Ann Marie Ellinwood was 12 and a seventh-grader at Highland View Junior High when she vanished from Corvallis, Oregon on April 15, 1978. She had been walking a March of Dimes route along a bike path by the Marys River and was last seen near the Pioneer Park ball field, across the highway from Gill Coliseum, after telling friends she would go on to a checkpoint because her feet hurt. When she missed her afternoon paper route, her parents reported her missing at 5:15 p.m., and a search turned up no trace.

Eyewitnesses placed a red pickup truck, possibly with a teardrop-shaped trailer, in the area and reported a girl like Ann talking to a man with a small dog. The case became linked to 11-year-old Stephanie Ann Newsom, who disappeared four days later and was found murdered. Authorities identified Earl Fredrick Woody Chambers in May 1978; he owned a red pickup and teardrop trailer and had prior rape and assault convictions. Chambers denied involvement but died by suicide on the day he was to testify before a grand jury. Hair recovered from Chambers’s vehicle was later tested in 2005 with inconclusive DNA results, and in 2014 a retired sergeant publicly named Chambers as responsible. Ann’s body has never been found and the case remains unsolved.

Are there readers who remember the area or saw the red pickup in April 1978 who can share what they know?