On the evening of May 15, 1970, Edward and Stephania Andrews, a couple from Arlington Heights, Illinois, attended a cocktail party at the Sheraton hotel in Chicago. Edward, a 62-year-old accountant and manager who was semi-retired, and his wife Stephania, a credit investigator, were planning to retire fully by the end of the year. That day, Edward had reportedly felt ill during lunch and seemed unwell throughout the afternoon and into the evening.
Guests at the party, which was sponsored by the Women's Auxiliary of the Beverage Institute of which Stephania was a member, noted that Edward appeared ill and complained of being hungry. By the time the couple decided to leave around 9:30 p.m., witnesses saw that Stephania was crying.
The last known sighting of Edward and Stephania Andrews was fraught with troubling details. As they left the hotel's parking garage, the attendant and manager observed Edward staggering as he walked to his black and yellow 1969 Oldsmobile sports coupe. While exiting the garage, Edward hit a door with the car. The attendant also noted that he had to back up and reposition the vehicle to get out and that Stephania was crying in the passenger seat. Once on the road, Edward was seen driving the wrong way on Lower Michigan Avenue, heading north in a southbound lane. After this sighting, neither Edward, Stephania, nor their vehicle were ever seen or heard from again.
It wasn't until the following Monday that the couple was reported missing when they failed to show up for their respective jobs. Police who visited their Arlington Heights home found newspapers piled up on the lawn and mail collected in the mailbox. A neighbor let authorities into the residence, where everything was found to be in order with nothing appearing to be missing. Their bank accounts, credit cards, and stocks and bonds showed no activity after their disappearance. The prevailing police theory was that Edward, possibly disoriented from illness or another cause, accidentally drove their car off a bridge and into the Chicago River while attempting a U-turn. However, extensive and repeated searches of the river using sonar, divers, and dragging equipment in the years that followed yielded no trace of the couple or their Oldsmobile. Over the years, other theories and tips have emerged, including a 1994 informant's claim that the couple had been murdered and their car submerged in a pond in Lake County, but a search of that area also proved fruitless. Despite being declared legally dead in 1978, the disappearance of Edward and Stephania Andrews remains an unsolved mystery, a long-standing cold case with no definitive answers about their ultimate fate.Last Seen: May 16, 1970
