In late spring 1983 the Crocker family of Van Buren, Arkansas, invited a woman calling herself Kathy Johnson to stay for a week to help care for three children while Mary Crocker’s husband was incarcerated. After a party on the night of June 9, 1983, four-month-old Matthew Wade Crocker and Kathy Johnson were gone the next morning; the family’s 1973 Chevrolet Vega was also missing. Matthew’s one-year-old sister was found unharmed in the crib they had shared.

The Vega was recovered the following day at a rest stop near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, but there was no sign of Matthew or the woman. The abductor was described as a white female about 5 feet 4 inches, possibly 26 years old at the time, with blonde or light brown hair, a chipped or decayed front tooth, several tattoos (a unicorn on the upper left arm, the name Kathy with a ribbon on the upper right arm, and a green and yellow star or sunburst on the left chest), and scars on a shoulder blade and above the right knee. Matthew was described as a small infant with brown hair and eyes and pectus excavatum.

Investigators have considered the possibility the woman raised Matthew as her own and that he may be alive; a tip mentioned travel toward California but was never confirmed. Anyone with information about Kathy Johnson, the Vega, or Matthew’s whereabouts is asked to come forward.