Michael McDowell was 16 when he disappeared from Newark, New Jersey, in the summer of 1978. On August 20 he and four friends spent the afternoon playing basketball and were last seen that evening getting into a pickup truck owned by a local carpenter who sometimes hired neighborhood teens for odd jobs. The carpenter said he gave them work that day, dropped some off, picked them up again and later dropped them off for the night.

A few days after the boys vanished a woman received a ransom call demanding $750; the call was traced to a payphone in Washington, D.C., but the caller was gone when investigators arrived. Families said running away was out of character; none of the five ever used their Social Security numbers or applied for a driver’s license.

In 2010 two men, Lee Anthony Evans and Philander Hampton, were indicted on counts of murder and arson alleging the teens were lured to a vacant house, held at gunpoint and killed in a deliberately set fire. One defendant later pleaded guilty, another was acquitted, and a third potential suspect died before charges. Does anyone have memories, documents, or information about Michael, the Clinton Avenue Five, or that neighborhood in 1978 that could add details to the timeline?