NY NY - Flossie Wilbur, 75, Angelica, 24 Aug 1985

In a "Cold Case Tuesday" press release today, New York State Police in Amity say the investigation into the 1985 disappearance of Flossie Wilbur of Angelica continues.

Investigators have followed leads and conducted numerous interviews since 1985.

The disappearance of Wilbur continues to be actively investigated, with investigators conducting recent interviews in the Angelica area.

State Police said Wilbur, who was 75 at the time of her disappearance, has not been located and would be 107 years old today.

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According to police reports at the time of the initial investigation, items in the grocery bags left in Flossie Wilbur's car parked in her driveway at 96 W. Main St., Angelica were spoiling when an Angelica officer investigated on Aug. 31, 1989.

Police were alerted to the disappearance after a clerk from a local grocery store reported that Wilbur, 75, had not picked up her newspaper in seven days. Police Chief James Fleming dispatched an officer who found the back door of the house unlocked and Wilbur's car in the driveway, but no evidence of a struggle or of Wilbur.

Determining that Wilbur had not been seen since Aug. 24 at an auction, village police continued to check the house and area throughout the weekend. They handed over the case to the state police on Sunday night, Sept. 1.

With the state police involvement an intensive search of Angelica, the fairgrounds and fields beyond, involving state troopers, the state police bureau of criminal investigation, the K-9 patrol volunteers and the Angelica Fire Department ensued with no results.

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"We last updated this case in December 2009," Brown said, "We don't get any reason for her wandering away, and there is no reason to consider foul play. There is no motive for it. There has just been no trace of her since 1985.

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Gardener1850 said:

Bumping with Flossie's NAMUS: https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/9663/

Still no picture of her there and no DNA available.
She does have dental records listed.

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Coffee56 said:

Sounds like Flossie was in the habit of making enemies with her neighbors.

http://buffalonews.com/1992/08/23/v...ht-up-until-the-last-time-she-was-seen-alive/

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They are the cookie bakers for neighborhood kids, the drinkers of tea from dainty cups, gentle and genteel and loved by everyone. They sit in quiet rooms filled with doilies, African Violets and the little mementos picked up on the way through a rich and rewarding life.
Flossie Wilbur was far-removed from this stereotypical view of what an elderly woman should be like.

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She was 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighed 160 pounds and always dressed in rough clothing such as blue jeans and men's flannel shirts. A menacing-looking club shaped like a small baseball bat hung on the wall of her kitchen, and a bolt action shotgun leaned against the wall next to the door between the living room and dining room of her small house. A widow who lived alone, she has been described as both rough-spoken and outspoken, may well have harbored racial prejudices, and was not well-liked by others in the small community. No one there seemed to be close to her and some people went out of their way to avoid her, with apparent justification.

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Ed and Kay Eicher, both teachers at Belfast Central School, lived in the house next to Flossie Wilbur until they moved out in 1976. Mrs. Wilbur was a factor in their decision to move.

"We got along fine with her for quite some time," Eicher says. "In fact, she would have dinner with us periodically. I guess the trouble began when we had a Fresh Air child. I get the feeling it's because it was a black kid." One summer day, the Fresh Air
child and a neighbor boy were playing in the backyard. Kay Eicher recalls that there was a sudden commotion.

"The kids came running in the house," Mrs. Eicher says, "and Flossie came charging in right after them, not knocking or anything. Ed and I went back outside with her to try and establish what had happened. She had a fairly good-sized club, which she raised and looked like she was going to let me have it and then must have thought better of it. From that time on we really didn't have anything to do with her."

Although the Eichers point out that they have no proof, they have strong suspicions that Mrs. Wilbur continued to have something to do with them and it wasn't the good neighbor policy. They found a racial slur written in chalk on their front sidewalk. Frequently they would return home and find rotten fruit, vegetables or garbage smeared on various parts of the house. They reported the incidents to the local police, but they were not able to catch whoever was defacing the Eicher home.

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"Most people didn't think very much of her," says Rolland Rasmusson, who still lives across the street from 96 W. Main. "She kind of had a foul mouth when she was talking and a lot of people didn't like her very well."

The feeling seems to have been mutual. Mrs. Wilbur kept a diary. It contained mundane references to the weather on a given day, such as the last entry, for Aug. 23, 1985, "cloudy and sunny." What seem to stand out are entries in her diary indicative of an ill will toward those in her community. Mrs. Wilbur referred to some of them with terms such as "bum," "idiot," and "half breed." She was not totally without a sense of humor, but it had a sarcastic edge to it. An entry in her check register for payment of a fuel bill carries the notation, "National Fuel Gas -- for air."

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On Saturday, Aug. 24, 1985, Mrs. Wilbur got into her 1985 Ford Escort, which was parked facing out toward Main Street, and pulled out of the driveway on the west side of her house. She picked up some drapes that she'd had made for her windows. Later, during the afternoon, she stopped at an estate auction that was being held on Main Street west of the park. One of several hundred people at the auction, she signed in and was given bidding number 89. She didn't buy anything.

Toward late afternoon, Mrs. Wilbur drove to the nearby village of Belfast. At 5:45 p.m. she purchased some grocery items that included milk, canned goods and candy at Harrington's Grocery on Route 19. She drove back to her home, pulled into the driveway, drove to the end, turned the car around so it was facing Main Street, and parked it at the point in the driveway where she always did. She took in some of the items from the car, including the drapes, but left some of the groceries. She locked the car, unlocked her house, walked inside and disappeared.
The late summer days continued to pass quietly in Angelica, the way they usually did. Labor Day, summer's unofficial end, was approaching. A clerk at the Village Market noticed that copies of the newspaper that had been saved for Mrs. Wilbur were accumulating. She would sometimes miss a day or two in picking up her newspaper but never this many. The clerk called the police.

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A massive search for Mrs. Wilbur was begun. Those involved included the local volunteer fire department, State Forest Rangers, Conservation officers and the New York State Police. A State Police tracking dog was brought in, as were two bloodhounds from the neighboring Cattaraugus County Sheriff's Department. A helicopter made an aerial search of the area. No trace of Mrs. Wilbur could be found.

As time passed with no breaks in the case, the disappearance became more frustrating to law enforcement officials. Any possible lead was investigated, including the still-popular theory in Angelica that her body was disposed of in the concrete structure of a bridge that was being constructed in the community at the time.
"Concerning the bridge," says Vince Evans, formerly an investigator with the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, "the abutments were poured on August 22. That was verified by a foreman, so she came up missing after the bridge concrete work was done." Evans was assigned to the case until his retirement in 1991, and spent the last six years trying to answer the question of what happened to Flossie Wilbur.
"There were no signs of any disturbance in the house," Evans says. "Money and other valuables were found in the house, her car was parked where she always parked it." State Police also monitored her bank accounts following her disappearance and there was no activity on the accounts. Lacking any clear motive, such as robbery, police can only speculate as to what happened.

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[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Flossie Wilbur gone 24 days, clues lead police to dead end By Dick Eisenhart Democrat and Chronicle ANGELICA The disappearance of Flossie Wilbur has all the ingredients of an Alfred Hitchcock mystery. A new car parked in the driveway with rotting groceries inside. An unlocked house and a half -eaten meal on the kitchen table. Wilbur, 75, has been missing 24 days. She was last seen buying groceries at a village market on Aug. 24. [/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]"She's still listed as a missing person," said [/FONT][/FONT]Police Chief James Fleming, the Angelica town highway su[/FONT]perintendent who dons his uniform as head of the part-time, two-man police department on nights and weekends. Angelica school teacher Pete Johnson is the other officer. "It's like something out of Alfred Hitchcock," Fleming said. He started the lengthy investigation Aug. 30, when Trudi Gosper, an employee at the Village Market, told him Wilbur had failed to pick up her daily newspaper for six days. "I'd like to know where she is. I'd like to know what happened," Angi White said yesterday. "This always has been an easy-going, little town," said a companion, Her disappearance is almost as strange as the woman the townspeople described as disagreeable and cantankerous. "She was a loner, but I think she was lonely," said Grace Spangler, manager of the Angelica Post Office, where Wilbur and the village residents pick up their mail. "Even though she was a loner, it's a shame for a poor lady to disappear. It's strange, though. She did nasty little things. She was different." . Paul Gallman at a nearby hardware store said most people didn't know Wilbur and those who did usually avoided her.

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Coffee56 said:

Oops. We both posted


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The Flossie Wilbur story

By John Anderson Tyler Morning Telegraph
ANGELICA, N.Y. — A 35-year-old cold murder case of Flossie Wilbur is finally solved.
Wilbur, who would be 110 if she was alive today, has been missing since Aug. 24, 1985 in Angelica, N.Y., when all police could find were her groceries in her car.
A search for her remains continues today near Almond, N.Y. after an alleged “death bed” confession from a neighbor who said he killed her.

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Gardener1850 said:

Bumping with Flossie's NAMUS: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Still no picture of her there and no DNA available.
She does have dental records listed.

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