On the morning of April 19, 1982, 34-year-old Black resident Ray Field Carter left his apartment at 1333 Condon Street in Charlotte, North Carolina, driving his brother’s 1973 Pontiac Catalina — a pea-green, four-door with a white vinyl top and license plate VZN-591. He worked at Radiator Specialty of Charlotte and lived in the Oaklawn Park neighborhood. He was last seen alone that morning.

On April 20 a Concord resident searching for stray cows found Carter’s body in a wooded area off the dead end of Earnhardt Lake Road in Cabarrus County. Detectives’ initial examination found a gunshot wound to the torso; the medical examiner later concluded he died of multiple gunshot wounds and that the weapon was not a shotgun. The Pontiac has never been recovered and an all-points bulletin was issued for the vehicle; no suspects have been publicly identified and no arrests have been made. The case remains an open cold case with the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office.

Did anyone who lived in or traveled between Charlotte and Concord in April 1982 see a pea-green 1973 Pontiac Catalina with plate VZN-591 or remember unusual activity along Earnhardt Lake Road?