Gordon Mark Cannella was 17 when he vanished after an armed robbery at a Bayou Vista convenience store in the spring of 1978. His disappearance came amid a wider, grim cluster of missing local youths. On Saturday, May 27, 1978, a farmer found Cannella’s body in a sugar cane field in the Calumet area, and search efforts around Morgan City expanded to boats, officers and volunteers canvassing waterways, field roads and levees.

Investigators linked Cannella’s death to other killings in the area after two young women were found stuffed into an industrial septic tank at a Bayou Vista welding shop. Authorities issued a national bulletin for fugitive Robert Carl Hohenberger, who had been working locally under an alias at the same welding shop and was suspected in the disappearances. Sidney Harris, 38, was arrested and charged as an accessory after the fact to a felony and held on $250,000 bond in connection with the kidnapping-slayings.

The man sought as the central suspect did not face trial in Louisiana. Detectives traced Hohenberger nearly two thousand miles away in Tacoma, Washington; when officers moved to arrest him he reportedly put a gun to his head and fired and later died, leaving many questions unanswered.

Did anyone in the area at that time have information about Cannella’s movements before the robbery or about people connected to the welding shop?