Ernest L. Vereen was 72 when he was last seen by family on October 10, 1984, at his home in Garden City Beach, South Carolina, reportedly wearing blue seersucker pajamas. His disappearance was quickly revealed to be an abduction for ransom. A ransom demand followed and an undercover officer, posing as a family member during what was meant to be the money exchange, was shot and killed.

Two men, Michael and his son Andy, were arrested and later convicted for the officer’s murder and for Vereen’s kidnapping. The convicted men gave conflicting and unreliable accounts of Vereen’s fate, prompting searches of wooded areas, a septic tank and other locations, but those efforts never recovered his body. Vereen’s ultimate fate remains unknown and the family has endured decades without definitive closure.