John Michael Baham, known as Michael, was 22 and home in Oakdale, Louisiana, for Christmas when he disappeared on the evening of December 23, 1991. He was seen at the Bayou Store about 7:30 p.m. and reportedly driving away to meet a friend at a car wash. At about 9:30 p.m. a witness saw his pickup near the Calcasieu River Bridge on Highway 10; the truck’s lights were on and then suddenly went out.

The next morning Michael’s father found the pickup on a dirt road under the bridge with the keys in the ignition (switch in the on position) and a dead battery. Michael’s coat and his shotgun were inside the vehicle, and there were no signs of a struggle. Temperatures had fallen to 17 degrees that night, and the family says Michael would not have left without his coat. He had recently cashed a paycheck; nearly $4,000 remained untouched in his bank account.

Investigators questioned two men who had been sleeping in a car near where the truck was found but they denied knowledge. In 1998 an inmate who was 13 at the time of the disappearance implicated Paul A. Kilgore and pointed to Dead Man’s Lake; an excavation turned up nothing and a jury found insufficient evidence to indict Kilgore. Foul play is strongly suspected. Does anyone who lived in the Oakdale area in 1991 have memories or information that could help fill in the gaps?