True Crime Collection

Disappearance of Patricia Meehan

Patricia Bernadette Meehan was born 1st November 1951. Patricia was born to Dolly and Thomas Meehan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was raised. Patricia attended college in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where she studied early childhood development in preparation for a career in daycare. In 1985, she abandoned that pursuit and relocated to Bozeman, Montana where she worked as a ranch hand, citing her love of animals as the reason behind her career shift. Patricia had been working odd jobs in addition to the ranch work in order to support herself.

The last person to see Patricia prior to her disappearance was her landlord, who noted that her demeanour was out of the ordinary, and that she "seemed hyper". On 19th April, 1989 Patricia spoke with her father in Pittsburgh over the phone, telling him she was under stress and wanted to come home.

At 8:15pm on the evening of 20th April, 1989, Peggy Bueller and her father were travelling west on Montana Highway 200 near Circle, Montana when they witnessed a vehicle heading east driving on the wrong side of the road. Peggy managed to swerve onto the shoulder, avoiding a head on collision, but the vehicle crashed into the car traveling behind her, driven by an off duty police dispatcher Carol Heitz. Carol emerged from the car wreckage unharmed; on the road, she witnessed a blonde woman emerge from the other car, walk up to her, and stare as though she were "looking right through her." According to Carol, the woman did not speak. Peggy, who remained pulled over on the shoulder of the road, then witnessed the blonde woman climb over a fence and stand motionless, observing the scene:

"As I looked out across the accident, I noticed someone on the other side of the fence. She was standing there like a spectator - not like it had happened to her."

Peggy watched as the unidentified woman stood silently for several moments on the opposite side of the fence before walking away into an empty field, vanishing into the night. Peggy immediately drove into town to reach a phone, while her father stayed with Carol at the scene of the accident. When police arrived, the unidentified female driver of the other vehicle was nowhere to be found. Within 30 minutes, her identity was revealed to be Patricia, which police determined after running the vehicle's licence plate number through the Department of Motor Vehicles database.

In their search immediately following the accident, police discovered a trail of tennis shoe tracks beginning in a desolate field approximately 0.75 miles from the scene of the crash. Based on the size of the shoe impressions, the tracks were believed to be Patricia's. Investigators followed the tracks until 3am on the morning of 21st April, before finding that they eventually disappeared in the terrain. The search was suspended until the following morning.

The Meehan family arrived in Montana shortly after their daughter's disappearance, and distributed over 2,000 missing persons flyers throughout the area. Local volunteers searched the surrounding mountains and terrain near the site of the crash by horse and ATV, and the Meehan family also employed a helicopter search to no avail. Abandoned coal mines in the area were also searched, but no traces of Patricia were discovered. The site of the accident near Circle was nearly 400 miles from Patricia's home in Bozeman, and neither law enforcement nor Patricia's family could explain her reasons for being in the area. 

Police initially theorised that Patricia fled the scene by hitchhiking, or stowing away on a hay truck that had been parked 0.5 miles from the site of the accident, though no sightings were reported to support either claim. According to Patricia's mother, she had been experiencing depression at the time, and had also been visiting a psychologist, whom she had made an appointment with for the morning on 21st April. Amidst her belongings, Patricia's family developed a roll of film from her camera, which revealed a self portrait she had taken in front of a mirror. Early on in the case, it was suspected that Patricia may have been suffering from amnesia. 

There have been over 5,000 reported sightings of a woman resembling Patricia since her disappearance. 

On 4th May, 1989, a police officer in Luverne, Minnesota claimed to have seen Patricia sitting inside a Hardee's restaurant; she had been drinking water alone in a booth for over 5 hours until the restaurant's closing time, then walked to a nearby 24 hour diner. When the officers questioned her, she refused to give her name, and claimed to be from Colorado and then Israel. The following day, on 5th May, 2 other sightings of Patricia were reported: 1 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where a waitress claimed Patricia had sat inside a truck stop diner drinking coffee from 12am to 11:30am; the same day, a waitress at another diner in Murdo, South Dakota reported seeing Patricia between 10 and 11pm in the company of a man who appeared to be in his 30s. 

On 9th May, 1989, shortly after her disappearance, a waitress at a restaurant near Patricia's home in Bozeman reported seeing her there. According to the waitress, Patricia ordered and ate breakfast in a hurried manner, and mentioned that she had to go shopping at 9am. Another waitress working the same morning also saw Patricia at the restaurant, and reported that she appeared to be disoriented and talking to herself. The same week, another reported sighting occurred at a horse auction in Billings, Montana. 

Over 2 weeks later, on 30th May, a woman resembling Patricia was seen by a passing truck driver on Interstate 90 in rural Washington. The driver offered her a ride, which she declined, and the woman told another passing female motorist that her car had broken down and that she was going to find a phone. Another alleged sighting of Patricia was reported the following week in Tacoma, Washington by a Port of Tacoma employee who claimed to have seen her at a truck stop on Interstate 5 asking strangers for directions to Aberdeen. 

By June 1989, over 25 sightings of Patricia had been reported, 3 of which were confirmed by police. Other reported sightings of Patricia were received by law enforcement throughout the Pacific Northwest, many at truck stops between Montana and Seattle. Law enforcement believed Patricia may have been in Washington state during this time, as she had an ex boyfriend in Spokane, and her sister resided in Seattle. 

On 30th August, 1990, a transient woman was arrested by police in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for littering. The woman bore a resemblance to Patricia, and the arresting officer initially believed it to be her. On 1st September, the woman appeared in a Kootenai County court, where she claimed before the judge to be a missionary traveling between Montana and Washington. Although the reported sighting made news in The Seattle Times, it was confirmed through fingerprint analysis that the woman was in fact not Patricia. Speaking to the media and law enforcement, Patricia's former boyfriend Kurt Fletcher of Spokane, Washington noted there was a "strong resemblance" and that the woman had a similar voice to Patricia's.