Patricia "Patti" Ann Leblanc, a 15-year-old Caucasian female, vanished under troubling circumstances in Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1983. Her story is intertwined with one of the most notorious serial killer cases in American history. Just four days prior to her disappearance, Patricia had been arrested for prostitution and was subsequently placed in the care of the Department of Social and Health Services at a youth shelter.
On that fateful August day, she was on an outing with the shelter group at the Seattle Center when she ran away. Although she had a history of running away, her former foster mother noted that she would always make contact, a call that never came after she disappeared in 1983.
Patricia's disappearance is believed to be the work of the infamous Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway. Ridgway was a prime suspect in a string of murders of young women, many of whom were runaways or involved in prostitution, throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the Seattle area. While Ridgway was eventually convicted of 49 murders and confessed to many more, he was never charged in Patricia's case as her body has never been recovered. Investigators questioned him about her disappearance in 2003, but he claimed to have no memory of her. Despite the lack of a confession or physical evidence directly linking him to her case, law enforcement strongly suspects she was one of his many victims.
The investigation into Patricia's disappearance is part of the larger Green River Task Force's ongoing efforts. Her case remains open, and she is officially classified as an endangered missing person. Foul play is highly suspected given the circumstances of her disappearance and the grim reality of the Green River killings. Without the discovery of her remains or a confession from her presumed killer, the full story of what happened to Patricia Leblanc after she fled the Seattle Center remains a painful, unanswered question for her family and investigators. No arrests have been made specifically in her case, and Gary Ridgway remains the sole suspect.
