Karen Adams was single, but she had a dog at home that she wasn’t likely to leave behind.
She was 54, a teacher’s aide and a cashier who called Independence, Beaver County, home.
And for the past 15 years, she has been a case that Beaver County detectives and FBI investigators haven’t been able to get to the bottom of.
Because, investigators say, back on March 12, 2007, Ms. Adams walked out of Mountaineer Casino and Racetrack in Hancock County, W.Va., after a night of bingo. She got in her red, four-door 2005 Suzuki Forenza with Pennsylvania license plate ETD-5587. And at around 3 a.m., she drove away.
She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Her car, too, has never been found.
Police say there have been no charges to Ms. Adams’ credit cards and no calls from her cellphone. She has disappeared, they say, almost without a trace. Sure, there have been some leads, but according to the Beaver County Times, they have all gone nowhere.
Police have run DNA tests on bodies that have been recovered with no matches coming back for Ms. Adams. Cars have been recovered, too, according to the Times, from waterways along what would have been her route home. But none of those cars was that red Suzuki with the Pennsylvania tags.
It has been frustrating.
But despite the time that has elapsed since that early morning in 2007, Ms. Adams is in the news because investigators are still intent on cracking this case.
And as the investigation slips past the 15-year-mark, police are again asking the public to pitch in with any information that might help them figure out what happened to Ms. Adams and to bring “truth and closure” to her family.
“It has been so many years,” Bonnie Sedlacek, a Beaver County detective, told the Times. “The family still would like to have closure and would like to know what happened.”
Detectives ask that anyone with any information about Ms. Adams’ disappearance contact the FBI’s Pittsburgh office at 412-432-4000 or Beaver County Crime Solvers at 724-774-2000.
First Published: April 24, 2022, 6:06 p.m.