Cathy Marie Moulton was 16 when she vanished from Portland, Maine, on September 24, 1971. A Deering High School junior described as bright and friendly, she was last seen after running errands downtown for a YWCA dance she planned to attend that evening. Her father dropped her off near Forest and Cumberland avenues; she visited the former Porteous, Mitchell & Braun store and Starbird Music, told a friend she was going home, and never reached her Clinton Street house. She was about 5 feet 4 inches and 98 pounds, with light brown or sandy-brown hair, blue eyes, thick dark-rimmed glasses, and was carrying a brown leather handbag and two tubes of toothpaste.

Early reporting treated her as a possible runaway, a delay her family and later investigators found painful. Subsequent review of the thin original file turned attention to an older boyfriend, Lester Everett, and a Canadian man, Ronald Reid Perley.

Leads over the years produced possible sightings, a lost hunter’s report of skeletal remains that were never relocated, and dental comparisons that excluded her from numerous unidentified remains. Her family continued to press for answers and police describe the case as open. Does anyone have information about Cathy, her movements in Portland on September 24, 1971, or the blue car last seen that day?