Details of Disappearance
Wilkinson was last seen departing from her sister's residence in the 100 block of south Chelsea Street in Kansas City, Missouri at approximately 9:00 a.m. on June 21, 1984. She left on foot, as her car was in the repair shop at the time, and has never been heard from again.
At the time of her disappearance, Wilkinson lived in the 300 block of Bellefontaine Avenue, not far from her sister's home. She never picked up her last paycheck from the department store where she worked, never accessed her savings account again, and never claimed her car. Investigators initially thought she might have left of her own accord, but now believe she could have been the victim of a homicide, possibly by a serial killer.
Wilkinson was the one of seven females between 13 and 31 from northeast Kansas City who either disappeared or were found murdered over a twelve-year period. Some, but not all, of them were known prostitutes. Their bodies were found dumped in local rivers. In four cases the victims' legs had been severed at the hips. Wilkinson and one other woman in the group,
Tracy Ramsey, remain missing.
In 1994, authorities publicly named Gregory W. Breeden as the primary suspect in seven of cases. He had been a suspect since as early as 1982. Police searched his rural home and found women's clothing in various sizes, four teeth, nineteen knives and muddy underwear. Breeden knew some of the victims and had dated one, and he reportedly knew things about some of the homicides that had not been publicly disclosed.
A photo of Breeden is posted with this case summary. In 1996 he was charged with the murder of one of the women, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence after a key witness, a jailhouse informant, refused to testify. He did serve ten years in prison for writing bad checks, but was never convicted of any violent crimes, although violence was cited in one of his three divorces. In 2014 he was found dead of apparent natural causes in the Butler, Missouri hotel where he lived.
It's not clear whether Wilkinson and Ramsey's disappearances are connected to Breeden or to each other. The cases remain unsolved.
