Martha Sue Young was a 19-year-old Michigan State University student who disappeared in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1977, after meeting with her former fiancé, Donald Gene Miller. The engagement had ended days earlier, and although Miller at first said he had driven her home, investigators and her family doubted that account.

On October 20, 1977, hunters near Potter Lake in Bath Township found Martha’s clothing and purse; her undergarments were folded and placed inside her outer clothes. That discovery left the case without a body but intensified suspicion. In August 1978 Miller was arrested for the rape and attempted murder of a 14-year-old, and he later confessed to multiple killings, including Martha’s. Under a July 1979 plea agreement he admitted to killing her and led police to her remains in Prigooris Park; he pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter and received a 30 to 50 year sentence.