Brenda Joi Bancroft, 20, left her parents’ home on Thalia Drive in Virginia Beach on Christmas Eve 1979 to attend a holiday party at Admiral Nick’s Restaurant on Shore Drive in Norfolk. She drove a bright orange 1978 Datsun B-210 and was expected home that evening; when she failed to return her family filed a missing persons report.

Four days later her car was found back at her apartment complex in the 500 block of Spring Lake Crescent. Brenda’s mother and a family friend discovered her body stuffed upside down on the passenger side of the vehicle. The state medical examiner ruled the cause of death suffocation and classified it a homicide. Brenda had graduated from Princess Anne High School and worked as assistant director of personnel at First Virginia Bank in Norfolk while also holding a part-time job at a Domino’s Pizza in Virginia Beach.

A December 1980 report said police believed they knew who was responsible but lacked evidence to arrest; the person of interest was described as a college student who knew Brenda from her Domino’s job and had attended the Christmas Eve party, and he declined a polygraph on his attorney’s advice. No arrests have been made. In 2019 her family provided DNA samples for forensic genetic genealogy, with no public breakthroughs since. Does anyone have information about Brenda’s movements that night or about the party at Admiral Nick’s?