Gardener1850

Timeline Guru (Still Remembering Cupcake)
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  • #1
67845

Robert Wayne Linder
Cook County, Illinois
30 year old white male

Brown Hair
Blue Eyes

Height (inches)
Weight (pounds)

[TD="class: view_field"]69.0[/TD]

[TD="class: view_field"]155.0[/TD]

Circumstances: Robert took a final exam at DePaul Univ and withdrew money for rent deposit on an apartment. Was never seen after that.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/14501/
 
  • #2
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I do wonder how they got the information of his age, I can’t find any birth certificate for him. Twenty four years would seem to fit university though. So many questions, one is did he pick up/receive is Diploma?
I found only one Illinois paper with reference to that name, a May 1970 marriage application Robert W Linder to a Mrs Bonnie J Mattern. I found the “Mrs” interesting, and found this would be her second marriage. She is listed as Bobbie Jean Linden in 1972, then another marriage in 73 and 84. She passed in 2006. I noticed the DePaul university is catholic, wondering if Roberts parents were catholic and wouldn’t agree to him marrying someone divorced?
Another speculation would be leaving to avoid the Vietnam draft?
 
  • #5
Just a couple thoughts that came to mind.

I noticed the photo on his namus profile has his name underneath as"R. Wayne Linder". I googled this and found that most people who use first initial with middle name are known by their middle name. So he may have been better known as Wayne Linder.

Also, it seems odd that he was about to rent a new apartment at the end of the school term, during finals. Where was he living before? I wonder if he was even from the Chicago area.

The marriage information posted above is interesting. I wonder if she went to the same college, perhaps he was looking to move out of the dorms to move in with her? Not sure how he'd never be seen again though, since whoever reported him missing seems to have known about the apartment. Unless police discovered that later.

I can't find any indication that anyone has been looking for him. No articles or posts from family members anywhere, so it's hard to even venture a guess. :(
 
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  • #6
Bumping for Robert...this summer marks 51 years.
 
  • #7
His NAMUS profile says he was missing from Tribal land. That may mean he was Native American and his original home on a reservation. If you're NA you're always part of your tribe, even legally speaking. I wonder if he went home for a visit and met with foul play on the trip.
 
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So little information about him. Was he originally from Chicago or just attending college there?

It's frustrating that LE paid so little attention to missing person cases back then.
 
  • #11
Whereabouts still unknown has a good write up about Wayne:
Robert Linder

Unfortunately the additional details still don't give much to go on about his actual disappearance.
 
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1755539531053.webp
 
  • #14
It appears he was born in Arkansas on 15 January 1945. This comes from an Ancestry tree and records which include the details of his twin brother Mark and his mother dying in 2014, both details given in the link in #11 above. His father, Bernard Westbrook Linder Jr died in 2003. His mother's obituary from 2014 is at Ellen Linder - Bowling Green Daily News. It confirms he was known as Wayne.
It appears he went to North Little Rock High School as a yearbook pic on Ancestry looks like him.
 
  • #15
I believe this is Robert “Wayne” Linder.

1961, North Little Rock High School (Arkansas)IMG_3532.webp

Ears, eyebrows, hair, facial shape are the same
IMG_3536.webp
 
  • #16
I believe this is Robert “Wayne” Linder.

1961, North Little Rock High School (Arkansas)View attachment 612038

Ears, eyebrows, hair, facial shape are the same
View attachment 612039
This is my I just Uncle Wayne. As far as I know, all the information on here is accurate, and tragic. He is the twin brother of my father, Mark, and they graduated from North Little Rock high school. Wayne disappeared four months after my mother and father were married. A few years ago, Cook County investigators reached out to my grandmother and my father and they both took a DNA test to rule Wayne out as one of John Wayne Gacy's victims, but at the time of Wayne's disappearance, I believe Casey was in an Iowa jail on a sodomy charge.

<modsnip> I hope he is alive and well and has made a good life for him somewhere I come back to these threads over a couple years to see if anybody's figured anything else out, but as my father gets older, he's now 83, I would love to help him find some closure on this. I know how much it haunted my grandmother before she passed away. Anyway, I hope some of this helps clarify some of his background. I would love to connect with anyone interested in discussing the Case. The furthest I've ever gotten is that I reached out to Cook County almost told it was a cold case fall life happened, and I would never followed up on anything after that.
 
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  • #17
This is my I just Uncle Wayne. As far as I know, all the information on here is accurate, and tragic. He is the twin brother of my father, Mark, and they graduated from North Little Rock high school. Wayne disappeared four months after my mother and father were married. A few years ago, Cook County investigators reached out to my grandmother and my father and they both took a DNA test to rule Wayne out as one of John Wayne Gacy's victims, but at the time of Wayne's disappearance, I believe Casey was in an Iowa jail on a sodomy charge.

<modsnipped> I hope he is alive and well and has made a good life for him somewhere I come back to these threads over a couple years to see if anybody's figured anything else out, but as my father gets older, he's now 83, I would love to help him find some closure on this. I know how much it haunted my grandmother before she passed away. Anyway, I hope some of this helps clarify some of his background. I would love to connect with anyone interested in discussing the Case. The furthest I've ever gotten is that I reached out to Cook County almost told it was a cold case fall life happened, and I would never followed up on anything after that.
I'm glad you posted this because I was going to ask if he may have been one of Gacy's victims.
 
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  • #18
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