Lilli Marlene Dunn, a 29-year-old white female, returned to her Southgate, Michigan home on Agnes Street in the early morning hours of July 31, 1980, after an evening of bowling with friends. The part-time model and former accountant for The Detroit News had parked her car in the garage and was taking out the garbage when she was ambushed in her driveway. It was between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m.
Neighbors were awakened by her screams and witnessed a man forcing a kicking and screaming Dunn into a light-colored, late-model car, possibly a Buick, Pontiac Grand Prix, or Oldsmobile Cutlass. Mistaking the violent struggle for a domestic dispute, the witnesses did not intervene. Her husband also heard the commotion, but by the time he got outside, the car was gone. Left behind in the driveway were Dunn's purse, shoes, and a hairbrush, grim evidence of the violent abduction.
The abductor was described by witnesses as a white male, approximately six feet tall, weighing around 200 pounds, with dark, curly hair. This description, along with the violent nature of the abduction, led investigators to consider a notorious serial killer as a primary suspect. Coral Eugene Watts, known as the 'Sunday Morning Slasher,' was active in the Detroit area at the time of Dunn's disappearance. Watts, who was convicted of multiple murders and suspected in many more, targeted young women and often attacked them in or near their homes.
Despite the strong circumstantial evidence and the striking similarities between Dunn's abduction and Watts's known methods, he was never officially charged in connection with her case. Watts died of cancer in prison in 2007, taking with him any potential confession that might have brought closure to Dunn's family. Lilli Marlene Dunn's body has never been recovered, and her case remains an unsolved, tragic mystery. In the years since she vanished, her family has been approached for DNA samples in the hopes of identifying her remains if they are ever discovered.
