A woman is found drowned to death in Otter Creek On a crisp autumn day in Vermont, November 2, 1977, a sense of unease settled over the Scribner household when 42-year-old Wilma Scribner was reported missing by her husband. The last trace of the female was her departure with the family's dark green, wood-paneled 1968 Ford LTD Squire station wagon. A palpable mystery began to envelop the small community of Middlebury as days turned into weeks, and then months, with no word of Wilma's whereabouts.
The vehicle, a familiar sight with its roof rack and Vermont license plate C-8037, had also vanished without a trace, deepening the concern for her safety.
The chilling silence was finally broken on March 21, 1979, when a grim discovery was made in the cold waters of Otter Creek in the town of Weybridge. It was there that Wilma Scribner's body was found, ending the agonizing period of uncertainty for her family, but opening a new, painful chapter of a homicide investigation. An autopsy would later reveal the cause of her death to be strangulation, confirming the sinister nature of her disappearance. The case had officially transitioned from a missing person's report to a murder inquiry, casting a dark shadow over the quiet Vermont landscape.
Further evidence surfaced in October of that same year when her station wagon was pulled from the same creek, upstream from where her body had been recovered. Despite the discovery of both the victim and her vehicle, the investigation into who was responsible for her death yielded no arrests. The trail of clues grew cold, and the identity of her killer remained elusive. To this day, the murder of Wilma Scribner is listed as an unsolved homicide by the Vermont State Police, a haunting reminder of a life cut short and a case that continues to await a resolution. No suspects have ever been publicly named in connection with her death, leaving her family and community with lingering questions and an enduring sense of loss.
