In the cold of a Pennsylvania winter, on a day somewhere between the end of December 1983 and the start of January 1984, a 24-year-old woman named Amy Marie Matthews vanished from her home in Plymouth Township. A student at the Gordon Phillips School of Beauty Culture in nearby Norristown, Amy left her residence with the intention of attending class. Without her own vehicle, it is believed she may have planned to hitchhike to school, a decision that may have placed her in a vulnerable position. Amy was a young woman with distinctive features; she had blond hair, blue eyes, and a two-to-three-inch scar along her left jawline. She had a tattoo of a rainbow on her shoulder and another of a butterfly on her buttocks. When she was last seen, she was wearing a gold chain with a star trinket and a ring set with a ruby and diamonds. She never arrived at her school that day, and despite the passing of decades, she has not been seen or heard from since.
The years following Amy's disappearance offered no solace or answers for her loved ones. The investigation revealed that she had not used her bank accounts, nor had she been arrested or obtained any credit cards since she was last seen. As authorities delved into her case, a person of interest emerged: Jack Lee Colin Jr. Colin had a deeply troubled and violent past. In 1972, at the age of nineteen, he killed both of his parents and was subsequently found not guilty by reason of insanity after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. He spent five years in state mental hospitals before being released in 1977. At the time of Amy's disappearance, Colin was living just a few blocks from the beauty school she attended. His name surfaced in connection with her case after he was sent to prison in 1984 for possessing an 'arsenal' of firearms, which he was prohibited from owning due to his prior insanity verdict.
Authorities intensified their focus on Colin in 2004, officially naming him a suspect in the murders of two other Pennsylvania women who were killed in late 1983 and early 1984, the same period Amy Matthews vanished. Investigators began to explore his potential involvement in Amy's case due to the geographical and temporal proximity of the crimes. His car was seized and examined for forensic evidence, though prosecutors at the time admitted that finding anything after so many years was a 'long shot'. Despite the strong suspicion and his history, Jack Lee Colin Jr. was never charged in connection with Amy Matthews's disappearance. The case is an overview of a promising young woman who vanished on her way to school, leaving behind a family and a community to wonder about her fate. Foul play is suspected, and while a person of interest has been identified, the absence of concrete evidence has left her case unsolved and her whereabouts unknown.Last Seen: Dec 31, 1983
