Orla Alyne J. Barrick, 61, was last seen on the afternoon of April 12, 1996, walking her Pomeranian, Fifi, near her remote cabin on Laurel Ridge Road in the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky area. A neighbor who spoke with her around 2:00 p.m. provided the last confirmed sighting. Three days later a neighbor reported her missing, and officers entering the locked cabin found signs of a violent struggle: a sofa out of place, bloodstains on the carpet and bedclothes, and a missing fitted sheet. The amount of blood inside the home was not consistent with a fatal injury having occurred there.

Personal items were disturbed — dentures soaking, a cigarette burned down on a bathroom shelf, a full trash bag on the kitchen counter — and Fifi was secured in a crate. $400 hidden in the freezer remained, but Alyne’s clutch purse and the fitted sheet were gone. Her truck was parked with house keys inside while the truck keys were inside the house; a hidden fake-rock key was also missing. Authorities are treating the disappearance as a homicide and believe the attacker was someone Alyne knew, noting the lack of forced entry and the missing hidden key.

Extensive searches of nearby woods were conducted where investigators believe a shallow grave could be, but no body has been found.