Famous People Who Vanished and Were Never Found

New York farmer Soloman Northrup was a free man, the son of free parents, who was also a professional violinist. While in Washington, D.C. for a traveling musician job, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana. He later regained his freedom and wrote a memoir entitled “Twelve Years A Slave”. While working as an abolitionist, Northrup disappeared from public records. Although the details of his death are unknown, some family members believe he was kidnapped and forced into slavery once again.

This 25-year-old heiress left her parents’ Upper East Side home to go dress shopping one afternoon and never returned. She headed down 5th Avenue, where she bought chocolates, stopped at a bookstore, and then promptly vanished. Arnold’s parents hired a private detective agency to investigate her disappearance, but no substantial clues were ever found.

Amelia Earhart was a celebrated aviator who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Her final flight was a journey around the world that ended when her plane ran out of fuel as she and her navigator sought Howland Island, a coral atoll between Hawaii and Australia. The bones of a castaway found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro in the 1940s were consistent with Earhart’s build, but they have since been lost. (Deep sea exploration company Deep Sea Vision believes to have found her downed plane but nothing has been confirmed.)

By age 14, Barbara Newhall Follett was a successful author who had already written three books. She lived an adventurous young life sailing on ships, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and tramping through Europe. However, when she married and settled down, her waning career and her husband’s infidelity triggered an episode of depression. After a quarrel with her husband one evening, she left the house with $30 and a notebook and was never seen again.

The author of the acclaimed children’s book “The Little Prince,” was also a pioneering aviator who joined the French Air Force at the start of WWII. While flying a reconnaissance mission for Allied forces in 1944, Saint-Exupéry took off in a P-38 from Corsica and disappeared. A French fisherman found his identification bracelet off Marseilles in 1998, and years later, divers found remnants of his aircraft in the same location.

Glenn Miller was a trombonist and big band leader who headed one of the most popular swing bands of the 20th century. Miller joined the U.S. Army Air Forces hoping to entertain the troops during WWII. While attempting to get from England to France for a performance, he boarded a small flight that disappeared over the English Channel, possibly crashing due to frozen fuel lines.

Dancer and model Jean Spangler had just broken into the acting world with a few bit parts when she vanished at the age of 27. Her purse was found a few days after her disappearance in Griffith Park with a cryptic note addressed to someone named Kirk that stated she couldn’t wait any longer and was going to see a doctor. Her whereabouts were never discovered.

The youngest son of Nelson Rockefeller was on an expedition to New Guinea, attempting to collect indigenous art from the Asmat people, when the pontoon boat he was on overturned offshore. Although two local guides went to get help, Rockefeller eventually attempted to swim the 12 miles to shore and disappeared. He was presumed drowned, but many believe he made it to shore and was killed by the Asmat. A 2014 book included information stating tribal elders and villagers killed him but no remains were ever found.

Federal convict Frank Morris planned and executed an escape from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island, along with two other inmates, brothers John and Clarence Anglin. Using plaster dummy heads with real hair to fool the night guards, the men crawled through air vents and used a makeshift raft to leave the island. No evidence exists that the three ever made it to shore. The escape was the subject of a book by J. Campbell Bruce and a 1979 Don Siegel film starring Clint Eastwood.

Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim at Cheviot Beach in Portsea and quietly slipped under the waves after being dragged out by a strong undertow. His body was never recovered. Holt likely died of accidental drowning, but conspiracy theories emerged after his disappearance, one suggesting that Holt had faked his death and defected to China.

Formerly an OSS operative, Jim Thompson began trading in silk after WWII and is credited with revitalizing the silk industry in Thailand. While on vacation in Malaysia, Thompson went for a walk and vanished. Despite extensive search efforts including bloodhound tracking, he was never found. It was rumored that the Communist Party of Malaysia assassinated him.

The son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, Sean Flynn was a successful war photojournalist who disappeared during the Vietnam War while on assignment along with photojournalist Dana Stone. Flynn and Stone were heading out of Phnom Penh on motorcycles toward a checkpoint manned by Vietnamese Communists the last day they were seen. Some eyewitnesses reported that the two men were stopped at the checkpoint and taken into the woods.

A man calling himself Dan Cooper boarded a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, and then hijacked the plane along with $200,000. After allowing passengers to deplane in Seattle, the plane took off again toward Mexico, and Cooper parachuted out into the night with the cash. His body was never found, but $5,800 of the money was found in the Columbia River in 1980.

Unable to make a living as a musician in Greenwich Village’s folk scene, Connie Converse moved home to Michigan and fell into depression. Days after her 50th birthday, she told friends and family she was heading out to make a fresh start in Ann Arbor. She was never seen or heard from again.

Oscar Zeta Acosta was a central figure in the Chicano Movement before he disappeared in Sinaloa, Mexico. An attorney, activist, and novelist who inspired Hunter S. Thompson’s character “Dr. Gonzo” in the novel “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas,” his last known conversation was a phone call to his son, informing him that he was about to board a sailboat.

After recording two unsuccessful studio albums in Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Jim Sullivan drove to Nashville to jumpstart his career. En route, he stopped at a motel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, but didn’t sleep in the room. His car was later found abandoned 26 miles away on a remote ranch, with his money, guitar, and records inside.

A labor organizer and former president of the Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa had various connections to organized crime throughout his career. He faced multiple prosecutions for fraud, jury tampering, and conspiracy. After heading to a restaurant to meet with two known mobsters, Hoffa called his wife and informed her that the men never showed up. He was never heard from again and is largely presumed to have been killed by the Mafia.

“Sweet” Jimmy Robinson is best known for fighting Cassius Clay (the future Muhammad Ali) in 1961 and losing to a knockout in the first round. He retired in 1969 and was last photographed and interviewed in 1979. Reporters and sports enthusiasts have since attempted to learn of his fate, but no records exist of the rest of his life or death.

Michael and Lindy Chamberlin were on a family camping trip with their three children, sons Aidan and Reagan, and nine-month-old baby Azaria Chamberlain. Azaria had been placed in her bassinet earlier, when Lindy, upon hearing the baby’s cries, approached the tent to see a dingo running away. Azaria’s bloodstained clothing was later found at the base of Uluru, but her body was never located. The case has been the subject of several books and the 1988 film “A Cry in the Dark,” starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill as the Chamberlains.

The guitarist and lyricist for the Welsh band Manic Street Preachers, Richey Edwards struggled with substance abuse and self-harm. He disappeared at age 27, and his car was found near a bridge that was famous for suicide attempts. Many assumed that he’d killed himself but his body was never found and some evidence suggests that he staged his disappearance.

Best known as the bassist for the band Loverboy, Canadian musician Scott Smith was at the wheel of his sailboat off the coast of San Francisco, when a freak 25-foot wave pummeled the vessel and turned it on its side. Smith was washed overboard and despite immediate efforts to locate his body, it was never recovered.

Former NBA center Bison Dele bought a catamaran and set sail from Tahiti toward Hawaii with his brother, Miles Dabord; his girlfriend, Serena Karlan; and skipper Bertrand Saldo. Two weeks later, Dabord sailed the boat back to Tahiti alone. Authorities assume that Dabord murdered the three other passengers, whose bodies were likely thrown overboard, but before the matter could be resolved, Dabord intentionally overdosed on insulin and died.

Child actor Joe Pichler, who appeared in the Beethoven film series as well as in “Varsity Blues,”  returned to his hometown in Washington and vanished one evening. During his last phone call to a friend, he was described as inconsolable and intoxicated. His car was found abandoned with a note inside that expressed his wish to be a better sibling and a desire for some of his belongings to be passed to his younger brother.

Up-and-coming Canadian rapper DY (Die Young) released his hit single “Passenger” with fellow artist Danny Fernandez in 2009. He was working on an album with another rapper when he told his parents he planned to head to Mexico to shoot a music video. Although he was reported missing in Mexico, there is no proof that he ever left the country and he has not been seen since. His last Twitter post came in early September of that year, but his whereabouts remain unknown.

Rico Harris briefly played for the Harlem Globetrotters but quit due to complications from a previous injury, and subsequently struggled with alcohol dependence before getting clean in 2007. In 2014, Harris left his mother’s home in Alhambra, California, to drive to Seattle, but never made it. His car was found abandoned in the mountains west of Sacramento.