MN MN - William Underhill, 20, Minneapolis, 1 March 1969

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https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/20774/16
attachment.php
[h=1]Case Information[/h]
StatusMissing
First name
William
Middle nameCampbell
Last nameUnderhill
Nickname/Alias
Date last seenMarch 01, 1969 00:00
Date entered06/26/2013

Age last seen 20 to years old
Age now69 years old
RaceWhite
Ethnicity
SexMale
Height (inches)73.0 to 75.0
Weight (pounds)170.0 to 180.0



Brown hair, hazel eyes.
William had polio as a child, also a dislocated shoulder as a teenager.
 

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http://www.murraypilots1966.org/William_Underhill.html
from Mary Underhill and Sarah Underhill Holm, Bill’s sisters (2016):



In high school Bill played football and was on the wrestling team. He was tall and slim and loved the outdoors. He lifted weights and was an avid fisherman. He spent summers at Itasca, exploring, lifeguarding, finding adventure. In 1969, he was a student at the U of M, working, and living at home with his parents and sisters.



Life wasn't always easy for Bill.



In March 1969, he disappeared. He was 21. And we know little more now then we did then – that he’d gone to a party with friends, drank some, talked some, perhaps about Vietnam and his upcoming physical for the draft – and that he left the party abruptly, into the night, never to be seen again.



Maybe he felt afraid, maybe brave, maybe he didn’t know what he felt or where to turn. Maybe he was broken-hearted, maybe he was in trouble. He had his life ahead of him – maybe the future would have meant his being drafted and serving in Vietnam. Maybe he would have come home, maybe not. It was a time in America not unlike these days, nearly 50 years later. We’ve imagined the worst in all its many forms.



Somewhere his bones lie. We continue to want to find him, to bury his bones in earth, marked with flowers, and to somehow in someway put his spirit to rest in a peaceful place.



We are grateful to you, the class of ’66, who knew him – vaguely or dearly – and who have shared your memories of him with us. Please continue to do so. And we will continue to look for him and love him and remain indebted for every bit of information – memory, suspicion, speculation, possibility, and detail – we are offered.



Thank you.
 
Thank you so much! He was such a beautiful person.

I believe his family has come to terms with the most likely scenario that he drowned in a nearby body of water the night of his disappearance. However, someone did say he called to tell them he was leaving and wouldnt say where he was going. So its possible he left to avoid the draft or impending charges for theft (i think it came out later that he had some theft charges brought against him that his family didnt know about). But based on what we know about him i cant imagine he would have cut off all ties with his family so i do suspect something bad befell him.

Some additional photos:
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Forgot to add that it is believed if he did disappear on purpose he would have been headed to Canada


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I posted this in the UID thread but I thought I would post it here too. I think this is a possibility but the thing that does throw me off a bit is the rod in the femur... But still, worth a look. If William was going to Montreal he very well may have been going through NH.
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1716umnh.html

Here is another one that I have been thinking about. The stats are slightly off however.
https://www.identifyus.org/en/cases/4823

This UID is my "best bet" for lack of better words. The reconstruction really reminds me of William and the stats aren't too far off.
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/499ummn.html
 
I posted this in the UID thread but I thought I would post it here too. I think this is a possibility but the thing that does throw me off a bit is the rod in the femur... But still, worth a look. If William was going to Montreal he very well may have been going through NH.
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1716umnh.html

Here is another one that I have been thinking about. The stats are slightly off however.
https://www.identifyus.org/en/cases/4823

This UID is my "best bet" for lack of better words. The reconstruction really reminds me of William and the stats aren't too far off.
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/499ummn.html

Thanks for the suggestions!
Funny, was going to post your first suggestion yesterday, the NH one , but got sidetracked..
 
Yeah this is one of the cases I always though could be William. Should I submit it?
Wondering what the other posters think, but you might as well, thanks!
 
I agree, the reconstruction doesn't look all too good. I will submit him tomorrow and let you all know what the response is!
 
I think it's absolutely worth submitting. I'm a bit suspicious because if one were to be going to Canada to avoid the draft and lives in Minnesota why go via NH? Maybe to throw people off? Do the less obvious?

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
I'm not very familiar with the US and Canada, but I figured if he was on his way to a specific place in Canada, for example Montréal or Ottowa, he may have ben roughly on that path. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Montréal one of the cities that many americans ran to to avoid the draft because it was safer or something? Again, I'm not too familiar with it but anything could have drawn him that way.
 
I'm not very familiar with the US and Canada, but I figured if he was on his way to a specific place in Canada, for example Montréal or Ottowa, he may have ben roughly on that path. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Montréal one of the cities that many americans ran to to avoid the draft because it was safer or something? Again, I'm not too familiar with it but anything could have drawn him that way.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/03/09/moving-to-canada-an-american-rite.html
March 9 2016
A brief history of Americans moving to Canada
Draft dodgers

The turmoil of the 1960s brought thousands of Americans who opposed the Vietnam to Canada, especially those who refused to participate in the draft.

Between 1966 and 1975, almost 240,000 Americans moved to Canada, according to Statistics Canada, almost twice the number as in the previous decade. In 1969, the Canadian government passed a law allowing U.S. immigration regardless of military status, effectively opening the door to draft-dodgers and deserters.

Moving to Canada reached its peak in 1974, when 27,932 Americans crossed the border. Although the U.S. granted amnesty to people who evaded the draft in 1977, many stayed in Canada.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/u-s-vietnam-war-draft-dodgers-left-their-mark-on-canada/
[h=1]U.S. Vietnam war draft dodgers left their mark on Canada[/h] [h=2]Most stayed after the war, “making up the largest, best-educated group this country ever received,” an archived government report says
[/h]
By Giuseppe Valiante, The Canadian Press
April 16, 2015


MONTREAL – When 22-year-old Bill King returned home to Indiana in 1968 to visit his parents after a stint as Janis Joplin’s music director, the FBI was there waiting for him.
King’s father, a Second World War veteran who landed at Normandy, helped negotiate a deal with the agents, who had been travelling around the United States looking for Vietnam War draft dodgers.
“If I agreed to go in the military, (the FBI) agreed to drop the charges of draft evasion,” King, 68, said in an interview from Toronto ahead of the 40th anniversary of the end of the war on April 30.
King spent the next 10 months at two army bases before fleeing the night before he was to be sent off to Vietnam. He then hitchhiked to Canada, joining thousands of other draft dodgers between 1965 and 1975 who made the journey north of the border.

Draft dodgers settled mostly in big cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. As their numbers swelled toward the end of the 1960s, more and more people in Canada began working for organizations helping dodgers find work and settle.
rbbm.
 
has anyone considered William to be Delafield John Doe? Cleft chin/dimpled chin; hazel eyes; right height; and the whole thing with the theft charges against William; maybe that's why Delafield/William took off-he knew he had those charges and he dodged the draft.
 
My dad went missing almost the same exact time as your brother. So I can definitely relate to your frustration and sense of loss. I'll do hope you guys get some solid leads and answers one day.

Bruce Higgins
 

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