Mary Elizabeth Hare was 18 when she vanished from the Edison Mall parking lot in Fort Myers, Florida, on February 11, 1981. She had gone to the mall to pick up her mother, a routine she had done many times. Her green Buick was left in the lot with the doors unlocked and the keys missing; there were no immediate signs of struggle at the scene.

In June 1981 decomposed remains identified as Hare’s were found in a remote field near Alabama Road and Highway 82 in Lehigh Acres. She was found fully clothed and had been stabbed in the back, establishing the death as a homicide. The isolated, undeveloped location suggested the body had been deliberately concealed, and the condition of the remains indicated she had been killed shortly after disappearing.

Investigators noted striking similarities between Hare’s case and that of 17-year-old Mary Opitz, who disappeared from the same mall parking lot less than a month earlier; both young women had New York backgrounds, a similar regional accent, and frequented the same restaurant, though there was no evidence they knew each other.

Did anyone who knew Mary Elizabeth or who shopped at Edison Mall in early 1981 notice a suspicious vehicle or person around February 11?