On the evening of November 23, 1983, a 37-year-old woman named Linda Crites was at her home in Jackson, Missouri, when she spoke with her eldest son on the telephone. During their conversation, they made plans for her to visit him and his wife the following morning, Thanksgiving Day, around 9:00 a.m. However, Linda never arrived for the holiday dinner, and her family has not seen or heard from her since that phone call.
At the time of her disappearance, Linda was in the process of divorcing her husband, although they were still residing in the same house. This arrangement created a tense and complicated living situation in the days leading up to her vanishing.
The last person to have reportedly seen Linda was her husband. He informed investigators that he and Linda had a conversation about their pending divorce around midnight on the night she disappeared. He stated that the conversation escalated into an argument, after which he claimed Linda went into her bedroom and closed the door. According to his account, the bedroom door was still closed when he left the house the next morning to spend Thanksgiving with his parents. It wasn't until a week after she was last heard from that Linda was officially reported as a missing person, a delay attributed to family discord at the time. Her husband initially cooperated with the police investigation but later ceased communication and retained legal counsel upon realizing he was considered a person of interest in his wife's disappearance.
Authorities have stated that they suspect foul play was involved in Linda's disappearance and have classified her case as a potential homicide. Despite their suspicions, investigators have been unable to uncover any definitive evidence linking her husband, or anyone else, to her vanishing. The case has remained unsolved for decades, leaving a void in the lives of her loved ones. An overview of the case suggests a woman on the verge of a new chapter in her life, amidst a contentious divorce, who disappeared without a trace after a late-night argument with her estranged husband. The delay in reporting her missing, coupled with her husband's subsequent lack of cooperation, created significant challenges for the investigation from the outset. With no witnesses to her disappearance beyond her husband's account, and a lack of physical evidence, the search for answers in Linda Crites's case has been a long and difficult one for both her family and law enforcement.Last Seen: Nov 23, 1983
