14 People Who Vanished Without a Trace

Sherrill Levitt, her 19-year-old daughter Suzanne Streeter, and Suzie's friend Stacy McCall, 18, all were at a graduation party for the two young women in their Missouri town one early June day in 1992. The next day, they were gone. All their personal possessions had been left behind — purses, wallets, car keys — and no signs of struggle were evident. Over the years, authorities have followed up several leads; all have been either discredited or found to be inconclusive. The Springfield police are treating the still-open cold case as an abduction.

For a politician, Harold Holt was notoriously private, relishing the opportunity to escape from the public eye to swim and fish in the ocean. When he disappeared off Cheviot Beach in Victoria, in mid-December 1967, what has been described as "one of the largest search operations in Australian history" was launched. Conspiracy theories — he ran off with a mistress, was captured by the Chinese, was assassinated — abounded. He is suspected to have drowned in the churning waters, but despite the massive search, his body was never found.

In April 2005, the longtime district attorney for Centre County, Pennsylvania — some 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of New York City — told his girlfriend he was going for a drive, jumped in his car, and was never heard from again. None of the prosecutions that Ray Gricar led seemed likely to spark an angry response. His car was found (with his cellphone inside it), but no signs of foul play were uncovered. His bank accounts and credit cards were never again used. His laptop went missing, was later discovered, but yielded no leads. He finally was declared legally dead in 2011. He'd be 75 today.

Hudson Bay, the Hudson River, the town of Hudson, New York, all were named for Henry Hudson, the British explorer and navigator whose life was dedicated to finding a water route to Asia. In the summer of 1611, after spending a winter on icy James Bay (on the southern end of what is now Hudson Bay, between Ontario and Quebec, Canada), Hudson urged his crew of the ship Discovery to again set sail westward. Tired and cold, they mutinied and cast Hudson, his teenaged son and several others adrift in a small boat. They were never heard from again.

Myth, legend, son of a god, real person or some combination of all that, Romulus' place as the founder of Rome and as its first king (and a bit of a narcissist; many say he named Rome after himself) are well established. His death, in about 717 B.C.E., is cloaked in as much mystery as his life. Some say he was lifted to heaven in a whirlwind. Others suggest he was ripped apart by angry politicians. Others still believe he was assassinated in another way. Nobody knows.

At 6-foot-10 (82 meters) and more than 250 pounds (113 kilograms), Brian Williams looked like an NBA player. But he was way more than that. He was a musician, a pilot, an itinerant soul who retired from the sport at age 30 (forgoing millions of dollars) so he could travel the world. In the summer of 2002, sailing with his girlfriend, his brother and another man in Tahiti, Dele (who changed his name to reflect his Cherokee heritage) disappeared. Police believe his brother, who committed suicide later that year, killed the sailing party and dumped their bodies at sea. No traces of any of them have ever been found.

On the verge of retirement, Edward, an accountant and his wife Stephania, a credit investigator, were at a cocktail party at a Sheraton hotel in Chicago in May 1970 when they left, rather abruptly, banging the door of their car on the way out of the parking garage. They reportedly turned the wrong way on a one-way street and — poof! The working theory is that they made a wrong turn and ended up in the Chicago River. But their car, despite several searches, was never found. Other leads have gone nowhere. More than 45 years later, Arlington Heights police still are investigating.

Two suspected serial killers, including John Crutchley, aka the Vampire Rapist, have been linked to the disappearance of 18-year-old Florida model Tammy Lynn Leppert, who was never heard from after a trip to Cocoa Beach in July 1983. Police weren't able to link the accused men with Leppert, though, and other theories — that she knew of a drug ring in town, that she was pregnant and suffering from a mental illness, or that she simply ran away from home — have never been proven. The Cocoa Beach police consider the case still open.

Considered at one time a rising star in the pawn-eat-pawn world of competitive chess, young Peter Winston hit bottom when he tanked in a 1977 tournament at Hunter College High School in New York. At the time, he had been diagnosed as having schizophrenia and manic depression, and was dealing with the drugs used to treat his illnesses. A few months later, in early 1978, he disappeared. Many suspect Winston, despairing that he was unable to maintain his once-lofty game, committed suicide. But his body has never been found. He was 19 when he disappeared.

What happened to Begich, a member of the House of Representatives from Alaska, and his Democratic colleague Boggs, the House majority leader from Louisiana, seems like an obvious plane crash. On a fundraising trip in Alaska in 1972, they were on a small plane from Anchorage to Juneau when the plane and everyone onboard disappeared over the Chugach Mountains. More than 100 planes, 40 military aircraft and hundreds of boats began a search that lasted more than a month. No trace of the plane or people was ever found, and The National Transportation Safety Board was unable to determine what happened. The Boggs and Begich peaks were dedicated in their memories in 1977.