AZ AZ - Laurie 'Allison' Smith, 22, Tucson, 8 Feb 1977

[jobrien]

I'm doing namus searches right now to see if maybe I can find her..

John, you mentioned that he had been calling Idaho. Do you know if he had ties to other areas?

Oregon and Washington State. His daughter was estranged from him and moved to Washington where she lives now. He ended up selling his property in Tucson and moving to Oregon where he eventually died.

edit: I guess you probably meant on the phone bills - I only paid attention to the Idaho calls because there were so many of them. I believe I tried to identify the person that he was calling. In truth I recall it being Boise Idaho now, but I'm not positive of that and it took some time to remember - it being so long ago. Another thing I might be able to confirm with the detective in charge of her case.

 

[CarlK90245]

This is probably not Allison, but she was the first unidentified female to come to mind when I saw her photo and the 1977 Date LKA.

She was found in Washington State a few months after Allison was last seen.

She looks alot like Allison, but Allison was a little shorter than this woman, and there is no reason to believe that she would end up in Snohomish County WA. Also, the authorities know who killed this girl. They just don't know who she was.

http://doenetwork.org/cases/516ufwa.html

 

[jobrien]

I saw that drawing on google images along with a photograph next to it that matched. I'm sure it's not Allison.

 

[EmmaliLucia]

So what do you think the landlord's motive was? To keep her quiet? She hadn't gone to the police about the situation yet.

I wonder if he was made cautious by the earlier situation of almost being put away for his wife's death, or was he made over confidant by his success.

If he was made cautious, I suspect she is far out in the desert and has not been discovered. If he was over confidant, my guess is she is a Doe that was discovered within an hour or so of the area. JMO

Whatever the case, I am not sure what we can do except go through the databases. I am going to start tonight and see if I can come up with any more. I know EmmaliLucia came up with some but not sure what databases she uses.

I use namus because I can do searches based on where they were found, when they were estimated to have died, etc. I didn't check DoeNetwork though.

 

[EmmaliLucia]

It is VERY doubtful she ever left the state of AZ. There would be no reason to. In someways it seems very calculated to me. She is under the impression she is going to deliver the marijuana which was packed in a different car. Her car was found a block away. She leaves voluntarily, no scene is created. They meet up somewhere in the state of AZ to do the exchange, and meets her demise, and disposed of somewhere in the desert. It wouldn't make sense to take her out of state to a more populated area where she would likely be found.

The only problem with that theory though is that I only found one UID from Arizona that fit her stats. I might have punched something in wrong so I'm in the process of checking again though.

Most of the UIDs in Arizona on namus all died within a few months of when they were found, and there's a gap from 1976 to 1979

 

[Ricochet]

It's a desert. I feel very comfortable in saying her body was never found. I also feel comfortable in saying she was never outside the state of AZ. It would be incredibly easy, especially back in 1977, to go somewhere off path and dispose of a body, and for it to go undiscovered. There would be absolutely no reason to take her out of state. The landlord was a planner. This was not random. He had this thought out in advance.

Also, do not get hung up on Oregon and Washington, I believe, neither are relevant at this stage in his life (1977 and probably not relevant for many many years later), and most likely neither state had anything to do with drugs. To the best of my knowledge the only tie he has to either would be his estranged daughter. She lived in The Dalles, Oregon which is where he died in 2011. She is the administrator of his estate. She either lived or currently lives in Washington..

 

[jobrien]

There are only three females in the entire NamUs UP database who are listed with butterfly tattoos. None are in Arizona, none are on the back of the shoulder, and none are from that approximate time-frame.

Can you try for a unicorn? I might have got it wrong.

 

[EmmaliLucia]

So I know it can't possibly be her but the picture similarity is downright eerie:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/6349


I've been thinking how unlikely it is to be her but posting links never hurt anything:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/10466


They say one year, but I like to give wiggle-room to skeletons:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/10742


Another skeleton, believed to have given birth at some point though:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/9836


And I like to give a HUGE amount of wiggle room to partial skeletons:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/7208


Another partial
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/7076


Oii with the partial skeletons:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/8829

 

[EmmaliLucia]

Can you try for a unicorn? I might have got it wrong.

Unicorns.. Beautiful beasts, unfortunately there are less than ten UIDs with Unicorns in the United States that I'm aware of. Earliest recorded one was 1990 on a guy.

Here are some very generic tattoos that scores of UIDs have been found with:

Grim reapers (No joke)
Crosses >53
Words > 43
Names > 35
Roses >23
Skulls >20


If you want to do some solo searching I got a nice list compiled up. It's not a full list, but if we're talking about the late 70s early 80s then most if not all of them should be on there:
NEW Can you match these UID tattoos to tattoos of the missing? - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

 

[CarlK90245]

Can you try for a unicorn? I might have got it wrong.

Only one female with a unicorn tattoo. Bronx. 1990. Definitely not Allison.

 

[jobrien]

How updated is NamUs? I mean - I understand AZ has neglected to update the national database with the records of people who medically should not own guns. In the news Az seemed particularly unwilling to share that information nationally. Are they better at UID's?

@Carl never mind the unicorn, I'm sure it was a butterfly. The unicorn was probably a poster on the wall.

 

[deca]

Just what I noticed: AZ has many many UID- some articles I have read say they have one of the highest number of UID remains. And that is just since 2007- so who knows how many pre 1990 UID files are out there in some dusty warehouse, waiting to get entered into Namus.

 

[CarlK90245]

How updated is NamUs? I mean - I understand AZ has neglected to update the national database with the records of people who medically should not own guns. In the news Az seemed particularly unwilling to share that information nationally. Are they better at UID's?

I know of a recent situation regarding a 19 year old girl from Tucson named Jeanne Geneva Overstreet who went missing in September 1982. Her remains were found on a roadside about a year later, and stuck in a box at the coroner's office and forgotten.

About a year ago, someone found the bones stored on a shelf and she was ID'd shortly thereafter. But she was never entered in NamUs. Had she been entered, I am certain that I (or some other online sleuth) would have quickly made the connection.

Arizona has thousands of unidentified remains of border crossers (as do TX, NM, and CA) , so there are probably quite a few U.S. citizens whose remains are found, but they are lost in the mix.

 

[jobrien]

Laurie's entry on NamUs does not contain very much information - Not even the photo which they have had since the beginning. Nothing at all about the circumstances of her disappearance. Nothing at all about the car or where it was found. It's not surprising to me that they remain unsolved if that's a representative example.

 

[Karas]

I am starting this thread on Laurie A Smith because with such a generic name, her case is difficult to research without a DOB. I was able to locate her DOB, which is not publicly available elsewhere.

Perhaps this can assist others to find a photo of her or additional information regarding the circumstances of her disappearance.


NamUs MP # 12469 https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/12469/0

Laurie Allison Smith

No Photo Available

LKA

Last Seen on February 08, 1977 in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona
Age LKA: 22 years old
Circumstances: Not Indicated​

Vital Stats

DOB: 28-Sep-1954
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height (inches): 67.0
Weight (pounds): 115.0
Hair color: Brown
Eye color: Brown​

Identifiers

DNA: Available
Dentals: Not Available
Fingerprints: Not Available​

She was 5'4" and both dental and familial DNA are available. This is her sister posting. And coincidentally the man who is responsible for her disappearance, moved to the WA border(Bellingham) right after and then settled outside Spokane in Medical Lakes. He died a couple years ago.

 

[Karas]

With Ricochet's help, we found out two key bits of info. (1) Her middle name (and the name that she went by), was Allison. And (2), she was originally from Las Cruces, NM.

With that info, I was able to find her sophomore and junior year photos from the 1970 and 1971 Las Cruces High School yearbooks.

Here is another photo of her from the drama club (i.e., The "LCHS Thespians"). She looks quite different with glasses, but this appears to be the same person who appears in the portraits.

I am pretty sure that I have the right Laurie Smith (despite that it is a common name). The following article comes from the 11-Apr-1968 edition of the Las Cruces Sun News, and tells of the first place award she received from her Girl Scout group for her artwork. She is named using her full name (Laurie Allison Smith), and this corroborates that she lived near Las Cruces (in the city of Chapparal) at that time.

This is the right Laurie Allison Smith. The car was a rental and was found in December of the same year she disappeared in February, a block away from where our (previous) landlord lived. The car sat through the monsoon season and was only reported after the apt complex owner noticed it when the students went home for the holidays. The spare tire was in the back seat, 1 seed was in the trunk. They got no fingerprints and the car has since been demolished and disposed of. The mileage was consistent with her route she was to have taken.

 

[CanManEh]

Hey Karas ..Your first name wouldn't happen to be Beth would it... ?

 

[Karas]

It's a desert. I feel very comfortable in saying her body was never found. I also feel comfortable in saying she was never outside the state of AZ. It would be incredibly easy, especially back in 1977, to go somewhere off path and dispose of a body, and for it to go undiscovered. There would be absolutely no reason to take her out of state. The landlord was a planner. This was not random. He had this thought out in advance.

Also, do not get hung up on Oregon and Washington, I believe, neither are relevant at this stage in his life (1977 and probably not relevant for many many years later), and most likely neither state had anything to do with drugs. To the best of my knowledge the only tie he has to either would be his estranged daughter. She lived in The Dalles, Oregon which is where he died in 2011. She is the administrator of his estate. She either lived or currently lives in Washington..

He was a realtor in Medical Lakes Washington and lived on the first street that bordered the lake. He had been there for many years, selling his house a couple years before he passed. I guess that's when he went to live with his estranged daughter. Estranged because he murdered her mother and tried to collect on the insurance. When he left Tucson, he went to Bellingham, WA where the FBI kept an eye on him for quite a few years. There was reportedly no unusual behavior. Some years later he moved to the Spokane area.

Also she was listed in NAMUS only in the last decade. Apparently it was an oversight. I sent her dental records to every coroner in the state of AZ to see if they had any matching Jane Does. No luck.

 

[Karas]

Hey Karas ..Your first name wouldn't happen to be Beth would it... ?

No it's not.

 

[CarlK90245]

This is the right Laurie Allison Smith. The car was a rental and was found in December of the same year she disappeared in February, a block away from where our (previous) landlord lived. The car sat through the monsoon season and was only reported after the apt complex owner noticed it when the students went home for the holidays. The spare tire was in the back seat, 1 seed was in the trunk. They got no fingerprints and the car has since been demolished and disposed of. The mileage was consistent with her route she was to have taken.

Do you know where was the "route she was to have taken"?