NY NY - Mitchel Weiser, 16, & Bonita Bickwit, 15, Narrowsburg, 27 July 1973

[Two for the road]

I believe they have to have some identifying information on Bonnie too as she has been ruled out for several UIDs. We know their dental records were lost, so I'm assuming they have a familial reference sample on file for her.

 

[Laughing]

Yes, their families have taken appropriate steps over the years as stated above.

IF the DNA work is started on a set of remains of Jewish heritage, LE can check for a match to Mr. Weiser or Ms. Bickwit quickly.

Perhaps Mitch & Bonnie will be the next couple brought home?

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

Im sorry to bother ws about this if Im wrong but its driving me nuts & I have been googling all morning trying to find out where I read it several years ago but I can't find it anywhere. I even remember I did some research on it several years ago but can't even find it on my external hard drive at this point. But here goes. At one point wasn't cross dressing serial killer Hadden Clark put forth as possibly being involved in the disappearance of young Bickwit & Weiser? If anyone knows anything about this I would be very grateful to hear what you remember.

I can't find anything about his except that he has claimed to have murdered "dozens" of people, including the "Lady of the Dunes" in Massachusetts. He claimed that he kept trophies of his murders in a bucket buried in his grandfather's garden. It was dug up and over 200 pieces of jewelry were found. I wonder if efforts have been made to identify everything. Thanks for posting. I had not heard of this serial killer before.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

I have been reading about this case today so came over here to see what you all were saying about it. It really bugs me that so many of these cases have such lackadasical information and that LE doesn't follow up on things and that families don't follow up on things. I have seen 3 things about this case that stand out (and I am sure t here are more) but no one carried them thru to the end. One was that the kids were out of sorts before the trip. Why? Don't any of their friends have a clue? Did the police interview any of them and dig for answers?

The $80. Why did the girl come for that suddenly? Did they try to find out? Wouldn't the girl tell a friend or someone why she wanted to suddenly go home and get that money? It could be a big clue as to where they went.

The man that claims they drowned.... How come his info is so sketchy but they just let him go on home or whatever and never dug deep for any answers. Since he claimed to be with them, couldn't they get a warrant for a lie detector test? Take the guy around to the area he claimed to be in with them and get small details? Pot doesn't make anyone that nuts. i would have dug much deeper with that guy. also done a search in the area he claims he was with them. You read all these clues but then the idea or clue is just dropped with no answers. Really irritating. Also odd that no one except the Vet and the one truck driver remembers seeing them anywhere. Oh there was 1 other clue that I think they dropped the ball on and that was a letter the girl wrote to her mother close to the disappearance. The girl went on about how she loved her parents but she wanted to be free and travel etc. The mother read part of it in an interview. What did all that mean??? And why did she write such a letter to her mom. Was it some sort of good bye letter? That was also dropped and never to be heard about again.

Yes, I agree. Also, how do people know she only retrieved the $80? When she went back to her house did she retrieve anything else that might give us a clue? Also, every account about her going back to retrieve that money indicates that she "snuck" into her house. That's an interesting choice of word and it's in every account. What does that mean? Was she not allowed to be in her own house? Did she forget her key and had to climb in through an unlocked window? Who did she tell that she retrieved her $80 or was it assumed that she got it when it wasn't there after the disappearance? Just so many questions about that.

 

[CCJD]

I can't find anything about his except that he has claimed to have murdered "dozens" of people, including the "Lady of the Dunes" in Massachusetts. He claimed that he kept trophies of his murders in a bucket buried in his grandfather's garden. It was dug up and over 200 pieces of jewelry were found. I wonder if efforts have been made to identify everything. Thanks for posting. I had not heard of this serial killer before.

Hadden Clark's thread: MD - MD - Hadden Irving Clark, Transvestite, Cannibal

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

..so it rained hard the day of the concert. That may have made it possible for the rivers to be high the next day. I don't believe Smith's story completely but this is an interesting detail.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

My fear is that Mitch and Bonnie are in unmarked graves on Hart Island. If they were buried before 1977 their records were destroyed in a fire. So IF that happened (just speculating), they were unidentified because NYC police didn't know they were missing and they were sent to Hart Island and their records were destroyed... There is literally no way of knowing if it was them. Another possibility in the endless possibilities in this case.

Just doing some research on Hart Island, I wonder if anyone has gone through the available records and cross referenced them with Namus to see if any of the unidentified buried there are in the system. Just a random thought.

Hi. Was it typical for unidentified bodies found in Sullivan County or thereabouts to be buried at Hart Island? That's a very interesting possibility.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

Does anyone know whether Bonnie Bickwit has dentals available for comparison? Do we know whether she had dental care at all?

Hi. Many reports indicate that the file with both of their dental records (the only copies, apparently) were lost years ago.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

According to a NY times article. published on April 9th,1974.
Bonnies mom . Mrs. Bickwit. Received a phone call from her two best friends in the whole world in August of 1973. Mrs. Bromberg and Mrs. Berkowitz.
They both stated to Mrs Bickwit. That they had recently seen Bonnie and Mitch boarding a bus in Boston Massachusetts. Bound for Dover NewHamshire.
And Mrs. Bromberg and Mrs. Berkowittz. We're BOTH 100 percent certain that the two children they had seen ,were definitely Mitchel and Bonnie.
And these two ladies were Bonnie's mom's two best friends in the whole world.
So.. To me.. This is a confirmed sighting in August of 1973. Which means that they probably did make it to the concert.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

I saw this too and find it unusual that it has only been mentioned in the NYT article that I can find. Why is there no other follow up or interviews with these women.? Why didn't they speak with them? They certainly knew them. Did these women make up the story to comfort their friend? It just seems that there'd be more information about this sighting.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

Hadden Clark's thread: MD - MD - Hadden Irving Clark, Transvestite, Cannibal

Thanks!

 

[ekardh]

Hello @jeninbrooklyn, I don't know if the forum has a policy against multiple-posting, but it's good form to keep your thoughts to as few posts as possible.

 

[dotr]

Feb 1 2002
By Kristine Larsen and Robert Sapolsky
Why We Want Their Bodies Back
''If this man's story is true, the bodies of Bonnie and Mitch should have been found. Show us the bodies, we thought, and the mystery of their disappearance will be resolved once and for all.''

''In the case of Bonnie and Mitch, my schoolmates and I realized years ago that they were never coming home. But because we never got the bodies back, there will always be a measure of uncertainty about what happened to them and about the man who finally made that phone call to the police. Allyn Smith was 24 at the time of the Watkins Glen rock festival. On the way home he hitched a ride in a Volkswagen bus. There was a scrawny young couple riding in the back, also hitching from the festival. Smith and the driver smoked a joint. It was a hot day and there was a river nearby. They stopped, planning to cool off in the water. As Smith crouched to take off his shoes, wondering at the wisdom of going in the rough water, he heard a shout. He turned to see that the girl was in the river. The boy—her companion—leaped in to try to save her. Then they were both swept away, down the rapids, still very much alive.''


''Smith is now cooperating with the police, trying to identify the stretch of river where he says they disappeared. "I felt he was credible," says Roy Streever, the investigating detective with the New York State police. Nonetheless, something didn't happen that day. Smith, an athletic Navy vet, didn't try to rescue Bonnie and Mitch. Nor did the driver of the bus. Eventually they drove off. At the next exit, Smith got out and headed in another direction. The driver said he'd make an anonymous phone call to the police from a gas station and report that the two kids had been swept down the river. Police have no record that a call was made.''

 

[NJEverCurious]

Are you sure there is no DNA on file from a parent or sibling of either of them? (Just curious. If not, that's really too bad. Many would like to see this case solved.)

Somewhere, waaaay up this thread, I'm pretty sure someone mentioned that all the records have been lost.

 

[Two for the road]

Hi. Was it typical for unidentified bodies found in Sullivan County or thereabouts to be buried at Hart Island? That's a very interesting possibility.

Not that I am aware of. Usually each township has their own paupers grave section. I'm sorry for the ambiguous nature of my post. English isn't my first language. I just meant, if they had arrived back in the city after the concert and something bad happened to them, since nobody but family was looking, would they have thought to check in with OCME frequently or could they have been found deceased, went unidentified for the required period of time and then sent to a place like Hart Island.

With that said, I firmly believe that they never left Narrowsburg. There were so many people on that stretch of road on their way to Watkins Glen and there were actually quite a few serial killers active in that area at the time. Unknown to this day.

What is interesting from that YouTube video is that Mitch's sister said they were to stay with a family friend in Syracuse. There was a missing college student from Syracuse that later was found dead. Her killer confessed the murder to his friend in 1975 who took that to the police. When the police caught him he confessed to attempting to murder a male business associate. I bring this up because the murder happened in Nov. 1972 near Syracuse. Mitch was supposed to stay with a relative there after the concert. Bonnie looks a LOT like the murder victim, Karen Levy. Total conjecture, I know, but I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.

 

[jeninbrooklyn]

Oh, I get it now. I wonder how many missing unidentified are out at Hart Island. Did the sister say that Mitchel was definitely going to stay with the friend in Rochester? I missed that. I thought the mother (or sister, I've been obsessing over this case since the weekend) said that she called the friend in Rochester because she just considered it a possibility that the two may have travelled there because of Bonnie's letter saying she wanted to travel. Maybe I'm mixing it up or this is information I haven't found. From what I've found, it sounds as though Mitchel was planning on coming home, having told his friend that he picked his ticket up from that he would "See you Monday."
Sadly, I also believe they never got out of Narrowsburg. I think that they were picked up quickly by the wrong person who was local and hid the bodies very well, probably on their own property. I happened so quickly and there are just no witnesses. Anyway, thanks for answering me. Your English is perfect, btw. I know because I'm an ESL teacher!

 

[Two for the road]

This case is really tugging at my heartstrings. I think what this person proposed in a Youtube comment under gabulosis' video on this case could be likely.

That is what's so frustrating about this case, anything could have happened. If you Google Mitch and Bonnie and go to images, there is a Canadian couple that comes up. What is mitch and Bonnie ran away to Canada to start a new life?

IMO, I don't think Bonnie was pregnant. I think she was having family problems. The kind nobody talked about back then. :-(

 

[Mors_Et_Vita]

That is what's so frustrating about this case, anything could have happened. If you Google Mitch and Bonnie and go to images, there is a Canadian couple that comes up. What is mitch and Bonnie ran away to Canada to start a new life?

IMO, I don't think Bonnie was pregnant. I think she was having family problems. The kind nobody talked about back then. :-(

She was probably having family problems too, but the idea of her running away from home as a result of a pregnancy makes more sense to be, as she wouldn't have been able to hide something like that from her parents for too long. What adds credence to this idea in my mind is the time she spent home after returning to summer camp to collect the money. Perhaps there was another purpose, perhaps to take a pregnancy test?

 

[ekardh]

The theory rests entirely on the premise that Bonnie was pregnant, and there's absolutely zero evidence to support that.

 

[Two for the road]

She was probably having family problems too, but the idea of her running away from home as a result of a pregnancy makes more sense to be, as she wouldn't have been able to hide something like that from her parents for too long. What adds credence to this idea in my mind is the time she spent home after returning to summer camp to collect the money. Perhaps there was another purpose, perhaps to take a pregnancy test?

RBBM, I don't think so. In 1973 there were no over the counter pregnancy tests. In fact, most tests were not only done by a laboratory, but had to be sent to a special lab for formal tests. This would have been too expensive for two teenagers to afford. So if Bonnie was pregnant, it would have more than likely be a "I haven't had a period in awhile" kind of confirmation rather than a formal test. Prenatal care was just becoming a major medical thing in the early 70s.

Bonnie being pregnant is conjecture. As are all other theories in this case because so little is known about their whereabouts. I think that's the biggest reason this case sticks with me. They literally just vanished without a trace.