Michelle Mitchell was 19 and a nursing student at the University of Nevada, Reno when she disappeared on the evening of February 24, 1976. Her car broke down near campus as she was on her way to deliver orange juice to her father. After calling her mother from a nearby phone booth for help, she vanished; a few hours later her body was found in the garage of a nearby residence, bound and with her throat slashed.

The case took a grim turn when Cathy Woods, then a psychiatric patient in Louisiana, confessed and was convicted in 1980 and again in 1984 largely on that confession despite no physical evidence tying her to the scene. Decades later DNA testing on a cigarette butt recovered near Michelle’s body produced a match to Rodney Halbower, a man already imprisoned for other violent crimes. That DNA link exonerated Woods and identified Halbower as the prime suspect; he was never tried for Michelle’s murder before his death.

Are there details about Michelle’s last hours or anyone who saw her near campus that could still help clarify what happened that night?