JoAnn Benner was 21 and a mother of two when she vanished from her home on Titus Road in Bayou George, Florida. She was last seen the evening of May 13, 1976; her husband Gary reported her missing the next morning and said JoAnn had left a note and packed up to go. Investigators found suspicious red spots around the house, including on a phone, and a removed piece of bedroom carpet later recovered from a trash can had been set on fire. Gary told investigators the red spots were fingernail polish or menstrual blood thrown during an argument, but detectives considered him a primary suspect.

JoAnn’s three year old daughter told a relative that Mommy was bleeding from her stomach and it was running down her leg, a detail that suggested JoAnn had been in serious distress the night she disappeared. Within a year authorities classified the case as a homicide even though no body was found. DNA testing on blood recovered from the home in 2008 was inconclusive because the sample was too degraded. JoAnn remains missing and the investigation is cold. Does anyone with memories of Bayou George in 1976 or information about the Benner household have anything to share with Panhandle Crime Stoppers?