Alison Goodwin Thresher was 45 years old when she disappeared from Bethesda, Maryland, in late May 2000. She was described as a white woman with blonde hair that was turning white, blue eyes, pierced ears, and eyeglasses; she was about 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed roughly 110 pounds. On the evening of May 23, 2000, she had dinner with her parents, then returned to her apartment at Sumner Highlands Apartments on Sangamore Road. Later that night, she spoke with an acquaintance by phone around 10:00 p.m. and sent an email to her employer at approximately midnight, in the first minutes of May 24. After that, she was never heard from again.
The timing of her disappearance made the alarm especially sharp for those who knew her. Alison was supposed to begin a new job as a copyeditor for The Washington Post’s website on May 24, and her family said she was excited about that opportunity.
When she did not appear for work on May 24 or May 25, her employer contacted her family, and her sister reported her missing to Montgomery County Police on May 25. Alison left behind two children, Hannah, then 12, and Sam, then 10. From the beginning, investigators treated the circumstances as troubling because her sudden disappearance was out of character and came just as she was starting a new chapter in her professional life.
The day after Alison vanished, her copper-colored 1997 Volvo station wagon was found abandoned near Ridge Drive and Broad Street, close to the C&O Canal in the Glen Echo/Brookmont area, about a mile or more from her apartment depending on the source’s description. There was no sign of Alison with the vehicle. Searches of the surrounding area did not locate her, and reports noted that her wallet and keys were not found in the car, leading investigators to believe she may have had them with her when she disappeared. Over the following months, the case shifted from a missing-person investigation into a presumed homicide; in February 2001, Montgomery County Police announced that evidence pointed toward foul play, though Alison’s body had not been found.
Years later, the investigation focused renewed public attention on Fernando Asturizaga, a former teacher, soccer coach, after-school care provider, and summer camp employee at Friends Community School in College Park, where Alison’s children had attended school. Montgomery County Police said Alison had suspected Asturizaga was victimizing her daughter and had raised concerns with the school, her ex-husband, and Asturizaga himself, asking that he have no contact with her daughter. In 2010, Hannah disclosed to police that Asturizaga had sexually abused her beginning when she was a child; he was later convicted and sentenced to well over 100 years in prison. In April 2018, police named Asturizaga as a person of interest in Alison’s murder, stating that new forensic analysis suggested Alison may have been killed inside her apartment and that someone attempted to destroy evidence there.
That same day in April 2018, after police publicly identified Asturizaga as a person of interest, he was found unresponsive in his prison cell at Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland, and was pronounced dead; authorities later said his death was ruled a suicide. Police continued investigating after his death. In 2020, Montgomery County detectives said they had received credible information that Alison had been murdered and buried somewhere in the area of the USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville. Investigators searched more than 300 acres but did not locate human remains, and they asked hikers or anyone familiar with the area to report anything unusual.
Alison Thresher’s case remains a painful story of a mother who vanished at a moment when she seemed to be moving toward a hopeful new beginning, only to leave her family with decades of unanswered questions. Authorities have described the case as a homicide investigation, but her remains have not been recovered, and the full truth of what happened inside and after her Bethesda apartment has never been publicly established. The case centers on her last confirmed contacts late on May 23 and just after midnight on May 24, the abandoned Volvo found the next day, evidence police later said suggested a killing and attempted cleanup in her apartment, and the long-running effort to determine whether Fernando Asturizaga was responsible. In overview, Alison Thresher was a devoted mother and journalist who disappeared from Bethesda in May 2000, was later presumed murdered, and whose case continues to stand as an unresolved search for answers, accountability, and the recovery of her remains.Last Seen: May 24, 2000
