Anne Jean Wilcox Dawson, 49, of Birmingham, Alabama, disappeared after leaving a lakeside cottage near Guntersville and beginning the trip home on the evening of September 23, 1974. She was last seen by her sister on September 22 and planned to return to Birmingham to work at her Fairfield beauty shop the following Tuesday; her failure to show up and lack of contact was out of character. Dawson had serious medical needs, including failing kidneys and a colostomy, and left behind medications and supplies she would have needed.

Witnesses placed her in a Birmingham lounge on September 23, where she left with a man described as about 30, six feet tall, reddish hair below the ears, wearing a plaid shirt, gold-colored pants, a white belt and white shoes with buckles. Her car was found the next day outside another lounge several miles away. In notes from recorded statements, fugitive Paul John Knowles later said he met a beautician named Ann in an Alabama bar that month, abducted her at knifepoint, drove her west, sexually assaulted and strangled her, and stole cash; investigators concluded the account fit Dawson’s disappearance. Extensive searches turned up no trace and her body was never recovered. The court later found she had died on or about September 24, 1974.

Did anyone in the Guntersville or Birmingham area remember seeing Dawson that weekend or recognize the man described?