MO MO - Loy Evitts, 29, Kansas City, 28 Feb 1977

[MaryLiz]

I've always been a little intrigued with this disappearance. The Doe Network has her missing from Kansas City, Missouri but Charley Project and other missing persons websites state she is missing from the state of Kansas.

http://www.kansasmissing.com/Evitts1977.html

When I first read about it I thought of BTK..but Wichita is quite a ways from Kansas City, I think. And his MO was murdering people in their home. So I don't think he had anything to do with this.

 

[MaryLiz]

Here is another link to her disappearance. Click on the link and go about halfway down the page to read about her. There is a link to click on for an article from the Kansas City Star that was written 10 years after her disappearance that is interesting.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2006/03/06/index.html

 

[OilPainter]

There's got to be more to this story than what's here.

MaryBeth, do you think she walked away from her life for a new one? It sounds like she had a good life but a few of the posted comments say otherwise - although I know to take those with a grain of salt.

Unfortunately after 30 years my guess is that they're not going to find out what happened. It must be terrible for the family.

 

[MaryLiz]

There's got to be more to this story than what's here.

MaryBeth, do you think she walked away from her life for a new one? It sounds like she had a good life but a few of the posted comments say otherwise - although I know to take those with a grain of salt.

Unfortunately after 30 years my guess is that they're not going to find out what happened. It must be terrible for the family.

I know, I hesitated even posting it because there is so little information. But it's one of those that I think of often and look to see if there are any updates. According to the missing persons supervisor at the time, she appeared to be "a saint" with nothing in her life to suggest that she just took off. In the ten year article her Mom says that Loy had a feeling something bad was going to happen to her because a friend of hers had a bad dream about Loy and told her about it. Maybe she was unhappy in her life and told everyone "something bad was going to happen" and then just used that as an excuse to disappear. It certainly is strange. I think she met with foul play but I can't quite make up my mind for sure what I think happened to her.

I tried to post the link to the Kansas City Star article from 1987 but it wouldn't come through very well. But if you click on the link in my second post there is another link halfway down that will take you to the KC Star article, which is kind of interesting to read and tells a little more about her.

 

[shadowangel]

Did I read that right on the 10-year update....LE were never able to collect her prints because the car and and her cosmetics case were all wiped down? I can understand her wiping her cosmetics case clean maybe, but did anyone think her car not having any prints was a little strange?
Didnt they try anywhere else? Home, her office..? Neither her Doe Network or Charley Project pages mention prints being available.
Strange.

 

[MaryLiz]

Did I read that right on the 10-year update....LE were never able to collect her prints because the car and and her cosmetics case were all wiped down? I can understand her wiping her cosmetics case clean maybe, but did anyone think her car not having any prints was a little strange?
Didnt they try anywhere else? Home, her office..? Neither her Doe Network or Charley Project pages mention prints being available.
Strange.

Yes, I thought that was odd too. I can't believe they couldn't find her prints at home. When they chalked up the no fingerprints on the cosmetic case to the "orderly Loy" I hope they didn't mean she was just being meticulous by wiping prints off her car too!

I'm kind of torn on this one because another comment made by an investigating officer at the time states that she was a "person with many faces." He had seen four different photos of her and said they all looked like a different person. Coupled with the fact that she was orderly and meticulous, that sounds to me like someone who was certainly capable of covering all bases and just taking off without telling anyone.

Her car was parked in its usual spot after lunch. She could have been abducted possibly by two people and one of them brought her car back wiped of all prints and parked it in her usual space. If just one person abducted her, the car wouldn't have been parked there so soon after lunch as one individual wouldn't have time to kidnap her and get her car back there that soon. Unless he had her incapacitated in his own vehicle or somewhere else nearby. I wish there would have been a witness who saw if she actually parked her car there or if someone else did. It's just baffling no matter how you look at it.

 

[shadowangel]

I go back to my usual rant...Did LE check to see if there was any sign that someone else may have operated the vehicle? Was the seat position consistent with the owner's height? No matter how meticulous someone may be about wiping down surfaces in a car, are they going to remember to wipe prints from the seat adjuster?

Were the keys to the vehicle located?

I think the article is implying that she kept all her 'possessions' meticulously clean (which could point to a mental disorder in and of itself).

If Loy did keep her vehicle that clean, its possible she was grabbed on her way back to her office after parking the vehicle. Otherwise it implies someone who was familiar with at least some of her habits.

From the article, I almost get the impression that LE thought she could have been living a 'secret' life.

 

[StealthTheory]

They don't mention if anything was missing from her purse. They couldn't even get prints from her home? The last cup she drank from? A railing in her house?

 

[shadowangel]

They couldn't even get prints from her home? The last cup she drank from? A railing in her house?

Yeah...Boggles my already over-boggled mind.

 

[Hurricane]

I've always been a little intrigued with this disappearance. The Doe Network has her missing from Kansas City, Missouri but Charley Project and other missing persons websites state she is missing from the state of Kansas.

She lived with her husband in Overland Park, KS but worked and disappeared from the Plaza area in Kansas City, MO.

KCPD did not take seriously the idea that she disappeared of her own free will because her purse and it's contents were found a few days later under a bridge in the area. Why go to the trouble to plant the purse? Why not just leave it in the Corvette that she drove, or just drop it in the parking garage if she wanted to give the impression that she was abducted?

Her husband was about 10 yrs older that she. He was quickly cleared as a suspect. Within a couple of years he gave up hope that she would ever be found alive and stopped granting interviews.

It was Loy's friends who said that she had many personalities and could be a different person, depending on who she was with.

If I remember correctly her mother died a few years ago. A DNA sample is on file should her remains ever be found.

 

[MaryLiz]

Thanks for clearing up the Kansas/Missouri part, Hurricane.

I agree, it seems like a lot of trouble to throw the purse under the bridge if she was just disappearing on her own. That's why between the two scenarios, I lean slightly more toward an abduction theory.

Here's the link to the Doe Network file on her. It doesn't add anything but I just wanted to post it on her thread.


http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/497dfmo.html

 

[Hurricane]

I have always wondered about the leather shoulder bag. To my knowledge it was never found. Those who believe that she left on her own free will point out that the shoulder bag could have contained what she wanted to take with her. It is not known to the public if she carried this shoulder bag when she went to the jeweler to have the watch adjusted or when she had coffee and purchased the umbrella at Katz. What has been stated publicly is that none of her clothing or personal effects were found to be missing from her home. As far as I know it is unknown just what the shoulder bag contained, or what she would normally use it for.

 

[shadowangel]

Here is the text of an article from the 3/1/78 Jefferson City MO Post Tribune:

Hope abandoned for woman
KANSAS CITY (AP) - A year ago Tuesday, Loy
Evitts, a 29-year-old legal secretary, went to lunch.
She never came back.
Despite exhaustive searches and hundreds of police
interviews, no trace has been found of Mrs. Evitts
since two weeks after her disappearance when some
children found her purse and some belongings under a
bridge.
Her husband, Don, and police believe she will never
be found alive. "I have prepared myself mentally and
accept that 1 will never see her again," Evitts said.
Sgt. John Wilson has helped supervise the police
investigation into Mrs. Evitts' disappearance.
"We know within an hour where she was when she
disappeared from the parking lot on the Country Club
Pla/.a and we know where her purse was found, and
that's about all the hard evidence we have," Wilson
said. "I suspect she is buried in a shallow grave
somewhere in the area where her purse was found, but
if you don't have a body, you don't have a homicide."
Wilson said huge files containing information about
the disappearance continue to grow, but the results
are always the same. Authorities say the purse is the
only evidence found that indicates Mrs. Evitts was
abducted.​

Does the statement in bold italics seem odd coming from a member of law enforcement? Basically stating that, without any evidence, he thinks she's dead and buried?
The attitude of everyone involved with the case at the time seems strangely fatalistic. Even the husband has given up hope only a year after her disappearance.
Loy worked with a law firm...Could there have been something much larger going on here? I've tried to find the name of the law firm, but havent been able to as of yet.​

A March 21st, 1977 article mentions that a "34 year old Grandview man" had been apprehended in relation to Loy's disappearance, following the tracing of an anonymous phone call. the phone call appears to have prompted the search in Lee's Summit mentioned in the ten-year after article.​

 

[MaryLiz]

I have always wondered about the leather shoulder bag. To my knowledge it was never found. Those who believe that she left on her own free will point out that the shoulder bag could have contained what she wanted to take with her. It is not known to the public if she carried this shoulder bag when she went to the jeweler to have the watch adjusted or when she had coffee and purchased the umbrella at Katz. What has been stated publicly is that none of her clothing or personal effects were found to be missing from her home. As far as I know it is unknown just what the shoulder bag contained, or what she would normally use it for.

The only places where the leather bag is mentioned is Doe and Charley Project. It's strange the police never mentioned it. Unless they found it in the car and they didn't think it contained anything pertinent to the investigation. Still...you would think they would say if it was there or not.

 

[MaryLiz]

Does the statement in bold italics seem odd coming from a member of law enforcement? Basically stating that, without any evidence, he thinks she's dead and buried?

The attitude of everyone involved with the case at the time seems strangely fatalistic. Even the husband has given up hope only a year after her disappearance.
Loy worked with a law firm...Could there have been something much larger going on here? I've tried to find the name of the law firm, but havent been able to as of yet.​

A March 21st, 1977 article mentions that a "34 year old Grandview man" had been apprehended in relation to Loy's disappearance, following the tracing of an anonymous phone call. the phone call appears to have prompted the search in Lee's Summit mentioned in the ten-year after article.​

Yes shadowangel, those are rather fatalistic comments to make, especially coming from LE. I thought the husband gave up a bit too soon, too. The only article I have seen is the 10 year article on the KC crime blog that I posted at the top. On that same blog it says there is a compendium of articles from 2 different newspapers but it just takes me to the library site where you have to have a library card to register I think. Did you find the other articles at newspaperarchives.com? I haven't had a chance to look there yet for older articles.

That's a good thought about something possibly going on at the law firm. That hadn't crossed my mind. Also, since her car was in a parking garage, it probably would have been easier to abduct her.

Hurricane may have some more ideas about this case. He posts on the Springfield 3 Missing Women thread and he posted on this thread too. He may know a few more tidbits he can add. He's good at fishing out info, too.

 

[shadowangel]

Yes, I found a few articles on newspaperarchive, but not many.
Maybe I watch too much TV...But the thought of witness protection crossed my mind, too. It would be interesting to find out if there were any serious criminal investigations going on in the area at the time.

I know its a stretch, but that's why I come here.

 

[Hurricane]

Here is the text of an article from the 3/1/78 Jefferson City MO Post Tribune:

Hope abandoned for woman
KANSAS CITY (AP) - A year ago Tuesday, Loy
Evitts, a 29-year-old legal secretary, went to lunch.
She never came back.
Despite exhaustive searches and hundreds of police
interviews, no trace has been found of Mrs. Evitts
since two weeks after her disappearance when some
children found her purse and some belongings under a
bridge.
Her husband, Don, and police believe she will never
be found alive. "I have prepared myself mentally and
accept that 1 will never see her again," Evitts said.
Sgt. John Wilson has helped supervise the police
investigation into Mrs. Evitts' disappearance.
"We know within an hour where she was when she
disappeared from the parking lot on the Country Club
Pla/.a and we know where her purse was found, and
that's about all the hard evidence we have," Wilson
said. "I suspect she is buried in a shallow grave
somewhere in the area where her purse was found, but
if you don't have a body, you don't have a homicide."
Wilson said huge files containing information about
the disappearance continue to grow, but the results
are always the same. Authorities say the purse is the
only evidence found that indicates Mrs. Evitts was
abducted.​

Does the statement in bold italics seem odd coming from a member of law enforcement? Basically stating that, without any evidence, he thinks she's dead and buried?
The attitude of everyone involved with the case at the time seems strangely fatalistic. Even the husband has given up hope only a year after her disappearance.
Loy worked with a law firm...Could there have been something much larger going on here? I've tried to find the name of the law firm, but havent been able to as of yet.​

A March 21st, 1977 article mentions that a "34 year old Grandview man" had been apprehended in relation to Loy's disappearance, following the tracing of an anonymous phone call. the phone call appears to have prompted the search in Lee's Summit mentioned in the ten-year after article.​

The quote you reference comes from an article written at the one year anniversary of her disappearance. By that time both LE and her husband believed that she did not leave on her own free will, and that she was probably no longer alive. At the time there were a couple of major highway projects in the metro area which drug on for a long time, one of those drug on for years. It was commonly believed at the time that her body would eventually be found buried at some construction site. I would suggest that is what prompted the quote in this article.

I have the complete media set on this case. I'll pull it and review it again.

 

[Rhett]

What about Ted Bundy? Could he be connected to the area during this time frame?

 

[meggilyweggily]

I think Ted Bundy was already in jail by 1977.

 

[Hurricane]

A March 21st, 1977 article mentions that a "34 year old Grandview man" had been apprehended in relation to Loy's disappearance, following the tracing of an anonymous phone call. the phone call appears to have prompted the search in Lee's Summit mentioned in the ten-year after article.

To my knowledge from the info that I have saved on this case the Grandview man who was apprehended or questioned, but not arrested, in this case was never named publicly. So we don't know who he is/was. He was obviously responsible for the anonymous phone call as it was traced to him, and we can assume at a minimum that the phone call concerned the purse which was found under the bridge. If the phone call mentioned the location of Loy's remains they were never found during the search.