On a cold January night in 1975, 16-year-old Brian 'Joe' Page, a high school student from Portland, Oregon, attended a house party in Salem with his sister and two friends. This gathering on southeast State Street would be the last place he was seen by his family. In the early morning hours of January 12th, Brian and a friend named David were listening to music. Brian was driving his friend's 1962 turquoise Volkswagen Bug with Oregon license plate 7P3626.
He was a junior at Franklin High School, described by his family as a smart, handsome, and reliable young man who did well in school.
The circumstances surrounding Brian's disappearance remain shrouded in uncertainty. According to his sister, both Brian and his friend, David, had experimented with drugs at the party. Sometime after 2:00 a.m., Brian's sister and another friend returned to find that David had reportedly taken LSD, was having a bad reaction, and had left the house. Brian’s companions urged him to go after David to ensure his safety, and he complied, following his friend out of the house and into the Volkswagen. Tragically, that was the last time anyone in their group saw Brian. Later that morning, around 5:00 a.m., David was arrested after stealing a car from a dealership and speeding down State Street. He was still under the influence of LSD and claimed to have no memory of what had happened to Brian.
In the years that followed, Brian's family was left with a profound and unanswered loss. His parents passed away without ever knowing the fate of their son. The initial police investigation was hampered by jurisdictional confusion, with Portland and Salem authorities seemingly pointing fingers at each other. The case was initially treated as a runaway, a theory his family vehemently rejected, citing his dependable nature and consistent communication with them. Over the decades, the case has remained open, with family members providing DNA samples to aid in the investigation. Age-progressed photos have been released by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the hopes of generating new leads. Despite these efforts and the passage of time, neither Brian nor the turquoise Volkswagen Bug has ever been found, leaving his surviving siblings still searching for answers. The disappearance of Brian Joseph Page is a haunting cold case, a story of a young man who vanished without a trace, leaving a void in the lives of those who loved him.Last Seen: Jan 12, 1975
