Twelve-year-old Mindi Coleen Thomas was last seen on August 3, 1987, in Gresham, Multnomah County, Oregon, in the company of Gail Bennett, who was dating a man named Todd Alan Reed. Mindi disappeared that day; her remains were found in October 1987 near a hiking trail by Mt. Hood Community College. An autopsy determined she had been strangled, and the missing-person inquiry became a homicide investigation.

Investigators focused on Todd Alan Reed, who was a registered sex offender from adolescence and matched the description of a suspect seen talking to another young girl murdered that year. No charges were filed in Mindi’s case; the limitations of forensic technology in 1987, including the absence of DNA testing at the time, are cited as a major impediment. Reed was later convicted in unrelated murders in 1999, and Gail Bennett was never charged in Mindi’s death.

Does anyone have information about Mindi’s last known movements on August 3, 1987, or about contacts between her, Gail Bennett, and Todd Alan Reed that could help reopen leads?