Linda Smith was 14 when she was forcibly taken from her Pocatello, Idaho, home in the early morning hours of June 14, 1981. She had been babysitting her nine-year-old brother Ben, who awoke to a struggle and saw a man drag his sister out of the house. Ben tried to intervene but was pushed down and threatened while the abductor forced Linda into a van described as having flames painted on the side.

Police initially treated the case as a runaway and did not collect forensic evidence from the home; Linda’s clothes were found in a ditch about a week after the abduction. Her skeletal remains were located in May 1982 in an affluent area of Pocatello, and only then was the case investigated as a homicide. The cause of death was never determined. The Pocatello Police Department later acknowledged investigative mistakes, the case went cold for decades, and it was reopened in 2007 with investigators pursuing newer forensic techniques.

Did anyone in the Pocatello area in 1981 see a van with flames on the side or notice suspicious activity that morning?