The 25 Most Mysterious Disappearances in America

There are several levels to this mystery. On Sept, 7, 1987, Tom Young took his dog for a walk near Silver Plume, Colorado, and never returned. Young had been running a bookstore in town, and Keith Reinhard subsequently leased the same space. The new tenant was aware of Young’s disappearance and started writing a novel in which the main character was a composite of both Young and Reinhard. On July 31, 1988, the remains of Young and his dog were found by hunters, each with a gunshot wound to the head. A week later, Reinhard went for a hike in the mountains and never returned.

Hard-rock aficionados remember the 1970s band Iron Butterfly. Philip Taylor Kramer was a bass player for the group in the 1970s, who later utilized his mathematics and computer skills to become a successful entrepreneur. On Feb. 12, 1995, a Los Angeles 911 operator received a call from a man who was later identified as Kramer who said that he was going to kill himself. Then he hung up. Then he disappeared.

Four years later, two hikers exploring Decker Canyon near Malibu Beach discovered the rusted shell of Kramer’s van with his remains inside. The cause of death was a blunt force trauma, but it was not determined whether his death was a suicide, an accident, or a homicide.

On June 27, 1995, TV news anchor Jodi Huisentruit, working for the CBS affiliate in Mason City, Iowa, was scheduled to start her morning shift at 3:50 a.m. When she did not get to the TV studio by 6 a.m., the studio sensed something was wrong and sent a person to her home. They found strewn belongings in her car, including her shoes, two earrings, and her car key, suggesting she was forcibly removed. Huisentruit was never found.

On April 15, 2005, Ray Gricar, a homicide prosecutor for Centre County, Pennsylvania, told his girlfriend he was leaving work early that day to go to Lewisburg, where he planned to shop and go for a walk. The next day, his red Mini Cooper was found by a state trooper in a Lewisburg parking lot across from an antique mall. Technicians detected a cigarette smell, and Gricar reportedly detested the smell of cigarettes.

Gricar’s laptop was found six months later under a bridge and missing its hard drive. The hard drive was found several months later on the banks of the Susquehanna River, so badly damaged that no information could be retrieved from it. No other trace of Gricar was found. He was declared legally dead in 2011.

On July 18, 2007, 55-year-old Barbara Bolick went for a hike with a family friend in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana. According to Jim Ramaker, one of the friends, he and Barbara went to an overlook where they stopped for a snack. Barbara, considered to be a physically fit and experienced hiker, walked back down the trail as Jim took one last look at the view. Then she vanished. She was carrying a black day pack at the time she disappeared, containing a .357 Magnum pistol. More than a decade later, Barbara’s disappearance remains unsolved.