
Debra Wilhite
Missing: Debra Ann Wilhite
Debra Wilhite was 19 years old when she vanished into the darkness one rainy, October night in 1974 from the Windmill Restaurant in Evansville, Indiana. Neither she nor her car, a green 1966 Ford Galaxie, have been seen since. There have been no confirmed sightings of her, and no real physical evidence for investigators to work with. 50 years later, Debra’s remaining family still holds out hope for a resolution to her case.
Debra Ann Pfettscher, sometimes called ‘Debi’ or ‘Debbie,’ was born November 15th, 1954 to Erwin and Lucille Pfettscher (who later divorced sometime around July 1972). She was joined a few years later by sisters Brenda and Carol. She primarily grew up in and around the Warrick County, Indiana area. On July 15, 1970, at the age of 15, Debra married 19 year old Jeffrey Burton Wilhite after securing permission from her father, Erwin (her mother had previously refused to allow it).

Erwin and Lucille Pfettscher (née Droege) with baby Debra
A little over a year later, in August 1971, Debra and Jeffrey welcomed their first child, a daughter named Amy Sue, to be followed in April 1973 by daughter Misty Lynn. During this period, the young family lived in Princeton, in Gibson County. Their home address was simply listed as “Rural Route 1.”
Rural Routes don’t refer to an actual street address, but were instead used as designations by the United States Postal Service when they began delivering mail directly to locations in these rural areas. Most rural route designations are accompanied by a box number, ie- Rural Route 1, Box 115, or RR1 BO115. These route designations were associated with the specific post office who served that area. The post office who served the rural route along which the Wilhites lived was the Princeton Post Office, which is still located at 129 E. Broadway St. in Princeton, zip code 47670, to this day. It’s safe to assume that the house was in this general vicinity. Some rural route designations are still used today, but following the introduction of 911 services in the United States in 1968, post offices around the country, in a collaborative effort with local agencies, began the arduous process of assigning street addresses to each individual home in order to streamline emergency response.

Jeffrey Burton Wilhite & Debra Ann Pfettscher at their wedding, 7/15/70, courtesy MISSING Debra Wilhite - Facebook

Undated family photo showing Jeffrey, Debra, and their oldest daughter, Amy Sue. Courtesy: Misty Lynn - MISSING Debra Wilhite on Facebook
By October of 1974, Jeffrey was working at American Dairy in nearby Evansville, about a 40 minute drive away from their home in Princeton. Debra had just started a new job at the Windmill Restaurant, also in Evansville. October 17, 1974, the day Debra went missing, seemed fairly routine to those around her. She drove the two-door 1966 green Ford Galaxie, a vehicle she shared with Jeffrey, to the home of her mother, Lucille, in Elberfeld (located at 4th and Walnut) on her way to work that day to pick up a load of laundry she had previously left. Lucille would be caring for Jeffrey and Debra’s two daughters while they worked that evening.
Debra then reported to the Windmill Restaurant for her usual evening shift. The Windmill is sometimes referred to as the Old Windmill, or the Windmill Truck Stop. At the time, the Windmill Restaurant was located at 6801 Highway US-41 North. In 1974, it was at the corner of Highway US-41 and Indiana 57 North, though 57 North was rerouted in later years. It was the end of her first full week of employment there.

Map depicting fastest route from Lucille's home in Elberfeld, IN to Windmill Restaurant in Evansville, IN. Credit: Lost in the Crossroads

Print of a postcard depicting what may be the same Windmill where Debra worked- Evansville, IN
At some point in her shift, Debra spoke to her husband Jeffrey by phone, agreeing to pick him up at a local watering hole when she got off the clock that evening. Jeffrey had been working, and because Debra had the family car, he made his way to the Maple Heights Tavern on Columbia Street to wait for her. The tavern was within walking distance of American Dairy.
Shortly before her shift ended, an unidentified white man entered the Windmill Restaurant and Truck Stop and was overheard asking for a ride, though it’s not known whether he specifically asked this of Debra or whether he was asking the employees and patrons at large. The dark-haired stranger was unremarkable in appearance- described as medium height and medium build, but his odd story stuck out to those working at the time. He stated he had come to Evansville that night from Indianapolis, claiming he had hitched a ride on a “cattle truck,” in order to collect money from someone who owed him. He also indicated that he was staying at a nearby motel, and that was why he needed the ride. The Windmill business may have included a motel at some point, but it’s not known to which motel the man was referring.
The man was seen speaking to Debra for several minutes. Of the coworkers who were interviewed later (over a year and a half after Debra disappeared), one waitress was of the belief that the man was a stranger to Debra, while another, the restaurant owner, was under the impression they knew each other. It’s not known for sure whether or not Debra knew this man prior to October 14. Debra clocked out at the end of her shift and headed out into the rain. She was never seen or heard from again. The hitchhiking stranger left at the same time, though it’s unclear whether or not Debra had agreed to give him that ride. Meanwhile, Jeffrey was still waiting at the bar. In order to pick him up, Debra would have needed to travel south of the Windmill, and then backtrack north to head home to Princeton or to pick up the girls in Elberfeld. At some point, Jeffrey realized Debra was overdue, and he called her mother, Lucille, to tell her that he wouldn’t be able to pick the girls up that night.

Jeffrey Wilhite, 1966 yearbook photo, Fort Branch High School, Fort Branch, IN - ancestry.com

Map showing fastest route from American Dairy (Jeffrey's employer) to Maple Heights Tavern where Debra was supposed to pick him up, Evansville, IN. Credit: Lost in the Crossroads
Eventually, Jeffrey made his way home to Princeton, possibly getting a ride from a friend, and reunited with his daughters, but Debra never made it back. It wasn’t uncommon at the time for Debra to go off for a couple of days at a time, according to her mother, but she always came back, and Jeffrey seemed to think that’s what was happening now. On October 16th, two days after she was last seen, Jeffrey called police- but not to report his wife missing. He believed she had ‘stolen’ their family car, that 1966 green Ford Galaxie. The police took a report, but a cursory search turned up something more sinister than just a stolen car. The information about Debra and her talk with the truck-stop stranger triggered the entry of a missing persons report, and Debra’s information was put out to surrounding agencies the following day, on October 17.
Debra was 19, almost 20 years old at the time. She was 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed approximately 120 pounds. Her natural strawberry-blond hair was bleached blond, and she had green eyes and pierced ears. She was also missing two molars. Debra was last seen wearing what was described as a blue, knit sweater and bell-bottom style blue jeans. The vehicle she was driving that night, the family’s Ford Galaxie, was described as being a two-door hard top, green in color. The license plate of the vehicle was either 26B2953 or 26B2952 – both plate numbers appear in Debra’s missing persons case file, and BMV records don’t go far enough back to be able to verify with certainty which plate number is correct. The VIN number of the vehicle was 6W66X173520. This VIN was issued in the years prior to today’s standard 17 character VINs (which didn’t come into effect until 1981 when they were mandated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration).

Undated photo of Debra Wilhite, courtesy Misty Lynn, Indiana's Missing and Unsolved Cases - Facebook
A note on the VIN: All vehicles have a VIN, or vehicle identification number, even if that car isn’t registered to anyone. It’s not uncommon for police officers to locate abandoned or stolen vehicles with missing license plates. In this case, they turn to the VIN to help determine the vehicle’s ownership. If registered, a BMV search of the VIN will return the same information as a search of the assigned license plate. However, if the vehicle is not registered to anyone, officers can search the VIN in a separate database to determine the make, model, and year of the vehicle it should be on. This information at least helps them to determine whether a VIN number has been tampered with, and can sometimes highlight errors in the relay or entry of a VIN into the system. Today, many NCIC systems used by police agencies in Indiana are not programmed to recognize these older VIN numbers as valid when attempting to use the VIN to determine the type of car to which it belongs. As such, many agencies refer to the Indiana State Police or the BMV itself to cross-check information on them. However, this VIN may still appear as flagged in the computer response if an officer attempted to run either the plate or VIN today. Standard procedure when entering information into the NCIC database is to flag the license plate, VIN, and the missing person associated with the vehicle (who may or may not be the registered owner) individually in case they get separated over time. As long as it’s been entered properly, if an officer were to run any one of these three things, they would get information back about all three.
A note about Debra’s car: the Ford Galaxie hardtop was a popular model, particularly as a family vehicle, and there were over a million of them sold. Production of this model also stopped in 1974. The OPEC fuel embargo of 1973 had driven fuel prices far beyond what the average driver could reasonably expect to pay, and sales of large V8 engine vehicles like the Galaxie nosedived, with car-buying trends shifting to more fuel-efficient models. Even so, there were likely still plenty of Galaxies on the road in 1974, and even though a car like this would be noticeable today, back then a nine-year old vehicle like Debra’s may not have stood out as remarkable to anyone who may have seen it after she vanished, especially if it was parked innocuously around town.



Stock photos of a 1966 two-door Ford Galaxie hard top. Credit: BeverlyHillsCarClub.com
Note: Not photos of Debra's exact car. Shade of green may vary.
There wasn’t a ton of news at the time about Debra’s disappearance. Headlines were occupied with reports of the Franklin National Bank financial collapse, Hank Aaron topping Babe Ruth’s home run record, Elvis Presley’s recent Indiana shows, preparations for the forthcoming multinational Apollo-Soyuz space test flight, and of course, the mayhem that was the Watergate coverup trial. Even local news was surprisingly lacking in coverage of the disappearance.
Jeffrey was interviewed by police and seems to have cooperated with the investigation, providing photographs of Debra and other personal items to detectives. He admitted to detectives that his marriage to Debra was not without its difficulties, and stated that he’d even filed for divorce. However, police couldn’t find evidence to support that claim. It’s possible that Jeffrey did speak to an attorney and mistakenly believed paperwork had been filed, but this couldn’t be verified. Jeffrey also told investigators that he believed Debra may be pregnant at the time she went missing. No further details about this possible pregnancy have been reported, and it’s not possible to know how far along she might have been. Police ultimately cleared Jeffrey of any involvement in his wife’s disappearance, and he was never named as a suspect. Police verified his presence at the Maple Heights Tavern that evening up to and after the time that Debra was last seen.
On November 30, 1974, Debra’s mother Lucille contacted Indiana State Police and told them someone had reported to her that Debra had been spotted in Elberfeld, Indiana. Some sources report that Lucille later claimed not to have made this call, however Debra’s daughter, Misty, mentioned speaking to Lucille about it when being interviewed by Murder Sheet Podcast hosts Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee for their March, 2024 episode called The Turn of the Windmill. Either way, the sighing was unsubstantiated.

Murder Sheet Podcast cover photo. Credit: iheartradio.com

Map depicting the fastest route from the Windmill where Debra worked to Maple Heights Tavern, where she was supposed to pick up Jeffrey. Credit: Lost in the Crossroads
With the car missing, the identify of the hitchhiker unknown, and no real physical evidence to go on, police weren’t even able to determine whether or not foul play was involved. In fact, at some point officers seriously considered whether Debra had left of her own accord, headed for the golden hills of California. There isn’t much information on the California connection, but Debra’s daughter, Misty, told Murder Sheet that police back then had looked into a tip from someone who overheard someone else at a party saying something that made them believe she had ventured out west. Whatever it was, it was significant enough that Debra is still listed as a missing person on California’s Office of the Attorney General’s website.
Days went by, then weeks, and then months. Jeffrey and his two young daughters moved in with Debra’s family- his mother-in-law, Lucille, and Lucille’s two younger daughters, who helped him to care for Amy and Misty. A full nine months passed. If Debra had been pregnant at the time she went missing, she would have been expected to give birth by then, but nothing ever came of it. Months turned into years, and time marched on.
Police were able to locate ‘the only two’ cattle-trucks in the Evansville area that night, though it’s not clear how they made this determination. They were able to speak to one driver, who denied giving anyone a ride as it was against his company’s policy. The other driver had relocated out of town by the time police were able to track him down, and they were never able to speak to him.

Black and white image of the Windmill Restaurant, Evansville, IN. Credit: I Grew Up in Evansville, Indiana - Facebook
On September 26th, 1976, Debra’s husband, Jeffrey- now 26 years old, was killed, along with a passenger, in a vehicle accident involving a train just before midnight. The other passenger was a 17 year old male, but because he was a minor at the time I have decided not to use his name. The car/train accident occurred near Highway 168 and L&N (Louisville and Nashville) Railroad, at crossing number 342492C in Fort Branch, Indiana, when the eastbound vehicle collided with a northbound freight train. According to a 1976 article the next day in The Indianapolis News, both passengers were ejected and police were unable to determine which of them had been the driver, however in an article in the Princeton Daily Clarion dated the same day, it was reported that Jeffrey was driving. The Princeton Daily Clarion article notes that he was working as a carpenter at the time of his passing. Today, this crossing is owned by CSX railroad. In those days, most railroad crossings had no arms, no flashing lights or warning signals. Jeffrey’s death certificate noted his marital status as married, but Debra’s name was absent from the document. The manner of his death was ruled accidental. It had been raining that night too.
Debra’s daughters remained with Lucille, who raised them alongside her own girls, Debra’s sisters, Brenda and Carol. However, a further tragedy struck in February of 1979 when Debra’s oldest daughter, Amy Sue Wilhite, died of leukemia in St. Jude Children’s hospital in Tennessee. She was only seven years old. Her diagnosis hadn’t come until after Debra disappeared, and she probably never knew her little girl was sick. This left almost-five-year-old Misty without both of her parents and her only sibling, all before she was old enough to even start grade school.

Railroad Crossing #342492C along SR 168 (W. Park St.) and L&N Railroad in Fort Branch, IN, modern times

Jeffrey & Debra's daughter, Amy Sue (foreground) and Misty Lynn (background), undated
Today, over 50 years since she went missing, Misty is the driving force behind efforts to keep Debra’s name in the minds of investigators and in the mouths of the public. At some point over the years, but prior to 1994, Debra’s family was made aware of a claim that Debra had been abducted, shot, and placed into her own vehicle, which was then ‘shotgunned’ into a stripper pit, somewhere near Elberfeld, Indiana. Locals referred to this particular pit as the “Duck Pond.” The person who reported this to Debra’s family relayed specific details that they claimed were told to them directly by the person responsible. Although it was secondhand, word-of-mouth information, they forwarded this tip to police nonetheless.
For those who don’t know (I didn’t), a stripper pit is a large, gaping hole in the earth created by strip-mining, which involves removing surface layers of rock and dirt to reach ores or minerals embedded in the soil underneath. Most of them are deep with steep sides and sudden drop-offs. Often, when mining operations are complete, the stripper pits are then filled with water and some are even used for fishing.
In southwestern Indiana, most of the strip-mines were for coal. The primary mining company in the area, Amax Coal Company, operated there from October 1973, one year before Debra went missing, to sometime in 1993. Today, much of this land in Elberfeld and many of these pits have been absorbed into the Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area, which is an area of just over 2500 acres in Warrick County, Indiana that permitted guests often use for fishing, hunting, and trapping. It’s managed by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

Map showing layout of Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area, including former stripper pits, Elberfeld, IN. Credit: Indiana DNR
The Windmill Restaurant closed down in 1989, and the previous owners, a married couple, have both since passed away. A Dairy Queen now operates where the Windmill once stood. In a post on the MISSING Debra Wilhite Facebook page, Misty notes that the intersection that was once 41 North and US 57 is now that of US 41 North and Petersburg Road. In recent years, a new restaurant, a donut shop and bakery with ‘Windmill’ in its name, has opened not far from the original.
The Maple Heights Tavern, where Jeffrey waited that night for his wife who would never arrive, is no longer in business. I couldn’t find a listing for it on the Indiana Secretary of State’s business directory, though it must have been around until at least 1979 because I was able to locate a court record of a robbery that took place there at that time. Nowadays, the Ponytail Lounge, a local strip club, sits at the previous site at 1201 E. Columbia St. in Evansville.
In 1994, Misty was afforded the rare opportunity to view the materials in Debra’s casefile. She spoke about this experience in her Duck Pond Diaries series on YouTube. She was surprised by how much material police had actually gathered over the years for a case that had long ago gone cold- though of course, nothing was digitized back then. It was all paper. But perhaps the most shocking discovery from her review was the absence of the information about the Duck Pond. Nearly 20 years after Debra went missing, and it seems this potentially crucial lead had somehow slipped by the detectives working the case.

Screengrab from one of the videos in the Duck Pond Diaries series on Youtube. Courtesy: Misty Lynn
Unfortunately, it might forever be too late to thoroughly investigate this tip. Although at one point, an officer working the case indicated to Misty that he knew the location of the Duck Pond, and even promised to take her to see it, that fell through, and the location seems to have been lost to time. Today the exact spot is as much a mystery as Debra’s disappearance itself. Misty has heard that the pond had been drained of water and subsequently filled in with earth, possibly in 1984 or the early ‘80s, but after so many years, if Debra’s car had been at the bottom of the pit, it was now likely buried under so many feet of loose sediment and silt that it would have been invisible to workers up top, who didn’t know to look for it in the first place. Most recently, Misty has heard that there may even be buildings built over the site where the stripper pit/Duck Pond once was.
American Dairy, Jeffrey’s place of employment, which was located at 700 E. Missouri St. in Evansville, is no longer standing. The building was razed around 2011, but had shut down earlier, possibly 2007. At some point, American Dairy had merged with another company prior to that closure. I was able to locate comments on a Facebook post in the “You grew up in Evansville, IN if…” group in which a former employee recalls delivering ice cream for the company.
In December of 2008, someone with the Indiana State Police submitted Debra’s information to NAMUS. Then, until this year, the most recent entry in Debra’s case file was from 2015, but it wasn’t about her specifically. It was documentation of the latest effort to match a set unidentified female remains from elsewhere in the country to the name of one of the hundreds of missing people in the national database. DNA, which was provided by Misty and one of her aunts, was compared, but the remains were not a match for Debra. Her DNA profile was checked against remains in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, and every effort was documented in Debra’s file. Misty even went as far as to submit her genetic material to Ancestry.com, just in case Debra really did leave of her own accord and she has siblings or half-siblings somewhere out in the world, but to date nothing has come of those efforts.
Debra’s mother, Lucille, passed away in 2019 at the age of 91 (Erwin had passed away back in 2004). After the early tragedies in her life, I found myself relieved to learn that Misty and Lucille had each other for so many long years. Misty often refers to Debra as ‘mother,’ but she knows Lucille, the woman who raised her, as ‘Mom.’ Lucille’s obituary notes she was preceded in death by her daughter, Debra, and survived by daughters and the granddaughter she raised. Her obituary also mentioned that she was a monthly donor to St. Jude, the hospital where her granddaughter, Amy, had passed away. Lucille was adamant that Debra would never willingly take off and leave her daughters behind, but Misty relays in Murder Sheet that Lucille thought perhaps Debra had initially gone with someone of her own accord, and something happened to her after, which prevented her return.

Lucille's obituary as featured in the Evansville Courier and Press, Saturday, October 19, 2019, page 4A
In November of 2023, before being interviewed but in preparation for the Murder Sheet podcast, Misty contacted Indiana State Police seeking an update on her mother’s case. She was told that at that time, no detective was even assigned to it. Since then, cold cases have been reassigned to the Special Investigations Division of the state police, which launched a new push in late summer 2024 to review cold cases through the lens of testing and retesting old forensic evidence. Debra’s case is the oldest in the state police district assigned to her, and one of the oldest across the entire state. Today, someone IS working Debra’s case. In fact, new developments are unfolding, even at the time of this writing.
In July of 2025, Misty filed a public records request in an attempt to see the current casefile, another 20 years on from when she first glimpsed it in 1994. At first, she received a response that her request was validated and being processed, but by September 2025, she received a follow-up email from Indiana State Police advising that the documents she requested are ‘investigatory records’ and are therefore ‘exempt from release as public record.’ Misty talks in Duck Pond Diaries about her disappointment with this response, but acknowledges that the decision is made by the investigating agency’s legal team, and the detectives assigned to the case have no say in the process, and aren’t even kept informed when a request was made. Although she insinuates that the relationship between her family and detectives has at times been strained, she urges restraint and asks that well-meaning followers not call investigators to ask questions or encourage them to release information, and that ultimately this can do more harm than good.
But these records requests aren’t the only moving piece in the puzzle of Debra’s disappearance. One suspicion that has long lingered in the minds of Debra’s family and in those who have followed this case over the decades is that Debra’s car, that green 1966 Ford Galaxie, might be underwater somewhere- if not beneath the filled-in stripper pit, then possibly in one of the many ponds and waterways that dot and line those routes around Evansville, Princeton, and Elberfeld. In a resourceful move, Misty reached out for help on the MISSING Debra Wilhite Facebook page, asking for divers willing to volunteer their time and talent to search for any sign of the car. After some initial disappointments, she was able to connect with a group called Chaos Divers.

Volunteer from Chaos Divers preparing to search for a vehicle underwater, posted September 24, 2025. Credit: Chaos Divers - Facebook.
According to their website, Chaos Divers is a “sonar search and recovery team dedicated to bringing answers to the families of the missing,” and has assisted with the closure of over 20 cold cases across the country. In late September of this year, 2025, Chaos Divers turned their attention to Debra’s case. Jason Grubbs, owner and founder of the volunteer search team, and Lindsay Bussick, who often manages the social media pages of the group, spoke in an interview with Gabe Pontones and Jill Lyman of 14News in Warrick County about Debra’s case. They indicated the team will search fifteen locations across southwestern Indiana in the hunt for Debra and her vehicle. They have already checked an area in the Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area, another spot which has long been rumored to be connected to the disappearance. Of the remaining search destinations, they have their eyes on a few more areas in the Bluegrass, numerous ponds between Evansville and Princeton, and a spot in the Ohio River where they located a vehicle two years ago in a separate search, but were unable to investigate further due to water conditions at the time.
There’s every reason to hope that these searches will bear fruit, even after all this time. Police have never publicly named a suspect in the disappearance, or even indicated that they had one, though the mysterious hitchhiker remains a person of interest. No single theory about what happened that night on October 14, 1974 seems to stand out as more plausible than the rest.
Over the years, particularly post-internet in the early 2000s, Debra’s missing persons case has been linked to several other crimes in the area, both solved and unresolved, either through geographical proximity or a passing similarity in victims. To date, police have never publicly linked Debra’s case to any other, and there is no real reason to think it could be connected, beyond the musings of well-meaning armchair internet sleuths.

Contact information for the investigator assigned to Debra's case. Credit: Namus.gov

Map highlighting various sites mentioned in this article in Fort Branch, Princeton, Elberfeld, and Evansville, IN. Credit: Lost in the Crossroads
As of July 2025, the lead investigator responsible for Debra’s case is Indiana State Police Detective Toni R. Walden, Special Investigations Division, Cold Case Unit. She can be reached at (812)-867-2079. Maybe you knew someone back in 1974 who suddenly came into possession of, or was trying to sell, a green 1966 Ford Galaxie two-door hard top. Maybe you saw or heard something 50 years ago, but were afraid to come forward before now. Could be that you were at that party and heard details about Debra’s plans to travel to California. Maybe you even recognize yourself in the details of the hitchhiker asking for a ride, or you drove a cattle truck back then and gave a man ride from Indianapolis to Evansville on a rainy in the fall of 1974. If you worked at the Windmill in October of 1974, or you know the identity of the man who entered the restaurant that night seeking a ride, please call it in. Maybe you rented a motel room to a guest who registered that car. Perhaps you remember meeting a young women in the green Ford who was traveling from Indiana to California. Maybe you reached out with a tip decades ago, but never heard anything after that. If any of that applies to you, please reach out to Detective Walden or call the Indiana State Police tip line at (800) 226-1026, or download the “See something, say something” app and submit a tip that way. If the information about the Duck Pond didn’t make it into the file in those first 20 years, it’s not safe to assume all other early possible tips were forwarded to the appropriate parties when reported. She has been missing for 51 years – any information could be useful.
Even if you don’t have any information that could help bring a resolution to Debra’s case, you may still be able to help her family. Misty is seeking information on the true location of the stripper pit known locally as the “Duck Pond.” She would also like to see photos of the Windmill Restaurant as it stood in 1974. Additionally, she was very young when her parents died, and she told Murder Sheet that she would like to hear stories about them from those who knew them, worked with them, lived near them, if for no other reason than to get a sense of who they were as people and what they were like. She is also interested in any further information regarding her father’s car/train accident in September of 1976. It may be helpful for the family and for investigators to see any photographs of the old Duck Pond or the family’s green 1966 Ford, if any old friends out there have photos stashed away of Debra or Jeffrey posing with it. Misty can be reached at missingdebrawilhite@gmail.com.

Debra Ann Wilhite, Ancestry.com
Although I didn’t interview Misty for this article, but I did speak briefly with her to obtain permission to use some of the photographs she had posted on her MISSING Debra Wilhite Facebook page. She indicated that due to some changes in Facebook policy, she would be moving her future updates to her YouTube series, Duck Pond Diaries. Go there and subscribe to her channel if you would like to stay in the know on Debra’s case. This is going to be the best and most reliable source of information on Debra Wilhite as it is released. Chaos Divers also has a YouTube page, as well as other socials, if you are interested in following their work.
If Debra Ann Wilhite were alive today, she would be 70 years old. She may go by ‘Debi’ or ‘Debbie,’ or may use her maiden name, Pfettscher, or perhaps even a different name altogether. She may have spent time or lived in California. She was a young wife and mother whose life was really just beginning. If she is no longer living, Misty hopes to locate her remains and bring her home, even if doing so provides no further answers as to what happened the night of October 14, 1974. Debra is a real person who still has living family out there – sisters, a daughter, grandchildren - who love her and cherish her memory, and they need answers.
The purpose of this article is not to speculate on what happened to Debra, or advance a particular theory, or even ‘solve’ the case. It’s also not to denigrate the police department, or to cast aspersions on anyone’s character. I’m not an investigator or even a journalist. The goal is to humanize Debra, to bring her to life from just a flat photograph on the internet or a manila folder on someone’s desk to someone real who lived and breathed, and to present the facts to the extent they are known in the hopes that some details here will jog someone’s memory or empower the right person to come forward with information that can help detectives move towards a resolution in this over 50 year old cold case. If that someone is you, please reach out.
***This article was updated 10/16/2025 to add several maps depicting various locations/routes mentioned in this article, and to link various sources used for background research.
This article was originally published 10/15/25 (tvm, Lost in the Crossroads)