Cindy Carlton Stewart was 20 when she was killed after a night of heavy drinking on December 31, 1978. From Columbus, Georgia, she was in Pasco County, Florida, that night with Robert M. Hardagree and another man, Eddie Ray Harvard. Hardagree drove Stewart to a swampy, remote lovers’ lane area and murdered her; a hunter found her body on January 15, 1979. Police estimated she had been dead about ten days and she was initially unidentified as the Tattooed Lady.

Stewart’s death was investigated alongside a wider string of homicides around Tampa Bay that had prompted a multi-county task force. The cases involved victims who were often sex workers or transient, and investigators considered theories ranging from a single Gulf Killer to inter-pimp feuds; some confessions in the wider series were later questioned. On April 2, 1980, 23-year-old Robert M. Hardagree was arrested, tried, convicted and, on October 15, 1980, sentenced to life in prison for Stewart’s murder.

Did anyone in the area at the time recall seeing Stewart, Hardagree or Eddie Ray Harvard that New Year’s Eve?