In the late summer of 1976, a young woman from Pascagoula, Mississippi, named Emma Lee Henderson, traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana, to visit her sister. At 23 years old, Emma was described as a Black female with black hair and brown eyes. She stood between 5'1' and 5'3' tall and weighed around 110 to 120 pounds. At the time of her disappearance, she wore her hair in an afro style but was also known to occasionally wear brown wigs.
One of her most notable features was a gold cap on her front tooth, which had a star engraved in the center. Emma had also previously fractured her ankle, which may have left her with a scar or a slight limp.
The specifics of the day Emma Lee Henderson was last seen are somewhat vague, with reports indicating the date was in early September, possibly the 1st or the 8th of the month. She was at her sister’s home, located in the 2100 block of Lizardi Street in New Orleans. Sometime around 5:00 p.m., Emma left the residence with a friend she knew from her hometown of Pascagoula. It was understood that the friend was going to drive her back home to Mississippi. Tragically, Emma never arrived home and has not been seen or heard from since that evening. Her disappearance was noted in a Missing Person article in the Times-Picayune newspaper on November 28, 1976, indicating that concern for her welfare had been growing for months.
Decades have passed since Emma Lee Henderson vanished, yet her case remains unresolved. Although she disappeared in 1976, a formal report was not filed with the Pascagoula Police Department until May 17, 2019, which is the agency currently handling the investigation. The circumstances of her disappearance remain unsettlingly sparse. The central facts are that Emma, a young woman visiting family, was last seen leaving her sister's New Orleans home with the intention of returning to her own home in Pascagoula. She was in the company of a friend, but her journey ended before it was supposed to, and all contact with her was lost. The lack of information and the passage of time have left her family with unanswered questions about what happened to her after she left her sister’s house that day.Last Seen: Sep 1, 1976
