Raylene Susan Helsley was 12 when she vanished from her family’s trailer in Ruston, Louisiana, on January 5, 1983. She lived with her father, Raymond Elwood Helsley Jr., and her eight-year-old sister Candace. Raylene was about 4 feet 11 inches and 90 pounds, with blonde hair, blue eyes, a pale strawberry-colored birthmark on the back of her neck near the hairline, and a blue pencil mark scar on her nose and upper lip.

Candace told investigators that their father beat Raylene that morning with a piece of PVC pipe and a 14-inch silver pipe wrench, breaking the wrench; she said she saw Raylene motionless on the couch before leaving for school and discovered her gone that afternoon. Raymond Helsley Jr. said he left a sick Raylene alone for about an hour and later found she had run away. A search of the trailer turned up a broken silver pipe wrench and a pillow with human blood, and extensive ground and water searches found no sign of Raylene. Raymond was convicted in August 1983 of cruelty to a juvenile and given ten years, but he was never charged in the disappearance. The case remains unsolved and is classified as a non-family abduction.

Did anyone in Ruston or Union Parish at the time ever hear or see anything on or after January 5, 1983, that might help explain what happened to Raylene?