Scott M. Strand

On March 27, 1985, 22 year old Karen Wilson was counting down to spring break. She was a senior at the University at Albany in New York, a political science major originally from Utah. She was interning for the state Assembly. In a few days she'd be on a beach in Fort Lauderdale. That afternoon, she left her dorm to get ready for the trip. She shopped for some new clothes. Then she went to a tanning salon on Central Avenue, a few miles from campus. At 7:20 p.m., she walked out of the salon. That's the last time anyone can say for certain that they saw her. But three different people, who didn't know each other, all called police later with the same story. Between 8:10 and 8:20 that night, they saw a young woman matching Karen's description walking alone down Fuller Road, heading toward campus. In a cream colored raincoat. White sneakers. She was near a dark, quiet stretch by a small lake and an on-ramp to the interstate. She was almost back to school. She never got there. Karen didn't come back to her dorm that night. She never went to Florida. She never called her family again. Troopers and students searched the railroad tracks and woods along that road. Police divers searched the lake. They found nothing. Investigators believe someone may have pulled her into a car on that dark stretch, right by the highway, and been gone in seconds. Police later released a sketch of a person of interest. He's never been identified. Then, 13 years later, it happened again. Another student from the same school, Suzanne Lyall, stepped off a bus near campus and vanished. She was never found either. 41 years later, Karen Wilson would be 63. Her parents spent the rest of their lives waiting for her to come home. She was a few minutes from her dorm, walking back from getting ready for spring break. Somebody saw her on that road.