Emma Lee Henderson was 23 when she disappeared from New Orleans in the late summer of 1976 while visiting her sister. Described as a Black woman with black hair and brown eyes, she stood between 5 feet 1 inch and 5 feet 3 inches and weighed about 110 to 120 pounds. At the time she wore her hair in an afro but sometimes used brown wigs; a distinctive gold cap with a star engraved on a front tooth and a prior fractured ankle that may have left a scar or slight limp were noted.

Accounts place her last known whereabouts at the 2100 block of Lizardi Street, leaving her sister’s home around 5:00 p.m. in early September — reports give either September 1 or September 8 — in the company of a friend from Pascagoula who was reportedly going to drive her home. She never arrived in Pascagoula and was not seen again. A Times-Picayune missing persons notice ran on November 28, 1976, and a formal report was filed with the Pascagoula Police Department on May 17, 2019. Few additional details are available about what happened after she left her sister’s house that day.

If anyone knew Emma, her movements in New Orleans that evening, or the friend who was driving her, please share what you know with the Pascagoula Police Department.