Bessie Williams, 19, vanished from Johnson City, New York, after picking up her paycheck at the Quality Inn Lodge and Convention Center in Endwell on November 4, 1983. She was last seen at 1:15 p.m. and expected to catch a bus to her apartment on Main Street but never arrived; family reported her missing to the Johnson City Police Department.

On April 11, 1985, skeletal remains found in woods off King Street in the Town of Barker were forensically identified as Bessie’s, and her death was ruled a homicide. Investigators traced a significant lead back to the fall of 1983: citizens had towed a man’s vehicle from a field bordering the same woods. That man became the primary suspect and was described as a white male about 25 to 30 years old, 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 10 inches, medium build with a pot belly, wearing work boots, jeans and a blue windbreaker. His car was reported as a late 1970s white hatchback, possibly a Ford, with reddish-brown interior and a stick shift.

No arrests have been announced and the man’s identity remains unknown. Did anyone in the area know of a vehicle like that or someone fitting that description in late 1983?