MT MT - Dorothy Freeman, 26, Missoula, 7 Sept 1970

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Gardener1850

Gardener1850

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[h=1]Dorothy Geneva Freeman[/h]
32607
Freeman, circa 1970




  • Missing Since 09/07/1970
  • Missing From Missoula, Montana
  • Classification Endangered Missing
  • Date of Birth 06/22/1944 (73)
  • Age 26 years old
  • Height and Weight 5'8, 140 pounds
  • Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Freeman's maiden name is Grasdock.


[h=3]Details of Disappearance[/h] Freeman was last seen in Missoula, Montana on September 7, 1970. She left her apartment in Missoula at 9:30 p.m. en route to her student teaching job in Hamilton, but never arrived. She was driving a green and white 1960 Ford Fairmont with the Montana license plate number 91315; it has never been recovered.

Freeman has never been heard from again. She was attending the University of Montana at the time of her disappearance; she'd enrolled in 1968.

Her husband was serving in the Air Force; they were having relationship difficulties and he wanted a divorce, but it's unclear whether they had actually gotten one by the time of her disappearance.

Freeman's family describes her as a responsible and deeply religious woman who wouldn't have left without warning. Her case remains unsolved.

http://charleyproject.org/case/dorothy-geneva-freeman

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/18596/
 
Below is an article I found dated Sept. 5 1973, appearing in the Daily Tribune Examiner out of Dillon, MT (snp'd for copyright)

Sorry, I don't have a link because it made me download a PDF and it only shows where the file went on my pc, but it comes from www.montananewspapers.org

I found it by searching Google for Dorothy Grasdock


"Disappearance Remains Mystery FAIRFIELD (AP) - The last three years have been a time o anxiety for Mr. and Mrs. Herman Grasdock, Fairfield, whose daughter, a University of Montana student, disappeared without a trace. It was Labor Day 1970 that Dorothy Grasdock Freeman, 26,climbed into her car outside her Missoula apartment and drove into obscurity.“Everybody would like to know what happened to Dorothy,” Mrs.Grasdock said Monday. “If we knew one way or another it would relieve a lot of tension and worry.“We still hope that someday something will turn up, one way or another.”Relatives described the young woman as a quiet, reserved person who decided to go to college in 1968 after learning that her husband,stationed with the Air Force in Thailand, wanted a divorce.The day after Mrs. Freeman disappeared, she was to report fora teaching position in Hamilton.She never arrived.There were several reports thatshe had been seen in the tiny communities of Wisdom and Wise River in extreme southwestern Montana. Her father subsequently spent his weekends driving the back roads in the lonely area in an unsuccessful attempt to find his daughter. He also hired a helicopter and searched the remote Skalkaho Pass area between Hamilton and Anaconda. Grasdock’s search ended in August 1972 when he suffered a stroke."

It goes on to say her sister in law says they originally thought she went off to be by herself, but after 3 years, now they don't think so.
 
September 11, 1970 The Daily Inter Lake from Kalispell, Montana · Page 18

Partial (garbled) OCR Text:
[FONT=&amp]Student Teacher Object Of Search MBSOULA (AP) - Sheriffs authorities In MIssoula and Ravalli counties continued their search Thursday night for a 26- year-old University of Montana student teacher who tolled to show up for work Tuesday. Orville Grasdock, Ronan, said Ms sisttr, Dorothy Freeman, formerly of FairfieW, left Missoula Monday evening for Hamilton and has not been heard from since. She is deierlbed as Woot-8. 150 pounds, wftfa brown htir. She wms driving » 1910 green Ford, bearing license plate 91315[/FONT]
Click to expand...
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/24336329/

That says 1910 green Ford, but I'm guessing the news article actually said it was a 1970 car.
 
Alleykins said:
Below is an article I found dated Sept. 5 1973, appearing in the Daily Tribune Examiner out of Dillon, MT (snp'd for copyright)

Sorry, I don't have a link because it made me download a PDF and it only shows where the file went on my pc, but it comes from www.montananewspapers.org

I found it by searching Google for Dorothy Grasdock


"Disappearance Remains Mystery FAIRFIELD (AP) - The last three years have been a time o anxiety for Mr. and Mrs. Herman Grasdock, Fairfield, whose daughter, a University of Montana student, disappeared without a trace. It was Labor Day 1970 that Dorothy Grasdock Freeman, 26,climbed into her car outside her Missoula apartment and drove into obscurity.“Everybody would like to know what happened to Dorothy,” Mrs.Grasdock said Monday. “If we knew one way or another it would relieve a lot of tension and worry.“We still hope that someday something will turn up, one way or another.”Relatives described the young woman as a quiet, reserved person who decided to go to college in 1968 after learning that her husband,stationed with the Air Force in Thailand, wanted a divorce.The day after Mrs. Freeman disappeared, she was to report fora teaching position in Hamilton.She never arrived.There were several reports thatshe had been seen in the tiny communities of Wisdom and Wise River in extreme southwestern Montana. Her father subsequently spent his weekends driving the back roads in the lonely area in an unsuccessful attempt to find his daughter. He also hired a helicopter and searched the remote Skalkaho Pass area between Hamilton and Anaconda. Grasdock’s search ended in August 1972 when he suffered a stroke."

It goes on to say her sister in law says they originally thought she went off to be by herself, but after 3 years, now they don't think so.
Click to expand...

Interesting detail that her husband was stationed in Thailand at the time she went missing. I guess that rules him out as a suspect. JMO.
 
Gardener1850 said:
Interesting detail that her husband was stationed in Thailand at the time she went missing. I guess that rules him out as a suspect. JMO.
Click to expand...

That jumped out at me, too. I wonder how credible those sightings are?
Her father died 2 years after his stroke, according to Find a Grave. Poor family. Sounds like he did everything he could to find her.
 
She could have had a car accident on the way to Hamilton and the car has never been discovered. Or she could have picked up a hitchhiker who harmed her. I don't see her running away when she had completed 2 years of college and was starting a new job teaching. JMO. I wonder if she could have had a boyfriend no one knew about?
 
Map showing the places mentioned in the article https://goo.gl/maps/f9egSjXzjEQ2 (the round black markers--the label for Hamilton isn't displaying correctly.)

About the Skalkaho Pass road: http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/349-skalkaho-highway-usa.html

I've been over this route a couple of times; the road itself isn't bad if you're used to driving on dirt roads, but one mistake and you're several hundred feet into inaccessible rock ledges and they'd never find your car.

People take it as a shortcut from the Hamilton area to Butte/Anaconda, but it would have been an unlikely route if she went directly to Wisdom because the highway (US-93 and Montana 43) goes there.

If she wanted peace or space, there are campsites along all those roads where she could have pulled over and camped in her car for weeks without anybody bothering her.
 
carbuff said:
Map showing the places mentioned in the article https://goo.gl/maps/f9egSjXzjEQ2 (the round black markers--the label for Hamilton isn't displaying correctly.)

About the Skalkaho Pass road: http://www.dangerousroads.org/north-america/usa/349-skalkaho-highway-usa.html

I've been over this route a couple of times; the road itself isn't bad if you're used to driving on dirt roads, but one mistake and you're several hundred feet into inaccessible rock ledges and they'd never find your car.

People take it as a shortcut from the Hamilton area to Butte/Anaconda, but it would have been an unlikely route if she went directly to Wisdom because the highway (US-93 and Montana 43) goes there.

If she wanted peace or space, there are campsites along all those roads where she could have pulled over and camped in her car for weeks without anybody bothering her.
Click to expand...

Thanks for adding your insights to the area, Carbuff.
 
Here is some of the best info for Dorothy Freeman. The websites have the wrong car and plate number. The Skalkaho Road can be very nasty and back then it was pretty rough. Some of that area burned a few years ago and still no sign of her car. But it could be there. I live right in this area and drive that road all the time. This is a snapshot of The Choteau Acantha Sept 6. 1973 . http://www.montananewspapers.org/lccn/sn85053032/1973-09-06/ed-1/seq-5/#
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A car the color of pine trees...very hard to see in the woods.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk
 
carbuff said:
A car the color of pine trees...very hard to see in the woods.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

You're right, that would be difficult to spot, especially, too, after it was no longer shiny
 
If Dorothy went over Skalkaho or south of Hamilton past Darby and went off the road on one of the steeper inclines, and there are many. If the car flipped and landed on its top in the water or out. Skalkaho is only open in the summer time when road is good, conditions when she went missing were good and that road was probably open. Remember her father had hired a helicopter to search the area. Will try to contact the Ravalli County SD and see if the original files can be looked at. Worth a try
 
Gardener1850 said:
Interesting detail that her husband was stationed in Thailand at the time she went missing. I guess that rules him out as a suspect. JMO.
Click to expand...

He may have been stationed there but could have have been home on leave at the time?

The other thing that jumped out at me in an earlier post was that Dorothy was said to be deeply religious. Could that have led to her making a divorce difficult or delaying it considerably and thus providing a motive for her husband to do away with her? If Dorothy did suffer foul play he could have arranged for someone else to do the dirty work for him.
 
Dorothy was divorced before she set off. Her mother in law, Lucy Freeman of Ennis, Texas had handled the details by mail. Her ex husband remarried and he did not return to the States until ‘73-‘74. When he returned, he returned to TX and was stationed in San Antonio. This has always been something he and the entire Freeman family has felt horribly about... anything to help find her. Her mother in law never forgot her and loved her very much.
 
Saiyood2 said:
Dorothy was divorced before she set off. Her mother in law, Lucy Freeman of Ennis, Texas had handled the details by mail. Her ex husband remarried and he did not return to the States until ‘73-‘74. When he returned, he returned to TX and was stationed in San Antonio. This has always been something he and the entire Freeman family has felt horribly about... anything to help find her. Her mother in law never forgot her and loved her very much.
Click to expand...

Welcome to WebSleuths. Thank you for your insight.
 
Dorothy Geneva Grasdock Freeman
0F6CCCF6-98D6-47C1-942B-C6A04D1CE624.jpeg 1DB02A62-7A46-4AEA-80CF-65FF4998BAAB.jpeg
Date of Last Contact: September 7, 1970
Missing From: Hamilton, Ravalli County, Montana
Race / Ethnicity: White / Caucasian
Sex: Female
Date of Birth: June 22, 1944
Missing Age: 26 Years
Height: 5' 8" (68 Inches)
Weight: 150 lbs
Hair Color: Brown; Soft wavy curls, neck length
Eye Color: Blue (wore glasses)

Circumstances of Disappearance: Was last seen around 2130 hours on 9/7/1970 when she left Missoula enroute to her student teaching job in Hamilton.

Transportation
1960 Ford Fairmont
Style: Sedan
Color: White and Green
State: Montana

8 Unidentified Person Exclusions:
UP5556 05/30/1976 Virginia Beach VA
UP8579 01/25/1981 Hanover VA
UP6796 11/18/1985 Alleghany VA
UP6642 08/07/1986 Chesterfield VA
UP6629 02/03/1991 Frederick VA
UP6150 11/07/1998 Stafford VA
UP8419 01/16/2001 Isle of Wight VA
UP12683 06/06/2014 Newport News VA

 
carbuff said:
Map showing the places mentioned in the article خرائط ‪Google‬‏‏ (the round black markers--the label for Hamilton isn't displaying correctly.)

About the Skalkaho Pass road: Skalkaho Highway, a drive down Montana’s loneliest highway

I've been over this route a couple of times; the road itself isn't bad if you're used to driving on dirt roads, but one mistake and you're several hundred feet into inaccessible rock ledges and they'd never find your car.

People take it as a shortcut from the Hamilton area to Butte/Anaconda, but it would have been an unlikely route if she went directly to Wisdom because the highway (US-93 and Montana 43) goes there.

If she wanted peace or space, there are campsites along all those roads where she could have pulled over and camped in her car for weeks without anybody bothering her.
Click to expand...

i wish I knew where she was. She is my grandpas sister. I found about her not that long ago.
 
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