Disappearance of Patricia Spencer and Pamela Hobley

Patricia Ann Spencer, 16, and Pamela Sue Hobley, 15, went missing on Halloween night, Friday, October 31, 1969, in Oscoda, Iosco County, Michigan. The two were reportedly "not considered friends" but had been seen walking together shortly before they disappeared, apparently after skipping school together. Neither returned home to attend a planned homecoming football game and Halloween party that evening.

Hobley had told her mother and sisters she intended to return home after the game and party. When she failed to appear, her fiancé alerted her mother that she had never arrived. Hobley's mother then contacted other parents and learned that Spencer had also never made it to the party. Police opened a missing person investigation and initially speculated the girls were runaways headed to Flint, Michigan. Hobley's sister, Mary Buehrle, later disputed this theory, noting positive circumstances in both girls' lives beforehand. Neither girl took a purse, identification, or extra clothing, which family members cited as evidence they did not leave voluntarily.

Initial reports placed the girls walking away from Oscoda High School, but a witness later said he picked them up on River Road and dropped them off in downtown Oscoda, which police say is corroborated by other undisclosed information. Investigators believe the girls resumed hitchhiking and were abducted by two or more assailants, though few leads have surfaced, and the case went cold. A possible connection to the unidentified Oakland County Child Killer was examined but is considered unlikely. Hobley's family posted a $1,000 reward for information.

In 1985, police received a report that the girls had been murdered by "two area men" and buried near a barn known as a teenage party spot. A later search of the site by the local police chief, using cadaver dogs, found no evidence of human remains, and other locations frequented by teens were also searched without result. A now-deceased man once claimed to have transported the girls that day, but this lead is no longer considered credible. Another individual told police he gave the girls a ride to a gas station near where they were last seen; he said he had been questioned before but that this was never properly recorded, and this account is now believed to represent the last confirmed sighting.

Both cases remain in national databases, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, NamUs, and The Doe Network, with age-progression images produced showing the girls at ages 60 and 57. DNA profiles for both girls and dental records for Hobley have been collected for comparison purposes, though Spencer's dental records are unavailable and neither girl has fingerprints on file. A new detective was assigned in 2010, and in 2013 police announced they had identified a person of interest, later reported to be an individual who was in the Oscoda area the night the girls disappeared and drove a van; that individual died by suicide in January 2026 as investigators pursued him in connection with a separate 1983 killing in Flint.