What Happened to Linda Smith? Linda Smith, a 14-year-old Caucasian female, was forcibly taken from her Pocatello, Idaho, home in the early morning hours of June 14, 1981. At the time, she was babysitting her younger brother, Ben, who was nine years old. He awoke to the sounds of a struggle and witnessed a man dragging his sister out of the house. Ben's attempts to stop the abductor were futile; the man pushed him down and threatened him before forcing Linda into a van described as having flames painted on the side.
Despite the harrowing eyewitness account from her brother, police initially treated Linda's disappearance as a runaway case, partly because she had run away once before but had returned. Investigators dismissed the boy's story, suggesting his imagination was running wild or that he was covering for his sister. Consequently, crucial early investigative steps, like collecting forensic evidence from the home, were not taken. About a week after her abduction, Linda's clothes were discovered discarded in a ditch, yet this did not sway the initial assessment that she had run away.
Eleven months later, in May 1982, Linda's skeletal remains were found in an affluent area of Pocatello. It was only then that authorities began to investigate the case as a homicide. The cause of her death was never determined. The Pocatello Police Department later acknowledged that mistakes were made in the initial investigation. The case grew cold, and for decades, no arrests were made and no suspects were officially named. The investigation was reopened in 2007, and it remains an active cold case. Police have indicated they are looking into forensic techniques that were not available in the 1980s in the hope of finally solving the crime.
