween conjures up images of fright and horror, but they're fictionalized. Imagine the trauma of having a child go missing on Halloween. That's what happened to two families in the small eastern Michigan community of Oscoda.
Patricia Spencer (left) and Pamela Hobley (right) both went missing on Halloween of 1969 - 50 years ago as of 2019. Both were students at Oscoda High School but were not known to be friends thought they were seen together on the day this disappeared. There has been no resolution to the case.
What happened Halloween 1969, Runaway or Abduction?
October 31 of 1969 was a Friday. Halloween, of course, and Homecoming celebration for Oscoda High School. Both girls had stated plans to attend the game and a subsequent party.
Early theories considered that the girls may have run off, perhaps to Flint, 130 miles south. That came to be unlikely after it was reported neither girl left their home with purses, ID or any additional clothing.
Investigations undertook in '69 and relayed in a Medium article by Unexplained Realms state the girls left Oscoda High School after a bomb threat. They hitched a ride from their school to downtown, about 4 miles.
The trail goes cold from there. The girls never returned to school, never attended Homecoming or the Halloween party that Friday night.
It would take another 15 years before a new theory would emerge.
Renewed Investigations + a Person of Interest
In 1985 police revealed that a tip led them to a barn that was once a teenage hangout. According to the Medium article, the tipster indicated
the two were murdered by ‘two area men’ and buried by a barn. The barn was a popular location for teenage parties in the area. The location was searched with the assistance of cadaver dogs, but the search provided no evidence of human remains at the scene. There isn’t any information regarding the owner of the property.
Was it foul play then? It would take another 25 years and a new detective on the case to make another step toward resolution. Beginning in 2010 with fresh eyes looking at the case and new interviews conducted, a "person of interest" was identified but there is not enough evidence to move forward.
Somebody Knows Something?
With a person of interest but not enough evidence, it certainly makes one think that someone knows something. A 2018 article in the hometown Iosco County News-Herald details the case and concludes with a 1970 letter-to-the-editor from Patty Spencer's mother, Arlene:
I have done everything I can think of to find my daughter. So now I am just plain begging. Some of you have to know how the girls left here. I know it’s a sin for one kid to tell on another and I admire your loyalty to a certain extent. I feel sometimes you use it in the wrong direction. You do not tell on a friend. If they use drugs, drink or steal. That is their business, you don’t approve about you don’t tell.
Someone knows something indeed.
Utility polls on the streets around Oscoda continue to carry the plea of Arlene Spencer, where are these girls?