In early April 1976, 28-year-old Patricia Laemmerhirt disappeared from her home on North Portage Street in Westfield, New York. She was last seen around April 3; her husband, Ernest Laemmerhirt Jr., reported her missing to her brother, Albert Sam, on April 5 saying she had been gone two days. Patricia was described as petite with black hair, brown eyes and wore glasses. She had returned to Westfield a month earlier after staying briefly at her mother’s home in Dunkirk because of marital problems.

Relatives who forced entry to the house found Patricia’s clothes and personal effects missing and drawers and closets emptied. Ernest suggested she might have gone to Chicago. With no initial evidence of a crime, the investigation stalled and Ernest later moved away with the children. In 1993 Albert arranged and paid for searches of the former property’s backyard, basement floor and a concrete addition; the dig produced publicity and leads but no evidence—some bones turned out to be animal. Patricia is remembered as a 1968 Dunkirk High School graduate and a mother of young children.

If anyone knew Patricia, her movements in late March and early April 1976, or has information about the North Portage Street house, please come forward.