Elizabeth Beth or Bethie Franks disappeared from her Western Avenue apartment in Toledo, Ohio, in the spring of 1965, just before Easter. She was 17, married and the mother of a young daughter, described as having red hair, blue eyes, a small mole on the back of her left thigh and a chickenpox scar on the bridge of her nose. The family lived in the 1500 block of Western Avenue.

Accounts of her last known whereabouts conflict. Her husband said the couple argued after he found her with another man and that she packed and left; he admitted pushing her and said he knocked her down a set of stairs. A few days later Elizabeth’s mother, let into the apartment by the landlady, found torn drapes, scattered clothes and a crib stripped of bedding; the landlady reported hearing a loud commotion the night before. The original police report was lost and the case went cold for decades.

Reopened in 2004, investigators concluded she likely was the victim of foul play because she never contacted family or friends and her Social Security number has never been used since 1965. The husband has been re-interviewed and described as a person of interest. A 2022 dive of a Genoa quarry recovered two cars but not the vehicle sought and produced no evidence. If anyone knew Elizabeth, lived near Western Avenue in 1965, or has information about that quarrel or the apartment’s condition, please share what is known.