Margaret Tevanian was 65 years old when she vanished from Portland, Maine, around St. Patrick’s Day in 1996. Official NamUs records list her as a White/Caucasian woman, 5 feet 3 inches tall and about 110 pounds, with gray or partially gray shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. Her last known location was Portland in Cumberland County, and the case is associated with the Portland Police Department under NamUs missing person case MP4428.
The available public information describes a quiet, vulnerable disappearance from home rather than a planned departure with belongings, money, or transportation.
The timeline centers on the early morning hours of March 17, 1996. NamUs and other missing-person summaries state that Margaret was last seen at her home in Portland that day, while later Portland police-related reporting said she was last seen at home on Cedar Street on March 16 and reported missing by her husband the following day. Taken together, the public record places the disappearance overnight or in the early morning leading into March 17. According to the case summaries, Margaret left the home wearing pajamas and a robe, with brown shoes and a blue kerchief on her head. She carried very little: only a paper bag containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss.
What made Margaret’s disappearance especially alarming was the combination of her limited clothing, the cold-season timing in Maine, and the fact that she did not appear to have prepared for a long absence. The Charley Project reports that she had a history of leaving home and later being found wandering in town, but that March 1996 was the first time in months she had left the house. That background gave her disappearance a familiar but frightening shape: at first, it may have seemed possible she would be found nearby, as she reportedly had been before, yet the hours and days passed without any confirmed sighting.
Margaret was reported missing by her husband, and the Portland Police Department became the investigating agency. Public notices over the years have continued to identify Portland police as the point of contact for information, reflecting that her disappearance remained unresolved decades later. A 2025 report from NEWS CENTER Maine marked 29 years since Margaret was reported missing and stated that her case had not been solved. Police again asked anyone with information to contact the department, including through its main tip channels, showing that even after many years, information from the public could still matter.
The known facts leave a painful and narrow picture: Margaret Tevanian, a 65-year-old woman from Portland, left her Cedar Street home during the night or early morning around St. Patrick’s Day in 1996, dressed in sleepwear and carrying only basic dental items in a paper bag. She had gray shoulder-length hair, brown eyes, and a small frame, and she was last connected to Portland, Maine. No public source located for this synopsis reports that she was found alive or located deceased. The case therefore remains publicly described as an unresolved disappearance: a vulnerable woman walked away from home with almost nothing, was reported missing by her husband, and has not been seen since, leaving her family, investigators, and the Portland community with unanswered questions about where she went and what happened to her.Last Seen: Mar 17, 1996
