Stella Ellen McLean, a 45-year-old schoolteacher from Gering, Nebraska, disappeared from a restaurant in Scottsbluff on the evening of February 7, 1978. Her husband reported her missing the next day and her car was found in the restaurant parking lot a couple of days later, but there were no immediate clues to her fate. McLean was not seen alive again.

On April 15, 1978 a decapitated, unclothed body was located near Interstate 25 about two miles north of Wheatland, Wyoming. Investigators concluded the victim had been sexually assaulted and strangled before decapitation; the head was never recovered and decomposition around the hands delayed identification. In March 1983 fingerprint analysis confirmed the remains were Stella McLean.

Notorious serial killer Henry Lee Lucas later confessed to the killing and named accomplices, but those claims were discredited when corroboration showed the named accomplices were in Florida on the day of McLean’s disappearance and Lucas subsequently recanted. No arrests have been made and the case remains unsolved.

If anyone knew Stella, saw her in Scottsbluff on February 7, 1978, or has information about her movements that evening, please come forward.