NY NY - Leslie, 29, Julie, 6, & Timothy Guthrie, 3, drove away from home, Katonah, 6 Feb 1977

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Timothy Patrick Guthrie

Endangered Missing -- Missing Since: February 6, 1977

Missing From: Katonah, New York

Height: 3'3" -- Weight: 30 lbs -- Hair Color: Brown -- Eye Color: Blue

Julie Anne Guthrie

Endangered Missing -- Missing Since: February 6, 1977

Missing From: Katonah, New York

Height: 4'0" -- Weight: 55 lbs -- Hair Color: Brown -- Eye Color: Blue

Julie has a strawberry birthmark on her chin and on her back.


Timothy and Julie were last seen on February 6, 1977 with their mother but have not been seen or heard from since.


NCMEC

Charley Project

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Thirty-five years later, missing family case still a mystery

On Feb. 5, 1977, Leslie Guthrie got into a car with her young son and daughter and drove off from the family’s Katonah home, never to be seen again.

Now, 35 years later, the search for the mother and her two children continues, although their disappearance remains as much a mystery as it did the day they were last seen.

More: http://www.record-review.com/record-review/Record-Review_2_17_12_missing_family.html

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BEDFORD POLICE

 

[JusticeWillBeServed]

A story was published yesterday about their disappearance; LE still investigating.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/crime/2014/11/11/katonah-mom-kids-disappeared/18860597/

 

[Skigirl]

A story was published yesterday about their disappearance; LE still investigating.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/crime/2014/11/11/katonah-mom-kids-disappeared/18860597/

So many people who've left in cars have been subsequently found in bodies of water, sometimes shockingly close to their homes. There are several reservoirs around Katonah (Muscoot, Croton). I wonder if LE has ever taken a hard look at those bodies of water. The section of I-684 near Katonah had only been completed a few years prior to the family's disappearance and the entrance/exit ramps are right near the reservoirs.

 

[mommyto3]

So many people who've left in cars have been subsequently found in bodies of water, sometimes shockingly close to their homes. There are several reservoirs around Katonah (Muscoot, Croton). I wonder if LE has ever taken a hard look at those bodies of water. The section of I-684 near Katonah had only been completed a few years prior to the family's disappearance and the entrance/exit ramps are right near the reservoirs.

I agree! Personally, I think that since the vehicle has never been recovered, the most likely explanation for their disappearance was probably a simple vehicular accident involving water. Also, they disappeared in the wintertime and roads tend to be more slick in the winter.

 

[Skigirl]

I agree! Personally, I think that since the vehicle has never been recovered, the most likely explanation for their disappearance was probably a simple vehicular accident involving water. Also, they disappeared in the wintertime and roads tend to be more slick in the winter.

This is the exit from 684 to head toward Katonah: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.262...4!1sZVqSZpSvlm-6b1gmDYyIuA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Here it is on the other side of the highway, as you enter the highway from Katonah going South:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.262...4!1sGE90uMOrW2dI1OZCuEto5Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

That's the first body of water I'd look in.

 

[mommyto3]

I wonder if LE has conducted any searches of bodies of water?

What would it take to find a vehicle without active searching? Lowering of the water level? I remember this case where they found the car and bodies 43 years later..... http://www.argusleader.com/story/ne...1971-case-of-missing-sd-girls-solved/7758443/

 

[mommyto3]

Another thing is, since they disappeared in the winter, if they did go into water, their chances of getting out unharmed would be lower. Hypothermia and cardiac arrest from going into ice cold water are very likely....

 

[mommyto3]

Other explanations for their appearance don't seem very likely to me.

1) Voluntary disappearance.
Leslie Guthrie didn't give any indications of preparing to go anywhere. Usually people do not leave voluntarily, while leaving most of their money and possessions at home.
While separated, the mother and father were on good terms and were not in a custody battle. There doesn't seem to be any reason for her to take the children and run.

2) The father was thoroughly ruled out and is not a suspect or POI.

3) Foul play by strangers.
If there was foul play by strangers, it seems that at least the vehicle would be recovered eventually, but no trace of it has ever been found.

 

[mommyto3]

This is the exit from 684 to head toward Katonah: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.262...4!1sZVqSZpSvlm-6b1gmDYyIuA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Here it is on the other side of the highway, as you enter the highway from Katonah going South:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.262...4!1sGE90uMOrW2dI1OZCuEto5Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

That's the first body of water I'd look in.

It seems that if someone went into that body of water, there would be some damage to the guardrails. Or were there no guardrails in 1977?

 

[Skigirl]

It seems that if someone went into that body of water, there would be some damage to the guardrails. Or were there no guardrails in 1977?

I don't know if there were guardrails in 1977. I used to travel to and from Katonah every day to a skating rink as a kid, but we started making the trip a couple years after that. I think that the google street view makes both ramps look less steep than they are. It seems possible to me that the car hit the rail and flipped over it, or that the rail was damaged and someone just assumed that a driver damaged the rail and drove away. I wish I could remember if the guardrails existed and were the old-fashioned wood post-and-cable type or if they were of the type that are currently there (I think I remember them being similar to those pictured). Of course, there are plenty of other bodies of water, but if she was taking the kids on an outing (or returning from an outing), entering or exiting Highway 684 from one of those ramps would have made sense.

One thing that is a little spooky is that we inherited a Maverick from my grandmother who passed away in 1978 or so. In 1979 or '80, the brakes failed while my mother was going down our very steep driveway. Fortunately she survived because she hit a row of fir trees in our yard, which stopped the car without damaging the body too much. I wonder how common brake problems were with those cars. I do not know if ours was a 1974 model, but it would have at least been a few years old when we got it in 1978.

 

[Skigirl]

I wonder if LE has conducted any searches of bodies of water?

What would it take to find a vehicle without active searching? Lowering of the water level? I remember this case where they found the car and bodies 43 years later..... http://www.argusleader.com/story/ne...1971-case-of-missing-sd-girls-solved/7758443/

There was a case here in North Carolina that was just resolved a few weeks ago. A man went missing in the early 1970s. His daughter called LE to check up on the case, and they decided to look at one of the bodies of water in the area with sonar and turned up his car very quickly.

http://myfox8.com/2015/07/22/remains-found-in-car-pulled-from-nc-lake-man-missing-for-43-years/

 

[mommyto3]

I wish that it was standard to search bodies of water for unexplained disappearances. So sad that the woman had to live over 40 years not knowing what happened to her dad.

 

[mommyto3]

Do you know if there's any way to email tips to LE? I would like to suggest that they do sonar searches of water, but I'm too shy to call.

 

[Skigirl]

Do you know if there's any way to email tips to LE? I would like to suggest that they do sonar searches of water, but I'm too shy to call.

I found this email address: BedfordPolice@bedfordny.gov -- Katonah is covered by Bedford PD I believe.

 

[mommyto3]

Thank you! I sent them an email briefly explaining why I thought that was the most viable possibility. I also shared the links to the Google map view and the cold case that was solved that way. Hopefully they look over it and take it seriously. The father deserves to know what happened to his family.

I can't even imagine going 38 years, not knowing.........

 

[Skigirl]

One thing I've been sort of wondering is if the Guthries could be the bodies found in Allenstown, NH (https://identifyus.org/en/cases/2174). It seems like a long shot because a) FOUR bodies were found...who was the third child? b) all of the kids were girls. However, as to the latter, a 1970s case was just solved recently after the body of one of the two girls found together was assumed to be a male. Recent DNA testing showed that it was a female. All these years, law enforcement thought that they had a young couple, when it fact it was two girls. So it does happen. And the newest composite looks quite a bit like Leslie Guthrie's age progression, IMHO. Still, even if one of the children was actually a boy, there is the problem of the 'extra' child.

 

[STANDREID]

Most of those early links are defunct. Do we know where she was headed when she left in the car?

 

[Skigirl]

Most of those early links are defunct. Do we know where she was headed when she left in the car?

Good question. She had come from White Plains, where she was living with her mother (likely traveling on the then-new route 684), but I have never read anything about where she was going -- back to her mom's house with the kids? Off on an excursion for the day? Now that I read her charleyproject entry, the story is pretty odd. Her estranged husband didn't report her missing because he assumed she had stayed with the kids overnight at her mother's, and her mother didn't report her missing because she thought that her daughter -- who lived with her -- was... ? http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/guthrie_leslie.html

 

[Jmoose]

You'd think somebody would report them missing immediately; but I can sort of see why her estranged husband wouldn't do so right away-he probably didn't think she was missing, but definitely, what about her mother? She didn't miss her and the kids? Where did she think they went? I wonder if Leslie had a habit of not telling her mom what her plans were? I am thinking, like some others here, that the car may have ended up in some water near where she was driving