On November 23, 1977, six-year-old Beth Lynn Barr left Johnston Elementary in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, for the short walk to her home on Princeton Boulevard and never arrived. Witnesses later said they saw her talking to a man in a car and another saw a young girl being carried into a dull blue sedan with a red and white license plate, possibly from Ohio. A massive search followed but the case went cold.

On March 22, 1979, a man walking dogs found a shallow grave near Restland Memorial Park Cemetery in Monroeville, about seven miles from where Beth vanished. The remains, still wearing the plaid coat and red pantsuit she had on that day, were identified as Beth’s. An autopsy showed she had been stabbed multiple times in the chest.

Investigators arrested Wilbur P. Tim Hawthorne III in December 1977 after witnesses placed him with Beth; he gave an alibi, was released, passed a lie detector test, and died in 2016. Other persons of interest named over the years include Edward Wayne Edwards, a local pastor who was removed from his church after complaints, and a deceased former police officer mentioned in an anonymous 2021 letter, but no one has been charged.

Did anyone in Wilkinsburg or Monroeville remember seeing that dull blue sedan or a man talking to a little girl in late November 1977?