Karen Farmer Beard, 35 and seven and a half months pregnant, vanished from Harriman, Tennessee in the winter of 1991. She was last seen on the evening of January 15, dropping her two young daughters at her former in-laws’ home in Kingston. Karen was in the middle of a bitter custody dispute with her ex-husband, Reece Beard, and family members said she was mortally afraid of him.

She never showed up for her Shoney’s shift the next day. A few days later deputies, escorted by her lawyer, searched her neat, undisturbed apartment and found her purse, wallet, and car keys still inside. Karen’s car turned up abandoned near the Clinch River, less than a mile from the former in-laws’ house. A woman who called a local wrecker service that day identified herself as Karen, but a tow employee later said the recording did not sound like her.

Authorities suspect foul play and believe she may have been taken to a house in Kingston, killed, and her body disposed of. Investigators looked at several friends of her ex-husband as possible suspects; one man later offered to talk while dying of cancer but died before giving a statement. No charges have ever been filed. Does anyone have information about Karen’s movements in January 1991 or about houses near the Clinch River where she might have been taken?