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

New Posts

Two for the road said:
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.
Click to expand...

I knew Mitch and Bonnie in high school. I don’t know anything about how pregnancy tests were conducted back then, but there was another girl in the same year as all of us who had an abortion. That was big, big news then, and we were all minors, but somehow she (the other girl, not Bonnie) had to have found out she was pregnant in order to abort. Looking back she must have had her parents’ permission as she was 16 or so. On the off chance that Bonnie was pregnant and therefore ran away, she would not still be hiding out from her family. They were surely killed and never recovered. My hope lies in the advances in DNA that may identify their remains if ever found.
 
Arkay said:
I knew Mitch and Bonnie in high school. I don’t know anything about how pregnancy tests were conducted back then, but there was another girl in the same year as all of us who had an abortion. That was big, big news then, and we were all minors, but somehow she (the other girl, not Bonnie) had to have found out she was pregnant in order to abort. Looking back she must have had her parents’ permission as she was 16 or so. On the off chance that Bonnie was pregnant and therefore ran away, she would not still be hiding out from her family. They were surely killed and never recovered. My hope lies in the advances in DNA that may identify their remains if ever found.
Click to expand...

Did you know them well in highschool? If so, can you tell us a little bit about them? All we have is what the MP websites say and it doesn't say much about who they were. Were they into the hippie scene? Did either of them smoke or experiment with drugs?
 
Two for the road said:
Did you know them well in highschool? If so, can you tell us a little bit about them? All we have is what the MP websites say and it doesn't say much about who they were. Were they into the hippie scene? Did either of them smoke or experiment with drugs?
Click to expand...

No, I did not know them well. I was acquainted with them but we were in different cliques. It was the early 70s and our high school was a brand new school that was designed to attract "gifted" kids from all over the borough of Brooklyn. All the other schools at the time only accepted local kids from the immediate neighborhood. The effect this had on social life was that, unlike grade school and junior high, we hadn't grown up together and we didn't live near enough to each other to easily hang out.

What I remember about them was that they were considered a little "out there." Mostly Mitch. Again, as it was the early 70s, there was still an element of hippy/groovy going on, and there were a lot of kids just like them. I was part of a no-drugs, more scholarly minded group. They were intellectual and smart, but a little wilder or more daring than us, although I have no clue if they used drugs at all.

That said, we hitchhiked also, but just around the neighborhood. It was much more common and bordered on acceptable back then. I think about them often, but if this tragedy hadn't happened, I doubt I'd remember them, and they wouldn't have remembered me.
 
A prank phone call, or something more?

Mitchel Fred Weiser – The Charley Project
''Years following their disappearances, Mitchel's father accepted a collect call from someone identifying herself as "Bonnie." By the time the operator was able to connect them, the caller had hung up. She did not call back and has never been identified.''
3DFNY - Bonita Mara Bickwit
''Age: 15 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 4'11"
Weight: 95 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown''
BBickwit.jpg
BBickwit2.jpg
BBickwit3.jpg

The images on the right have been age-progressed to age 52 (circa 2010) and age 58 (circa 2016)
  • mitchel_fred_weiser_1.jpg
  • mitchel_fred_weiser_4.jpg
  • ''Age 16 years old
  • Height and Weight 5'7, 140 pounds
  • Clothing/Jewelry Description Blue jeans, a t-shirt and boots.
  • Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian male. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Mitchel wore gold-rimmed metal eyeglasses at the time of his disappearance. He parted his shoulder-length hair in the middle and pulled it back into a ponytail. Mitchel has a scar on his lower lip and his upper front teeth are discolored. His nickname is Mitch.''
 
Some of the best clues in this thread go back to pages 2,3,and 4.
This case may have already been solved . Not once . But twice.
I think they ran away. And the evidence supports this.
But one thing that we do know.
Is that law enforcement lost all of the records. Of the investigation.
We know that. For sure.
 
Perhaps this idea has been posted in this thread...
During the past few years, long-submerged vehicles have been discovered in lakes and rivers. Some of these vehicles have contained bodies of individuals who were involved in decades-old missing persons cases--and some were teens.
This would not fit the VW bus narrative, but I think it should be considered.
 
Since they took off walking. This idea would require atleast 1 more person to have been missing. As far as I know there were not.
There were two detectives assigned to this case. So I would think they would have checked into this .
You would have to drive from
Narrows Burg to Watkins Glen
And check every route . And every body of water. Near every road way. To be sure.
 
Bromberg1973 said:
Since they took off walking. This idea would require atleast 1 more person to have been missing. As far as I know there were not.
There were two detectives assigned to this case. So I would think they would have checked into this .
You would have to drive from
Narrows Burg to Watkins Glen
And check every route . And every body of water. Near every road way. To be sure.
Click to expand...

The driver, in this scenario, might have been from anywhere, and the hypothetical person filing the ‘missing’ report might not have had any idea where the driver went missing.
 
wary said:
The driver, in this scenario, might have been from anywhere, and the hypothetical person filing the ‘missing’ report might not have had any idea where the driver went missing.
Click to expand...
We know that they were picked up at night. By a truck driver. And driven a distance of 10 to 20 miles. .
So the theory that they never made it out of the camp. Could not be true
Also the theory that they went back to the city instead of going to Watkins Glen could not be true. .
According to the truck driver.
They were on a route to the concert
Somehow the police records were lost after 27 years. Which is a red flag for me.
But still none the less.
I would say that they made it to concert.
I wonder if there is anyway to track their tickets. ?; I know that bar codes were already on concert tickets in the 1980"s
Probably not in 1973 though.
Also the bus station in Boston should be investigated. If they boarded a bus in August 1973, then they would have needed tickets.
Just a thought.
 
Last edited:
Bromberg1973 said:
We know that they were picked up at night. By a truck driver. And driven a distance of 10 to 20 miles. .
So the theory that they never made it out of the camp. Could not be true
Also the theory that they went back to the city instead of going to Watkins Glen could not be true. .
According to the truck driver.
They were on a route to the concert
Somehow the police records were lost after 27 years. Which is a red flag for me.
But still none the less.
I would say that they made it to concert.
I wonder if there is anyway to track their tickets. ?; I know that bar codes were already on concert tickets in the 1980"s
Probably not in 1973 though.
Also the bus station in Boston should be investigated. If they boarded a bus in August 1973, then they would have needed tickets.
Just a thought.
Click to expand...

I thought the driver picked them up at camp and then drove them to Narrowsburg (near Camp Welmet). From there they were going to hitchhike to Watkins Glen. There should have been a pretty steady influx of traffic headed that way as that would have been the preferred route from the east coast (NYC, NJ, eastern PA, etc). The YouTube video mentions that Mitch spent the money he had on cabfare to get to Camp Welmet and that he planned on hitchhiking to the concert. So that makes me wonder...if that was a busy route at that time, somebody had to have driven them to Watkins Glen. I wonder if the truck driver was ever looked into. It seems like the police work on this case was non existent.

As for the Boston sighting, I can't be too sure that police would have followed up, because I'm not at all convinced that Narrowsburg police or the sheriff from that county was even looking for them. There was no APB put out on the wire. It was 1973 in rural NY. I'm sure the sheriff assumed that NYC would handle it.
 
Wow, what a sad case. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it before, but I just went through the thread & listened to the vanished podcast.

It's a hard one to theorize on with any degree of confidence because of the lack of information, but I do feel quite strongly that they have been dead since 1973, probably at the time they vanished. It just seems so unlikely that two teenagers would go missing for almost 50 years, with neither ever once contacting family or friends. They did have minor personal issues beforehand, but nothing that suggests an intentional disappearance. On the contrary, she said she was coming back for her pay check, and he had his driving test coming up. The family and friends seem firmly convinced that they wouldn't just leave, and I don't see much reason to doubt that.

Once you add in their age and the fact they were last seen hitchhiking, foul play seems probable. A 'death by accident/misadventure' type of scenario can't be totally discounted, but multiple things about the river drowning story don't make sense, and I think the current detective has reasonably concluded that it's not credible. Most likely, they unfortunately ended up in the wrong stranger's car.
 
I'm still not sure what to make of Allyn Smith.

I can understand the reason he didn't attempt to save Mitchel and Bonnie. If they had got swept up in a current, he could've easily been dragged to his death with them, Navy training or not. Notwithstanding the fact he also claimed to be stoned when it happened.

The problem is that apparently it was a dry summer and the water-levels were low at that time. There was said to have been rainfall, but not enough for that kind of current, let alone for the bodies to never emerge. Furthermore, he couldn't identify Mitchel or Bonnie from the photos, and couldn't remember what they were wearing that day? There may have been memory failure after 30 years but you'd assume watching the deaths of two teenagers would've left an imprint.

I'm not sure if he's a time-waster, or he admitted to a lesser crime for whatever reason (e.g. to insert himself into the investigation, to give the family closure, or to clear his conscience).
 
NJEverCurious said:
Somewhere, waaaay up this thread, I'm pretty sure someone mentioned that all the records have been lost.
Click to expand...
No.

It says multiple times in this thread that their original and only dental records were lost.

It also says multiple times that family members have provided DNA samples for both of them. Mitch’s sister found his baby teeth and a sample was extracted. For Bonnie, her family member provided a sample so they have a familial profile in NamUs.

I am lazy right now and don’t feel like citing each link but I just read the entire thread tonight and it’s in here on multiple posts. I’ll just say MOO but I’m certain it’s been reported in MSM
 
Much has already been written about them, but I think that if they arrived at the concert and were kidnapped, someone in the public recognized them or perhaps they struck up a conversation and from there they passed away from trust and they are probably dead.
two young boys dead just like that...
rest in peace
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 51 more.
Total: 4,048 (members: 52, guests: 3,996)

Online statistics

Members online
52
Guests online
3,996
Total visitors
4,048
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
592,490
Messages
17,969,776
Members
228,789
Latest member
Soccergirl500
Back
Top