Patricia Crandall was a 19-year-old female last seen on March 13, 1949, in Redding, California, in Shasta County. Public missing-person records described her as a young woman with brown hair and brown eyes, about 5 feet 3 inches tall and approximately 112 pounds. The details preserved in the case were sparse but memorable: she was reportedly wearing a green hooded cape coat and carrying a black suitcase when she was last known to be seen.
Those few identifiers became the core of a mystery that lingered for decades, with Patricia’s name carried in missing-person databases long after the original circumstances had faded from public view.
The available public record offered very little about what led to Patricia’s disappearance. There were no widely published accounts describing a struggle, a confirmed destination, a named companion, or a known route after she was last seen in Shasta County. Because she was carrying a suitcase, later online discussions focused on the possibility that she may have left Redding voluntarily or traveled under circumstances that were never fully documented in public case summaries. Over time, researchers reviewing historical records pointed to the possibility that the missing Patricia Crandall was the same woman later known as Patricia Von Ahn, and discussion of the case included references to marriage and divorce notices that may have helped explain why her name and identity became difficult to trace through ordinary missing-person records.
Online discussions later reported that a public-records request to Shasta County produced additional case-file information, including the assertion that the case had been solved in 2024. According to that discussion, Patricia had not remained missing in the way the old case listing suggested; she was reportedly later known as Patricia Von Ahn and died in 1962 in a car accident. A Find a Grave memorial for Patricia Von Ahn lists a birth date of September 29, 1929, a death date of February 17, 1962, and burial in Portland, Oregon, which is consistent with the timeline described in those later discussions. The same online account stated that Patricia’s family and law enforcement had apparently failed to close the loop after she was located, leaving the missing-person case to remain open for decades because authorities were not properly notified or the information was not fully reconciled.
Official reports now indicate that Patricia Crandall has been found deceased, and the case is no longer an active missing-person matter. The publicly available record does not provide a detailed official narrative of the exact recovery process, but the later online discussion of Shasta County records suggests that the mystery was ultimately resolved not as an undiscovered death in 1949, but as a case in which Patricia’s later identity and life were not connected back to the original missing-person report for many years. In overview, Patricia’s case began with a 19-year-old woman last seen in Redding, California, wearing a green hooded cape coat and carrying a black suitcase, and ended many decades later with the recognition that she had been located, lived under another name, and was later deceased, leaving behind a long-delayed resolution to one of Shasta County’s oldest listed missing-person cases.Last Seen: Mar 13, 1949
