Randy Johnson was 16 when he vanished from Newark, New Jersey, on August 20, 1978. He was last seen with four friends — Michael McDowell, Melvin Pittman, Ernest Taylor, and Alvin Turner — after playing basketball at West Side Park. Eyewitnesses later reported all five getting into a pickup driven by carpenter Lee Anthony Evans, who said he dropped them off at 11:00 p.m. Randy is described as a Black male, 5 feet 4 inches, 145 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes; he was wearing a white t-shirt, black pants, and sneakers when last seen.

Initial inquiries considered the teens might have run away, but families said that would have been out of character. A caller contacted one mother days later offering information for $750, but that lead went nowhere. The boys never used their Social Security numbers or applied for driver’s licenses. Decades later, arrests in 2010 charged Evans and Philander Hampton with murder and arson in connection with the disappearances; a third man, Maurice Woody-Olds, had died in 2008. The remains of the five have not been found.

Did anyone in Newark around Clinton Avenue in August 1978 notice the group that night or recall a pickup truck in the area?