Ricci Lynn Ellsworth, 45, vanished from her overnight shift as a desk clerk at the Memphis Inn in Shelby County, Tennessee, between about 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. on February 8, 1997. The motel office showed signs of a violent struggle: her purse, wallet, and wedding band were left behind, her locked car remained in the parking lot, and a trail of blood droplets and smudges led from the office out toward the lot before ending.

Investigators focused on Ellsworth’s ex-boyfriend, Michael Dale Rimmer, who had a prior 1989 rape conviction involving Ellsworth and had allegedly threatened her while incarcerated. Witnesses that night described a man matching Rimmer’s description with blood on his hands and one witness saw a man place something heavy wrapped in a blanket into the trunk of a maroon Honda. About a month later Rimmer was arrested in Indiana driving a maroon Honda; blood inside the car was forensically matched to the blood at the motel and to Ellsworth.

Although no body has been recovered, Rimmer was convicted of Ellsworth’s murder in 1998; the case later returned to trial and in 2016 a second jury again found him guilty and sentenced him to death. The family has never had the chance to lay Ricci to rest. Does anyone have information about Ricci’s movements that night or memories of the Memphis Inn in early February 1997?