Kari Lynn Nixon was 16 when she vanished from Au Sable Forks, New York, after leaving home to buy groceries on the evening of June 22, 1987. She was seen at 10:05 p.m. on Palmer Street about 700 feet from her house; five minutes later a group of boys passed the same spot and found no one. Extensive searches produced no sign of her for nearly seven years.

A break came after an unrelated arrest in January 1994. Robert Anthony Jones, then 29, confessed that he followed Kari from the store, forced her into his car at gunpoint, took her to a remote family cabin in Jay, assaulted her, and shot her in the chest. He led authorities to a shallow grave on January 28, 1994, where Kari’s remains and the groceries she had bought were recovered.

In February 1994 Jones pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping, first-degree rape, and second-degree murder and received an 18 years to life sentence to run concurrently with a separate 15-year sentence for bank robbery. Did anyone in Au Sable Forks at the time notice an unfamiliar car or person near the Thomas’ Country Store that night?