Three-year-old Michelle Kelly Pulsifer was last seen in Huntington Beach, California, on or around July 4, 1969. She lived with her mother, Donna Prentice, her mother’s boyfriend, James Michael Kent, her six-year-old brother Richard Pulsifer Jr., and Kent’s son. Richard Jr. remembered Michelle appearing frightened one night and hiding in his room; he said their mother took Michelle away and he never saw her again.

Shortly after Michelle disappeared, Richard Jr. noticed a large cardboard box covered with blankets in the family garage; his mother said it held a motorcycle seat and ordered him to stay out of the garage. The family packed abruptly and moved to Illinois within days. Donna Prentice later gave varying accounts of Michelle’s whereabouts and relatives denied having her. No missing person report was filed at the time and investigators later found no records of Michelle after 1969.

In August 2004, Donna Prentice and James Michael Kent were arrested and charged with Michelle’s murder. Kent later told investigators he buried Michelle in a shallow grave in a remote canyon and said he and Prentice had found her lifeless in her bedroom; he denied killing her.

Did anyone who knew the family in Huntington Beach around 1969 ever hear about a child named Michelle Pulsifer or see signs of the family leaving in a hurry?