Carolann Payne, known as Nikki, was 35 when she vanished from the wooded areas near La Pine in Deschutes County, Oregon, in the late summer of 1985. Living a transient lifestyle, she had no permanent home, bank account, or credit cards; she usually called family every month or two but made no further contact after August 1985. Payne was a mother of two and had worked as a waitress, bartender, sales associate, and dog groomer.

At the time she disappeared she was living in a travel trailer near La Pine with her boyfriend, Joel Terrence Abbott. Friends and acquaintances described Abbott as having a volatile temper and he had previously assaulted Payne with a knife. A friend who acted as a police informant secretly recorded Abbott admitting he shot Payne in the back and head with a high-powered rifle in a remote part of the county and later buried her. Abbott repeated the account to his ex-wife.

Abbott was arrested in May 1992, convicted of Payne’s murder in 1993, and sentenced to 25 years to life. The verdict was reached without Payne’s body ever being found; prosecutors classified the case as a no body homicide. Her remains have not been located. Did anyone in the La Pine area in 1985 have contact with Carolann or recall seeing her trailer or Abbott around that time?