# List of kidnappings: 1950–1979

The following is a list of kidnappings that occurred between 1950 and 1979, summarizing the events of each case, including instances of celebrity abductions, claimed hoaxes, suspected kidnappings, extradition abductions, and mass kidnappings.@media screen{.mw-parser-output .sticky-header>thead>tr:first-child,.mw-parser-output .sticky-header>caption+tbody>tr:first-child,.mw-parser-output .sticky-header>tbody:first-child>tr:first-child,.mw-parser-output .sticky-header-multi>thead{position:sticky;top:0;z-index:10}.mw-parser-output .sticky-header:not(.wikitable),.mw-parser-output .sticky-header-multi:not(.wikitable){background-color:white}.mw-parser-output .sticky-header:not(.wikitable)>*,.mw-parser-output .sticky-header:not(.wikitable)>thead>tr:first-child,.mw-parser-output .sticky-header:not(.wikitable)>caption+tbody>tr:first-child,.mw-parser-output .sticky-header:not(.wikitable)>tbody:first-child>tr:first-child,.mw-parser-output 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| Date | Victim(s) | Abductor(s) | Location | Age of victim(s) | Outcome | Notes |
| 1950– | South Koreans abducted by North Koreans | Agents and soldiers | South Korea | | | Approximately 84,532 South Koreans were taken to North Korea during the Korean War. Since the war's armistice in 1953, about 3,800 people have been abducted. |
| 21 February 1951 | Luis Albino | unknown | Oakland, California, United States | 6 | Found alive (2024) | Albino was playing at a park with his older brother when a woman approached them and offered him candy to go with her. In 2024, he was found to be alive and living in the East Coast after his niece took an at-home DNA test. |
| 28 September 1953 | Robert "Bobby" Cosgrove Greenlease Jr. | Bonnie Heady and Carl A. Hall | Kansas City, Missouri, US | 6 | Murdered | Greenlease was kidnapped and immediately murdered. The murderers demanded and were paid a $600,000 ransom by the boy's father, a wealthy automobile dealer. Notable in the case was the fact that more than half of the ransom money was stolen by a corrupt police officer and never recovered. |
| December 1954 | Unidentified 11-year-old girl | John A. Bennett | Wals-Siezenheim, Austria | 11 | Survived | Bennett, a U.S. soldier stationed in Salzburg, abducted an 11-year-old girl while heavily intoxicated and looking for a brothel and raped her before strangling her and throwing her into a stream. She survived the assault and Bennett was sentenced to death by a court-martial. |
| 15 June 1955 | Curtis Chillingworth, Marjorie Chillingworth | Floyd Holzapfel, Bobby Lincoln, Joseph Peel | Manalapan, Florida | 58 (Curtis), 47 (Marjorie) | Murdered | Circuit court judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie were abducted from their home by Floyd Holzapfel and Bobby Lincoln, who later testified that they had thrown them into the sea with lead weights tied to their feet on orders from Joseph Peel, a municipal judge who Curtis Chillingworth was investigating for corruption. |
| 28 August 1955 | Emmett Till | Roy Bryant, J.W. Milam | Drew, Mississippi, U.S. | 14 | Murdered | Till, a black teenager, was abducted from his grandfather's home by two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, after Bryant's wife accused Till of harassing her. Bryant and Milam beat and tortured Till, possibly with help from accomplices, before shooting him in the head and sinking him into the Tallahatchie River. |
| 4 July 1956 | Peter Weinberger | Angelo LaMarca | Westbury, New York, US | 1 month | Murdered | LaMarca took the baby from his home for a $2,000 ransom. He told investigators he went to the first drop site the day after the kidnapping with the baby in the car, but was scared away by all of the press and police in the area. He drove away, abandoned the baby alive in some heavy brush just off a highway exit, and went home. A search of the area by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and Nassau County Police Department ensued. An FBI agent spotted a diaper pin, then the decomposed remains of Peter Weinberger. The Weinberger case also resulted in new legislation, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which reduced the FBI's waiting period in kidnapping cases from 7 days to 24 hours. LaMarca was executed via electric chair on 7 August 1958. |
| 28 December 1956 | Barbara and Patricia Grimes | Unknown | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | 15 (Barbara), 12 (Patricia) | Murdered | The Grimes sisters were taken while returning home from the cinema after a screening of Love me Tender. Their bodies were found in January of the following year; although an autopsy found that they had been killed five hours after they disappeared, numerous witnesses attested to having seen or been in contact with the girls long after their supposed deaths. The perpetrator or perpetrators remain unidentified. |
| 2 September 1957 | Judge Edward Aaron | Ku Klux Klan members | Birmingham, Alabama, US | 34 | Rescued | African-American handyman who was abducted, beaten and tortured by seven KKK members who left him for dead. Aaron was rescued the same day, and several of his attackers were later convicted. His case inspired the 1988 film Mississippi Burning. |
| 3 December 1957 | Maria Ridulph | Unknown | Sycamore, Illinois, U.S. | 7 | Murdered | Maria Ridulph was abducted by a man calling himself "Johnny" while playing with her friend Kathy Sigman in December 1957. Her skeletal remains were found in Woodbine in April of the following year. Jack McCullough, a known sex offender living in the area, was eventually convicted of the murder in 2012; however, he was exonerated four years later when it was proven that he was in Rockford when the crime took place. The true perpetrator was never found. |
| 23 February 1958 | Juan Manuel Fangio | Rebels involved in the Cuban Revolution | Havana, Cuba | 46 | Released | The night before the non-championship Cuban Grand Prix, five-time Argentine Formula One champion Fangio was kidnapped by rebels involved in the Cuban Revolution. The abduction was planned by one of Fidel Castro's right-hand men, Faustino Perez, from a hotel in Havana. The abductors had also planned to kidnap fellow driver Stirling Moss, but Fangio had convinced the abductors not to. He was taken to three separate houses, and was offered various amnesties, including a radio to listen to the race. At midnight after the race, Fangio was dropped off at the Argentinian ambassador's home. |
| 9 February 1960 | Adolph Coors III | Joseph Corbett Jr. | Morrison, Colorado, US | 44 | Murdered | Corbett attempted to kidnap Coors on a single-lane bridge outside of Morrison, Colorado, but a struggle ensued and Corbett shot Coors twice in the back, killing him. Corbett then dumped Coors' dead body near Pikes Peak and mailed a ransom note demanding $500,000. That night, Corbett mistakenly believed he was being watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and left Denver the following morning. He was captured nine months later in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and convicted of first degree murder. |
| 7 July 1960 | Graeme Thorne | Stephen Leslie Bradley | New South Wales, Australia | 8 | Murdered | Graeme's parents, Bazil and Freda Thorne, won the £100,000 Opera House Lottery (at that time, the names of winners were published). Five weeks later Stephen Leslie Bradley abducted Graeme and demanded a ransom. He was killed and dumped, the partially decomposed body being discovered on 16 August. The case led to tighter rules about the publication of the names of lottery winners. |
| 11 July 1960 | Edward Bartels | Victor Feguer | Dubuque, Iowa, US | 34 | Murdered | Edward Bartels was a doctor working in Dubuque, Iowa, who was abducted by drifter Victor Feguer, who intended to steal drugs from him. Feguer lured Bartels to his boarding house by claiming that a woman was suffering from a medical emergency before abducting him and taking him to Illinois, where he shot Bartels in the head and dumped his body in a cornfield. |
| 17 December 1960 | Abebe Aregai | Unknown | Ethiopia | 57 | Murdered | An Ethiopian military commander who fell victim to the 1960 Ethiopian coup attempt. |
| 22 August 1961 | Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie | James Hanratty | Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, UK | 36 (Gregsten), 23 (Storie) | Murdered (Gregsten), survived (Storie) | On 22 August 1961, Michael Gregsten and his mistress Valerie Storie were sitting in Gregsten's car in Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, when a masked man holding a gun approached them and hijacked the car, forcing Gregsten to drive away up the A6 and keep driving until 1.30am the next day, when he tied Storie's hands behind her back, shot Gregsten in the head and raped Storie. The man then forced Storie to drag Gregsten's body out of the car, shot her five times and drove off. Storie survived after being taken to hospital. Their abductor, James Hanratty, was executed by hanging on 4 April 1962. |
| 22 October 1962 | Carol Ann Dougherty | Unknown | Bristol, Pennsylvania, US | 9 | Murdered | Carol Dougherty was abducted by an unknown assailant on her way to the library from home. She was later found inside St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church, which she herself had frequented before, having been raped and strangled. Although there have been several suspects and leads on the perpetrator in the intervening years, the crime remains unsolved. |
| 3 March 1963 | Lois Ann Jameson | Ernesto Miranda | Phoenix, Arizona, US | 18 | Released | Jameson was abducted near a bus stop while returning from work. Miranda drove her twenty minutes out of town before raping her and driving her back, whereupon she was released. Miranda was arrested ten days later and convicted of kidnapping and rape, but had his conviction overturned in Miranda v. Arizona due to a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. A second jury later convicted Miranda and he was sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years. |
| 9 March 1963 | Karl Francis Hettinger and Ian James Campbell | Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith | Bakersfield, California | 28 (Hettinger); 31 (Campbell) | Escaped (Hettinger); murdered (Campbell) | Los Angeles Police Department officers. Both men were kidnapped by criminals Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith on 9 March 1973 and driven to an onion field near Bakersfield, California. Campbell was shot, while Hettinger managed to escape to a farmhouse where he called for help. |
| 1 May 1963 | Yoshie Nakata | Kazuo Ishikawa | Sayama, Japan | 16 | Murdered | 16-year-old Yoshie Nakata was abducted on her way home from school. A ransom note was delivered to her family later that night, but attempts to deliver the ransom failed and Nakata was found raped and murdered three days after her abduction. Farm worker Kazuo Ishikawa, a member of the discriminated burakumin caste, served 31 years in prison for the crime. |
| 31 May 1963 | Margaret Guyan | Henry John Burnett | Aberdeen, Scotland | Unknown | Rescued | Guyan's estranged husband, Henry Burnett, abducted her from her flat with a shotgun after she tried to leave him, in the process killing her brother Thomas. Burnett attempted to flee with Guyan in a car he had stolen, but was intercepted by police after driving 15 miles and surrendered peacefully, releasing Guyan unharmed. Burnett was later hanged for murdering Thomas Guyan. |
| August 1963 | Kenneth Abrahams | South African Police | Botswana | c.27 | Released | Abrahams, Beukes, Shipanga and a fourth individual, Paul Smit, were arrested in Ghanzi because of their actions in recruiting soldiers for SWAPO's military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia. All four were released by the South African Police after twenty days of captivity. |
| August 1963 | Hermanus Beukes | South African Police | Botswana | 50 | Released | Abrahams, Beukes, Shipanga and a fourth individual, Paul Smit, were arrested in Ghanzi because of their actions in recruiting soldiers for SWAPO's military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia. All four were released by the South African Police after twenty days of captivity. |
| August 1963 | Andreas Shipanga | South African Police | Botswana | 31 | Released | Abrahams, Beukes, Shipanga and a fourth individual, Paul Smit, were arrested in Ghanzi because of their actions in recruiting soldiers for SWAPO's military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia. All four were released by the South African Police after twenty days of captivity. |
| 18 March 1964 | Marise Chiverella | James Paul Forte | Hazleton, Pennsylvania, US | 9 | Murdered | Chiverella was abducted while carrying canned goods for her teacher, with Forte raping and strangling her before dumping her body in a coal-mining pit. The murder remained unsolved until 2022, when Parabon NanoLabs used DNA left by Forte to identify him as the killer. He could not be arrested, as he had died in 1980. |
| 27 April 1964 | Paul Joseph Fronczak | Unknown | Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, US | 1 day | Found | Fronczak was one day old when he was abducted from the Michael Reese Hospital by an unknown woman posing as a nurse. A year later, a baby believed to be Paul was found outside a variety store in Newark, New Jersey, and was subsequently given to the Fronczaks. In August 2013, DNA testing determined that the child found was not Paul, leading to the case's re-opening On 18 December 2019, it was announced that the real Paul Joseph Fronczak had been identified as a 55-year-old man who asked to remain anonymous. |
| 2 May 1964 | Henry Hezekiah Dee, Charles Eddie Moore | James Ford Seale | Roxie, Mississippi | 19 | Murdered | Two black 19-year-olds who were abducted by Ku Klux Klan member James Ford Seale, who mistakenly believed that they were civil rights activists. Seale and several accomplices drove them to a farm in the Homochitto National Forest and beat them with sticks before duct-taping their hands and mouths and driving 100 miles to the Old River in Louisiana, where Seale attached weights to their feet and threw them into the river to drown. Seale was eventually found guilty of the crime in 2007. |
| 21 June 1964 | James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner | Ku Klux Klan, Neshoba County Sheriff's Office | Neshoba County, Mississippi | 21 (Chaney), 20 (Goodman), 24 (Schwerner) | Murdered | Three civil rights activists who were abducted and murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Neshoba County Sheriff's Office while campaigning for African-American voting rights during Freedom Summer. Eight of the perpetrators were convicted or pleaded guilty at a Federal trial in 1967, including the Klan's national leader Samuel Bowers, and a ninth, Edgar Ray Killen, was convicted of the manslaughter of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner forty-one years later. |
| 2 December 1964 | Julia Taylor | Raymond Leslie Morris | Bloxwich, West Midlands, U.K. | 9 | Survived | Nine-year-old Julia Taylor was lured into a car by a man claiming to be a friend of her mother on 2 December 1964 and driven to a pile of slag heaps near Bentley, where she was raped, strangled and thrown in a ditch. She was found alive by a cyclist fifty minutes later; had this cyclist not come across her and called an ambulance, she likely would have died of exposure within 20 minutes. Police linked Taylor's abduction to the later Cannock Chase murders, and Taylor identified the man convicted of the murders, Raymond Leslie Morris, as her abductor five years later. |
| 14 July 1965 | Missy Crimmins, Eddie Crimmins Jr. | Alice Crimmins (alleged) | Queens, New York City | 4 (Missy), 5 (Eddie Jr.) | Murdered | The Crimmins children were reported missing from their family apartment on 14 July 1965. Missy Crimmins was found strangled in a vacant lot later that day, and Eddie Jr. was found dead in another lot five days afterwards. The children's mother, Alice Crimmins, stood trial in 1968. It was alleged by the prosecution that she had killed Missy, then she and an unidentified accomplice had disposed of the body before taking Eddie Jr. up to where his body was found and killing him too to conceal the crime. Crimmins was convicted of Eddie Jr.'s murder and Missy's manslaughter after two trials; her murder conviction was later reversed due to insufficient evidence and prosecutorial misconduct, and she would serve four years in prison for Missy's manslaughter. |
| 24 July 1965 | Richard P. Keirn | North Vietnamese soldiers | Hanoi, Vietnam | 40 | Released | A fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. Keirn was taken prisoner in July 1965 after his aircraft was shot down during the Vietnam War. He had previously been a prisoner of war in World War II. Keirn was later repatriated to the United States as part of Operation Homecoming. |
| 8 September 1965 | Margaret Reynolds | Raymond Leslie Morris | Aston, Birmingham, U.K. | 6 | Murdered | The first victim of the Cannock Chase murders committed by serial killer Raymond Leslie Morris. She was abducted by Morris while walking to school in the afternoon, having returned home for lunch, and was found raped and murdered on 12 January 1966 near the body of another victim, Diana Tift. |
| 26 December 1965 | Franca Viola | Filippo Melodia and associates | Sicily, Italy | 17 | Released | Italian woman who was kidnapped by mafioso Filippo Melodia, to whom she was previously engaged by force. She was held captive by him and his associates, with him raping her on multiple occasions. Even after her release, Viola was ostracized as she had refused to marry him in a "rehabilitating marriage", with the case serving as a stepping point for changes in law regarding bridal kidnappings. |
| 30 December 1965 | Diana Tift | Raymond Leslie Morris | Walsall, West Midlands, U.K. | 5 | Murdered | The second victim of the Cannock Chase murders committed by serial killer Raymond Leslie Morris. She was abducted by Morris while walking home from her grandmother's house and was found raped and murdered on 12 January 1966 near the body of another victim, Margaret Reynolds. |
| 26 January 1966 | The Beaumont Children | Unknown | Glenelg, South Australia | 9, 7, 4 | Unknown | The Beaumont children were three siblings who disappeared from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia on Australia Day 1966 in a suspected abduction and murder. The regular and widespread attention given to the case, its significance in Australian criminal history, and the fact that their disappearance has never been explained, has led to the story being continually revisited by the media. |
| 28 March 1966 | Danny Goldman | Unknown | Surfside, Florida, US | 17 | Unknown | An intruder broke into the home of the Goldman family and demanded $10,000. When he did not get the money, he abducted Danny Goldman and said that he wanted $25,000 by the end of the day. The kidnapper never contacted the family and Goldman was never found. Speculation surfaced that organized crime was behind the kidnapping because Goldman's father was involved in several banks that were controlled by organized crime figures. |
| 27 July 1966 | Brenda Sue Brown | Earl Parker and Thurman Price (both alleged) | Shelby, North Carolina, US | 11 | Murdered | An 11-year-old schoolgirl whose bludgeoned body was discovered close to her home on the evening of her disappearance. A deathbed confession from one of her alleged murderers, Earl Parker, resulted in the arrest of the second alleged perpetrator, Thurman Andrew Price. Parker's deathbed confession was ruled admissible in court; however, Price died in 2012 while awaiting trial. |
| 27 September 1966 | Allen Redston | Unknown | Curtin, Australia | 6 | Murdered | Schoolboy who disappeared while going toward a friend's house, where they planned to spend a day at Curtin Tip. Redston's body was found on the next day, wrapped in a blanket, near the location. He had been bound and strangled, but nobody was ever arrested in his murder. |
| 19 November 1966 | Phan Thi Mao | David Gervase, Steven Cabbot Thomas, Cipriano Garcia, Joseph Garcia | Cat Tuong, Phu My District, Vietnam | 21 | Murdered | Vietnamese woman who was abducted from her village by four U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War and repeatedly raped before being stabbed and shot to death by one of the soldiers, Steven Cabbot Thomas, in order to conceal the crime. Her body was buried on Hill 192. |
| March 1967 | Unnamed 13-year-old girl | Stanley Bernson | Chattaroy, Washington, U.S. | 13 | Released | In March 1967, Stanley Marvin Bernson, an American murderer and self-confessed serial killer, abducted a 13-year-old girl and drove her around Chattaroy, an unincorporated area northeast of Spokane. The girl was returned to her home after suffering a head injury, which Bernson claimed was caused by a wrench hitting her when he crashed his car into a ditch. Bernson was given a six-month suspended sentence later that month. |
| 6 April 1967 | Doug Hegdahl | Vietnamese militiamen | Gulf of Tonkin | 20 | Released | Doug Hegdahl, a 20-year-old United States Navy petty officer second class, was knocked off the USS Canberra in the Gulf of Tonkin and subsequently held as a prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War. On August 5, 1969, Hegdahl was released along with two other POWs as a propaganda move by the North Vietnamese. |
| 19 August 1967 | Christine Darby | Raymond Leslie Morris | Walsall, West Midlands, U.K. | 7 | Murdered | The third and final victim of the Cannock Chase murders committed by serial killer Raymond Leslie Morris. She was abducted by Morris while playing with her friends under the pretext of showing him the way to Caldmore Green. She was found raped and murdered three days later. Her murder was linked to the earlier murders of Margaret Reynolds and Diana Tift in 1965. Morris was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment for Darby's murder in 1969. |
| 26 January 1968 | Linda Katherine Slawson | Jerry Brudos | Portland, Oregon, US | 19 | Murdered | On January 26, 1968, Linda Kay Slawson disappeared whilst selling encyclopedias in southwest Portland. Jerry Brudos told investigators that he had invited Slawson inside, before killing her and throwing her body into the Willamette River. Her remains were never found. Brudos pleaded guilty to three other murders, but the charge against him relating to Slawson's disappearance was dropped due to a lack of evidence. |
| 23 August 1968 | Ong Beang Leck | Lee Chor Pet, Lim Kim Kwee, Ho Kee Fatt, Richard Lai Choon Seng and Chow Sien Cheong | Singapore | 19 | Murdered | 19-year-old Ong Beang Leck, the fourth child of a local millionaire, was abducted by four kidnappers into a car, with three of them using weapons, including a screwdriver and hammer, to brutally assault Ong before killing him. The four, together with a fifth person, also extorted a S$20,000 ransom from the victim's family after the murder. Following police investigations, the suspects were arrested in both Malaysia and Singapore, and the body of Ong was recovered from a manhole at Jurong. Lee, Lim and Ho, the trio who were identified as the ones who directly killed Ong, were hanged on 27 January 1973 for murder while Lai (who acted as the driver) and Chow (the fifth man) were each jailed for four years for negotiating and possessing the ransom money. |
| 23 August 1968 | Roy Tutill | Brian Field | Surrey, United Kingdom | 14 | Murdered | 14-year-old Roy Tutill was abducted while hitchhiking in Surrey in 1968 and found raped and strangled three days later. The case remained unsolved until 2001 (making it the oldest solved cold case in British history), when convicted sex offender Brian Field pleaded guilty based on DNA evidence. According to Field, he had drunkenly started touching Tutill's leg, at which point Tutill resisted and he proceeded to rape him before panicking and strangling him to death. |
| 26 November 1968 | Jan Susan Whitney | Jerry Brudos | Interstate 5, Oregon, US | 23 | Murdered | On 26 November 1968, a car belonging to 23-year-old Jan Susan Whitney broke down on Interstate 5 between Salem and Albany. She was later encountered by Jerry Brudos, who claimed that he was able to fix her car but would need to drive to his home to collect his tools, to which Whitney agreed. When they parked in his driveway, Brudos entered the rear of the vehicle and asked her to close her eyes and say how to tie a shoelace without opening her eyes or moving her hands. She agreed to this challenge and Brudos subsequently strangled her from behind with a leather strap and raped her. He then engaged in necrophilia with her corpse before throwing her corpse into the Willamette River. |
| 17 December 1968 | Barbara Jane Mackle | Gary Steven Krist and Ruth Eisemann-Schier | Decatur, Georgia, US | 20 | Rescued | Mackle was kidnapped and buried in a reinforced box with food, water, and air. She was rescued a few days later. She wrote a book about her experience that was later made into two TV movies. |
| 27 March 1969 | Karen Elena Sprinker | Jerry Brudos | Salem, Oregon, US | 18 | Murdered | On 27 March 1969, 18-year-old Karen Elena Sprinker was abducted at gunpoint outside the parking lot of a Meier & Frank department store whilst en route to meet her mother for lunch; she was then abducted at gunpoint by Jerry Brudos. Brudos was dressed as a woman during the attack. Brudos took her to his garage, made her try on his collection of undergarments and pose whilst he photographed her before raping her and strangling her by her neck from a pulley. Brudos later committed necrophilia acts with her body. He later tied her body to a six-cylinder car engine with a nylon cord and threw it into the Willamette River. |
| 23 April 1969 | Linda Dawn Salee | Jerry Brudos | Portland, Oregon, US | 22 | Murdered | On 23 April 1969, 22-year-old Linda Dawn Salee was abducted by Jerry Brudos on the grounds of the Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon. Brudos took her to his garage where he raped and strangled her before playing with her corpse. Afterwards, Brudos tied her body to a car transmission with a nylon cord before throwing her into the Willamette River. |
| 20 May 1969 | Alex Rackley | George W. Sams Jr., Warren Kimbro, Lonnie McLucas | New Haven, Connecticut | 19 | Murdered | Rackley, a Black Panther Party member suspected of being a government informer, was abducted by fellow Black Panthers Sams, Kimbro and McLucas, who tortured him for two days at the Panther headquarters in New Haven until he confessed to betraying the party. He was then taken to isolated wetlands near Middlefield, where he was shot by Kimbro and McLucas. Rackley's body was disposed of in the Coginchaug River. |
| 25 August 1969 | Rosemary Calandriello | Robert Zarinsky | Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, US | 17 | Murdered | Calandriello is believed to have been kidnapped and murdered by Zarinsky, who was later convicted of her murder, even though her body has never been located. |
| 4 September 1969 | Charles Burke Elbrick | Revolutionary Movement 8th October Marxist political organization | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 61 | Released | An American diplomat kidnapped by the Revolutionary Movement 8th October; he was held hostage for 78 hours before he was released in exchange for 15 unnamed political prisoners and the publication of the group's manifesto. |
| 31 October 1969 | Pamela Hobley and Patricia Spencer | Unknown | Oscoda, Michigan, US | 15, 16 | Unknown | Two teenage girls were believed to have been kidnapped prior to a scheduled party after a football game. Both are presumed dead. |
| 29 December 1969 | Muriel McKay | Arthur Hosein and Nizamodeen Hosein | Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom | 55 | Murdered | Trinidadian brothers Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein attempted to kidnap Anna Murdoch, the then-wife of tycoon Rupert Murdoch, for a £1 million ransom, but instead abducted the wife of Murdoch's deputy chairman, Alick McKay, instead. During the investigation, many attempts were made to find the victim – family friends even consulted the psychic Gerard Croiset to help – but the body of McKay was never found and was presumed murdered. In early 1970 the Hosein brothers were caught and convicted of kidnapping and murder. |
| 1970s–1980s | Japanese abducted by North Koreans | Government agents | Japan | | | 17 Japanese people are officially recognized as having been abducted, but there are up to hundreds of possible cases. |
| 22 March 1970 | Kathleen Johns | Zodiac Killer | Patterson, California | 22 | Escaped | Kathleen Johns, who was seven months pregnant, and her daughter (ten months old) were picked up by an unidentified man who offered Johns a lift to a nearby gas station. The man then drove them around for two hours before telling Johns he was going to kill her and throw her baby out the window. Johns managed to jump out of the car with her daughter and ran until she was able to flag down a passing farmer who took them to the police. Johns later identified a sketch of the Zodiac Killer, who also confessed to the abduction in a letter. |
| 7 April 1970 | César Montenegro Paniagua | La Mann rebels | Guatemala | 50 | Murdered | Guatemalan politician and ardent communist. He was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in reprisal for the murder of West German politician Karl von Spreti. |
| 7 August 1970 | Harold Haley, Gary W. Thomas, Maria Graham, Doris Whitmer, Joyce Rodoni | Jonathan P. Jackson, James McClain, Ruchell Magee, William Christmas | San Rafael, California, U.S. | 64 (Haley), 32 (Thomas), unknown (Graham, Whitmer, Rodoni) | Murdered (Haley), rescued (Thomas, Graham, Whitmer, Rodoni) | Victims of the Marin County Civic Center attack, during which four Black Power activists led by Jonathan Jackson overpowered the guards at the trial of Black Panther James McClain and took Judge Harold Haley, Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas, and three jurors hostage in order to demand the release of the Soledad Brothers, who included Jackson's brother George. Jackson, McClain, and two of McClain's fellow prisoners, Ruchell Magee and William Christmas, then tried to escape with the hostages in a van and were fired at by court officers; during the shootout, Judge Haley was shot in the chest by William Christmas and then killed by a blast from a shotgun held to his neck by Magee. The shootout ultimately led to the deaths of Jackson, McClain, and Christmas, the wounding and arrest of Magee, and the recovery of the four surviving hostages. |
| 13 September 1970 | Monica Schiller | Terrance Haley, Raymond Gunning and Andrew Brooks | Murbko, South Australia | 21 | Rescued | Three "trustees" at the Cadell Training Centre absconded from a work release detail, entered the Schiller farm, and tied up Monica's family and boyfriend. After taking food, water, guns, and ammunition, they left with the 21-year-old. The escapees first drove to the Adelaide suburb of Semaphore, then took another stolen vehicle with the intention to going to Darwin via the Birdsville Track. Police chartered a light plane and arrived at Birdsville before the kidnappers. Setting up a roadblock south of the town, police were able to stop the vehicle. After firing a number of shots at the abductors, they were captured and arrested. Monica was found alive in the vehicle, traumatised by the events of the 26 hour ordeal. |
| 17 September 1970 | Kelly Lynn Albright | Unknown | Hutchinson, Kansas, US | 12 | Murdered | Kelly Albright had been sleeping in her bed with her two siblings in the home of her mother and stepfather, Roberta and Richard LeShure, when she woke her brother upon leaving the bedroom, after which she vanished from the home. She was found in a field three days later, having been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times. Little additional evidence was recovered outside of a pillow slip and her pajamas. The prime suspect in the case died before he could be questioned thoroughly, and the case remains unsolved. The crime served as the basis for a mystery novel, Facing September, by Sara Jenlink. |
| 25 September 1970 - 8 August 1973 | Houston child murders | Dean Corll, Elmer Wayne Henley, David Owen Brooks | Houston, Texas | Various | Murdered | Between September 1970 and August 1973, at least 28 teenage boys were abducted in or near Houston, Texas by serial killer Dean Corll. The victims were typically lured with promises of a party or a lift before being restrained to Corll's torture board, sexually abused, tortured and either shot or strangled to death. Many of the abductions were carried out by Corll's teenage accomplices Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks. The murders eventually came to an end on 8 August 1973 when Henley abducted the intended 29th and 30th victims - Timothy Kerley, 19, and Rhonda Williams, 15 - at which point Corll attempted to force Henley to kill Williams himself as punishment for bringing him a girl. Henley instead shot Corll dead and turned himself in to the police. It is suspected that up to 42 missing teenagers may have been victims of the Houston mass murders. |
| 5 October 1970 | James Cross and Pierre Laporte | Front de libération du Québec militants | Quebec, Canada | 49 | Released (Cross) Murdered (Laporte) | Cross was a British diplomat and Laporte was a Quebec provincial politician who were kidnapped. Their kidnappings set off the 1970 October Crisis. Cross was released in exchange for passage of his abductors to Cuba. |
| 23 November 1970 | Ertuğrul Dursun Önkuzu | Communist students | Ankara, Turkey | 22 | Murdered | Önkuzu, an Idealist student at a university in Ankara, was kidnapped by a group of six communist students who targeted him due to his political views. He was tortured for three days until 23 November, when his kidnappers used a bicycle pump to inflate his lungs until they burst before throwing him out of a window to his death. |
| 1971 | Two unnamed girls | Robert Hohenberger | Laguna Beach | | Released | Two unnamed girls were kidnapped and held at gunpoint by Robert Hohenberger in Laguna Beach. Hohenberger was later charged and convicted for this and sent to jail for a short time. |
| 27 July 1971 | Brenda Crockett | Unknown | Northwest, Washington, D.C. | 10 | Murdered | Brenda Crockett, an American child from Northwest did not arrive home on 27 July 1971, but she had called to say she would be arriving home as some man had her in his possession. She was found dead the next day after being murdered on U.S. Route 50, close to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Prince George's County, Maryland by a hitchhiker early in the morning. |
| 10 September 1971 | Lynn Eusan | Unknown | Houston, Texas, U.S. | 22 | Murdered | African-American University of Houston student and activist who became the first black Homecoming queen in the Southern United States. She was last seen alive waiting for a bus stop, and was later found deceased in a stranger's car. The man, Leo Jackson Jr., claimed that she had stabbed herself. He was charged, but later acquitted of her murder, and Eusan's case remains unsolved. |
| 1 October 1971 | Nenomoshia Yates | Unknown | Pennsylvania | 12 | Murdered | American girl from Pennsylvania who on 1 October 1971 was kidnapped, strangled, and raped, and after leaving a Safeway store in the evening time. Yates was found dead just three hours later in Prince George's County, Maryland. |
| 15 November 1971 | Brenda Denise Woodard | Unknown | Baltimore | 18 | Murdered | Brenda Denise Woodard was an American girl from Baltimore who left her classmate's house after having dinner with her on 15 November 1971, while she was heading home. She was discovered dead just 6 hours later by the police and being kidnapped and murdered. Her unknown killer had left a note in her coat pocket that said to catch him if you can. |
| 15 November 1971 | Debbie Catherine Ackerman, Maria Talbot Johnson | Unknown | Galveston, Texas, U.S. | 15 | Murdered | Debbie Catherine Ackerman and Maria Talbot Johnson, both aged 15, were last seen attempting to hitchhike to Houston, Texas near an island ice cream shop in Galveston, Texas on 15 November 1971. Witnesses reported seeing a man in a white van stopping by the curbside and picking up the girls after agreeing to drive them to Houston. Two days later, the bodies of Ackerman and Johnson were found bound and partially nude in Turner's Bayou near Texas City. |
| 16 November 1971 | Carmen Colón | Alphabet killer | Rochester, New York | 10 | Murdered | Carmen Colón was a 10 year old Puerto Rican child who disappeared on 16 November 1971 from Rochester, New York after being kidnapped, and was found dead two days later near the village of Churchville. |
| 18 November 1971 | Edeltraud van Boxel | Münsterland Killer | Münster, Germany | 23 | Murdered | Edeltraud van Boxel was a female German street sexworker from Münster who when getting into a car on 21 November 1971 at 8:30pm was kidnapped and found dead by a farmer on a dirt road at 11:40pm. |
| 1972–1985 | "The Disappeared" | IRA and INLA | Northern Ireland | | Murdered | Seamus Wright, Kevin McKee, Jean McConville, Joseph Lynskey, Peter Wilson, Eamon Molloy, Columba McVeigh, Brendan McGraw, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Danny McIlhone, Gerard Evans, Charlie Armstrong and Seamus Ruddy were a group of both civilians and Irish republican volunteers who were kidnapped, possibly tortured, and murdered by the IRA and INLA during Northern Ireland's "Troubles" for being alleged spies, informants, thieves, etc. Their bodies were not recovered until eight of the corpses or remains were eventually located and returned to their families for burial. Another man who disappeared during this time was Robert Nairac, a British SAS officer whose identity was uncovered. |
| 3 January 1972 - 11 December 1978 | Victims of John Wayne Gacy | John Wayne Gacy | Norwood Park Township, Illinois | 14 - 21 | Murdered | At least 33 teenage boys, starting with Timothy McCoy in January 1972 and ending with Robert Piest in December 1978, were abducted, raped and murdered by John Wayne Gacy (possibly with assistance from some of his employees). Most were buried under Gacy's home in Norwood Park Township. Only 28 victims were identified. |
| 22 June 1972 | Martha Mitchell | Committee for the Re-Election of the President | Newport Beach, California | 53 | Released | Mitchell, the wife of U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell, was held captive for a week by agents of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP) to prevent her from talking to the media about her husband's role in the Watergate scandal. She was released after being tracked down by reporters from the New York Daily News, and CRP member James W. McCord Jr. later admitted that Mitchell had been "basically kidnapped". |
| 15 July 1972 | Felix John Hughes | Robert John Kerr | Portadown, Northern Ireland | 35 | Murdered | Felix J. Hughes was a Catholic welder who was abducted by members of the Ulster Defence Association, most notably Robert John Kerr. They took him to the nearby townland of Edenderry and shot him dead; they then tied his body to a mattress which was weighed down with stones and dumped it in a drainage ditch off Watson's Street. Hughes body would be discovered by British Army frogmen on August 4. |
| 5 September 1972 | Diane Denise Williams | Unknown | Washington, D.C. | 17 | Murdered | Diane Denise Williams was a Ballou High School student who after seeing boarding a bus on 5 September 1972 was found dead just a few hours later after being disposed of alongside I-295, which is south of the District line. |
| 4 December 1972 | Steven Stayner | Kenneth Parnell and Ervin Edward Murphy | Merced, California, US | 7 | Escaped | Stayner was kidnapped on his way home from school. He was raised as Parnell's son for seven years until Parnell abducted another child, Timmy White, in 1980. The two boys escaped on 1 March 1980. At the time of Steven's return, it was the longest known kidnapping in America that ended in a safe return. |
| 28 December 1972 | Pinhas Lavie | Black September Organization militants | Bangkok, Thailand | 37 | Released | Israeli diplomat who served as the ambassador to Eswatini and the Dominican Republic who was abducted by Palestinian militants during the Israeli Bangkok Embassy hostage crisis. After 19 hours, Lavie and the other hostages were released from captivity in Egypt. |
| 27 January 1973 | Dawn Lee Swan Magyar | Jerald Wingeart | Owosso, Michigan, US | 20 | Murdered | Magyar was abducted while grocery shopping. Her body was later found. She was raped and shot multiple times and her murder remained unsolved until 2001. |
| 30–31 January 1973 | Philip Rafferty | Ulster Defence Association | Belfast, Northern Ireland | 14 | Murdered | Rafferty was abducted while on his way to band practice in Andersonstown, he was taken to a parking lot near Giant's Ring and shot. |
| 30–31 January 1973 | Gabriel Savage | Ulster Defence Association | Belfast, Northern Ireland | 17 | Murdered | Savage was a motor mechanic who was abducted while out shopping with his girlfriend in Andersonstown, he was then shot and his body dumped on a grass verge on the M1 Motorway. |
| February 1973 | Anton Foek | Chilean government agents | Chile | 30 | Released | Surinamese-born Dutch freelance journalist who was kidnapped and tortured by agents of the Chilean government when Augusto Pinochet came to power, and was later released and kicked out of the country. |
| 9 March 1973 | Franca Rame | Unknown | Milan, Italy | 43 | Released | An Italian theatre actress, playwright and political activist. Rame was abducted at gunpoint and raped by five individuals allegedly commissioned by high-ranking officials in Milan's Carabinieri. She was released after several hours of abuse and captivity. |
| 2 April 1973 | Wanda Walkowicz | Alphabet killer | Rochester, New York | 11 | Murdered | The second known victim of the Alphabet murders. Walkowicz disappeared while returning home from an errand; her body was discovered at the base of a hillside alongside an access road to State Route 104 in Webster the following day. She had been sexually assaulted, then strangled from behind with a ligature. |
| 16–17 June 1973 | Daniel Rouse | Ulster Defence Association | Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK | 17 | Murdered | Rouse was abducted while he was walking along Finaghy Road North near his home, on 16 June, he was taken to a waste ground and shot twice in the head. Rouse was murdered in retaliation for the 1973 Coleraine bombings |
| 16–17 June 1973 | Joseph Kelly | Ulster Defence Association | Larne, Northern Ireland, UK | 25 | Murdered | Kelly, a former UDR soldier and alleged IRA member, who was abducted on 17 June, while on his way to Larne, he was then shot twice in the head and once in the back and his body dumped near the Corr's Corner Hotel. Kelly was murdered in an attempt to cover up the assassination of Michael Wilson, the brother-in-law of Tommy Herron. |
| 10 July 1973 | John Paul Getty III | 'Ndrangheta | Rome, Italy | 18 | Released | Paul Getty was kidnapped by members of 'Ndrangheta, an Italian crime syndicate, who demanded a ransom from his grandfather J. Paul Getty, one of the richest men in the world. The kidnappers cut off his ear and sent it to the newspapers as a threat. Paul was released in December after the ransom was paid. |
| 26 July 1973 | Janice Pockett | Unknown | Tolland, Connecticut, US | 7 | Unknown | Janice asked her mother if she could ride off by herself. It was the first time she had been allowed to go anywhere by herself. She never returned. Her bike was found less than a mile away from her home, abandoned on a dirt road close to the woods. There were hundreds of names of possible suspects, but no corroborating evidence to substantiate them as suspects. The case has been re-opened many times and is still an open case as of 2018. The Discovery Network featured her story in Dark Minds and a Facebook page is dedicated to her being missing. |
| 8 August 1973 | Kim Dae-jung | Members of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) | Tokyo, Japan | 49 | Released | After attending a meeting with the leader of the Democratic Unification Party in the Grand Hotel Palace in Tokyo, the future president was abducted by a group of unidentified men as he walked out of the room. He was taken into another room where he was drugged unconscious. The kidnappers intended to throw Kim into the sea and drown him while boarding a boat from Osaka to Seoul, but this was abandoned when the Japanese Navy made pursuit of the kidnappers' boat. Kim was released back in Seoul five days after the kidnapping. |
| October 1973 | Bobi Sourander | Chilean Armed Forces | Santiago, Chile | 45 | Released | Finnish-Swedish journalist for Dagens Nyheter who was imprisoned for two weeks after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. He was later released without incident, but subsequently expelled from the country. |
| 20 October 1973 | Richard and Quita Hague | Death Angels | San Francisco, California, US | 30 (Richard), 28 (Quita) | Murdered (Quita), survived (Richard) | A white couple who were abducted by a group of black serial killers known as the "Death Angels". Quita was later found decapitated near a railroad track. Richard was found nearby, bound and covered in knife wounds but alive. |
| 26 November 1973 | Michelle Maenza | Alphabet killer | Rochester, New York | 11 | Murdered | The final known victim of the Alphabet murders. Maenza disappeared while walking across a shopping plaza close to her school to retrieve a purse her mother had left inside a store within the plaza earlier that day. Her strangled body was found in a ditch in Macedon two days later. |
| 27 December 1973 | Thomas Niedermayer | Provisional IRA | Belfast, Northern Ireland | 45 | Murdered | Niedermayer was a German national and the manager of a Grundig factory in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He died shortly after being abducted by the IRA from his home in Belfast. His remains were eventually found, buried in an embankment near Belfast, on 11 March 1980. |
| 1974 | Suzanne Marie Sevakis | Franklin Delano Floyd | North Carolina, US | 5 | Raised by abductor, later killed | Suzanne Sevakis, going by the name of Tonya Hughes, was killed in an apparent hit-and-run in 1990. It was discovered following her death that her husband, who was much older, actually raised Hughes from an early age. DNA testing determined they were not biological relatives. Floyd gave inconsistent stories regarding how she came to be in his custody. Floyd is the prime suspect in Hughes's death. Sevakis' true identity remained a mystery until 2014, when DNA testing confirmed that Sharon Marshall was Suzanne Marie Sevakis. Floyd was married to Sevakis' mother when she was sentenced to 30 days in jail for a minor crime. He was left to care for her four children while she was incarcerated. After she was released, she found that the children and Floyd had disappeared. She found two children in the care of the local social services where he left them, but Suzanne and her younger brother were never found and the boy's fate remained unknown until 2019, when a man came forward believing he was the boy, which was confirmed by DNA testing in 2020. The mother attempted to file kidnapping charges but the local police declined, telling her that the child's stepfather had parental rights over the children. |
| 1974 | Argentino del Valle Larrabure | People's Revolutionary Army | Villa María, Argentina | 43 | Murdered | Argentine military officer who was captured by People's Revolutionary Army members during an assault. He was held in detention for 372 days, until he died in unclear circumstances. |
| 16 January 1974 | Barbara, Leanne and Vicki McCulkin | Garry Dubois, Vincent O'Dempsey | Brisbane, Australia | 34 (Barbara), 11 (Leanne), 13 (Vicki) | Murdered | Barbara McCulkin and her two daughters were abducted by criminals Dubois and O'Dempsey, who wanted to stop her from talking to police about their role in nightclub bombings. Their bodies were never found, but O'Dempsey later boasted of having raped and strangled them with help from Dubois. The two were eventually found guilty of the murders in 2017. |
| 4 February 1974 | Patty Hearst | Symbionese Liberation Army | Berkeley, California, US | 19 | Stayed with abductors until arrested | Hearst, an heiress to the Hearst Corporation mass media fortune, was kidnapped from her apartment by a left-wing guerilla group. She announced her allegiance to the group in April 1974, and on 15 April 1974 took part in a bank robbery. She is thought to have been a victim of Stockholm syndrome. Captured by the FBI in September 1975, Hearst was sentenced to 35 years in prison for bank robbery. She served 22 months and was released from prison on 1 February 1979. President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon on 20 January 2001. |
| 20 February 1974 | J. Reginald Murphy | William A. H. Williams | Atlanta, Georgia, US | 41 | Released | American publisher and business executive who was kidnapped and held for $700,000 ransom. After it was paid two days later, Murphy was released and his kidnapper was arrested, but a motive for the crime was never established. |
| 12 April 1974 | Richard and Victoria Debois | Robert Hohenberger | Los Banos, California, US | 20 (Richard), 19 (Victoria) | Escaped | A young married couple kidnapped and forced by prison escapee Robert Hohenberger to drive to Modesto, then Los Banos, California. While refueling their car at a gas station alongside the I-5, Debois and his wife managed to flee and report their kidnapping to authorities. |
| 2 June 1974 | Marie-Dolorès Rambla | Christian Ranucci | Marseille, France | 8 | Murdered | Ranucci lured Marie-Dolorès Rambla into his car on the pretext of helping him find his dog; his motive is unclear, as there is no evidence he tried to sexually assault her. After driving around for an hour, Ranucci crashed the car and, panicking, drove Rambla to an isolated rural area, dragged her into the underbrush and stabbed her to death. |
| 6 June 1974 | Annette Friedland | Frank Wyatt | Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, US | 44 | Released | Wife of American super market executive who was kidnapped and held for $60,000 ransom. The ransom was paid the day of and Friedland was released. |
| 3 July 1974 | Elisabeth Bousquet | Hamida Djandoubi | Marseille, France | 21 | Murdered | Bousquet was kidnapped by sex trafficker Hamida Djandoubi after informing on him to the police and was tortured in front of two of Djandoubi's other victims in order to frighten them into silence before being strangled. Djandoubi was beheaded for this crime, the last execution by beheading in Europe. |
| 23 July 1974 | Ann Ogilby | Albert Graham, Elizabeth Young, Kathleen Whitla, Josephine Brown, Elizabeth Douglas and Lily Douglas | Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK | 32 | Murdered | Ann was single mother of four who was abducted from a friends house, along with her daughter Sharlene, by members of the Ulster Defence Association and brought the two to a UDA club in Sandy Row, because Ann was having an affair with Young's husband William and for defamatory comments towards Young. The next day they sentenced her to a "rompering" (which is UDA slang for torture). Ann was beaten to death by two teenage girls: Henrietta Crowan and Christine Smith. Sharlene was taken to the shops by Graham, and after Ann's torture Graham took Sharlene to a YWCA hostel and left her at the front door. |
| 23 July 1974 | Sharlene Ogilby | Albert Graham, Elizabeth Young, Kathleen Whitla, Josephine Brown, Elizabeth Douglas and Lily Douglas | Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK | 6 | Released | Ann was single mother of four who was abducted from a friends house, along with her daughter Sharlene, by members of the Ulster Defence Association and brought the two to a UDA club in Sandy Row, because Ann was having an affair with Young's husband William and for defamatory comments towards Young. The next day they sentenced her to a "rompering" (which is UDA slang for torture). Ann was beaten to death by two teenage girls: Henrietta Crowan and Christine Smith. Sharlene was taken to the shops by Graham, and after Ann's torture Graham took Sharlene to a YWCA hostel and left her at the front door. |
| 24 July 1974 | Patrick Kelly | Wesley Somerville and Oliver Gibson (suspected) | Trillick, Northern Ireland, UK | 33 | Murdered | Patsy Kelly, a nationalist councilor for County Omagh, who was abducted after he left a pub that he was speaking at, he was shot several times and his body dumped in Lough Erne. Kelly's body was discovered three weeks later on 10 August by local fishermen. |
| 1 October 1974 | Daria Wightman | Warren Forrest | Portland, Oregon, US | 20 | Survived | Abducted, assaulted and shot multiple times with a dart gun by accused serial killer Warren Forrest. Wightman survived her injuries, and was driven to a nearby hospital by members of the public, where she was treated for her injuries. |
| 17 October 1974 | Jan Broberg | Robert Berchtold | Pocatello, Idaho, US | 12 | Rescued | Raped, brainwashed. Later kidnapped again. |
| 8 November 1974 | Carol DaRonch | Ted Bundy | Murray, Utah, U.S. | 18 | Survived attempted kidnapping | DaRonch escaped from Bundy's car and survived after he attempted to kidnap her. |
| 12 November 1974 | Jack Teich | Richard Warren Williams | Kings Point, New York, US | 34 | Released | Teich was kidnapped in his driveway in the evening after work. His abductors demanded and received a $750,000 ransom before the police lost sight of the retrieval. Years later, two men were tried for the crime; however, only one was convicted and served time. |
| 18 November 1974 | Eduardo Romualdez | Napoleon Lechoco | Washington, D.C., U.S. | 65 | Released | Filipino Ambassador to the United States who was held hostage at the Philippine Embassy by a gunman who demanded that his son be issued an exit visa and allowed to leave the country. After a 10-hour standoff, Romualdez was released without harm following negotiations with his abductor. |
| 13 December 1974 | Betty Van Patter | Unknown | San Francisco, U.S. | 45 | Murdered | Betty Van Patter was a white woman who worked as a bookkeeper for the Black Panther Party. She went missing in 1974 after allegedly threatening to expose financial improprieties within the party and was later found raped and beaten to death in the San Francisco Bay. No-one was ever charged with the crime, but it was widely believed that the Black Panther leadership ordered Van Patter's death. |
| 14 January 1975 | Lesley Whittle | Donald Neilson | Highley, England | 17 | Murdered | Whittle was an heiress kidnapped from her home by Neilson, also known as the "Black Panther". Her body was found on 7 March 1975, hanging from a wire in a drain shaft in Bathpool Park, Staffordshire. Neilson was captured and convicted, and died in December 2011 while serving life in prison. |
| 27 February 1975 | Peter Lorenz | 2 June Movement | West Berlin, West Germany | 52 | Released | Lorenz, German conservative politician and candidate for the mayor of West Berlin, was kidnapped only days before the elections. He was released unharmed after a week in exchange for five imprisoned leftist extremists, who were flown out to South Yemen. He won the majority of the votes while in captivity. |
| 25 March 1975 | Sheila and Katherine Lyon | Lloyd Lee Welch Jr. | Wheaton, Maryland, US | 12 (Sheila) and 10 (Katherine) | Murdered | The Lyon sisters were at Wheaton Plaza mall, not far from their home, when they disappeared without a trace. Their brother and other people they knew had seen them eating at a restaurant in the mall, and one boy said he saw them speaking to an unknown man and talking into a recorder. Another man who would later be convicted of rape was seen paying attention to the sisters. They were never found. In 2013, a cold case team noticed a striking resemblance between a sketch in the case file and a mug shot of Welch from the late 1970s. In 2015, Welch was charged, and in September 2017 he was sentenced to 48 years in prison. |
| 21 September 1975 | Candace Lynn Starr | Michael Singh | Gallup, New Mexico | 16 | Murdered | Starr was abducted from her Los Angeles home by her former partner, Michael Singh on 21 September 1975; she was held hostage for approximately three days before she was murdered at a convenience store in New Mexico. Starr remained unidentified until 2009, when her remains were identified via DNA analysis. |
| 5 October 1975 | Lesley Molseed | Ronald Castree | Rochdale, Manchester, United Kingdom | 11 | Murdered | Lesley Molseed was abducted, raped and stabbed to death on 5 October 1975 by Ronald Castree. An intellectually disabled man named Stefan Kiszko was convicted after being coerced into confessing by the police, but his conviction was eventually overturned. Castree was identified through DNA evidence in 2006, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| 11 December 1975 | Anna Mae Aquash | Arlo Looking Cloud, John Graham, Theda Nelson Clarke | Denver, Colorado, U.S. | 30 | Murdered | Aquash, a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), was abducted by fellow AIM members who had allegedly been ordered to kill her on suspicion she was a government informant. She was brought to an apartment in Rapid City, South Dakota, where she was raped by one of the kidnappers before being taken to the Rosebud Indian Reservation the following day. The kidnappers were then ordered to kill Aquash, who was driven to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and shot in the back of the head. |
| 13 February 1976 | Victoria Montenegro | Argentine Armed Forces | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 13 days | Rescued | Daughter of People's Revolutionary Army dissidents who was kidnapped and raised by an army colonel, while her parents were killed. A DNA test established her true identity in 2000, and the colonel was imprisoned. Since then, Montenegro has entered politics and become vice-president of the Kolina party. |
| 16 June 1976 | Francis E. Meloy Jr., Robert O. Waring, Zoheir Moghrabi | Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) | Green Line, Lebanon | 59 (Meloy), 56 (Waring), unknown (Moghrabi) | Murdered | Meloy, the incoming U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Waring, his economic counselor, and their chauffeur, Zoheir Moghrabi, were taken hostage by gunmen working for the PFLP, a Palestinian militant group, after crossing the so-called "Green Line". The three of them were found shot to death later that day. |
| 15 July 1976 | Frank Edward "Ed" Ray and 26 schoolchildren | Frederick Newhall Woods IV, James and Richard Schoenfeld | Chowchilla, California | 55 (Ray), 5-14 (all children) | Escaped | Ray was driving the schoolchildren home from a summer class trip to the Chowchilla fairgrounds swimming pool in a schoolbus when a van blocked the road ahead of the bus. The three occupants of the van proceeded to abduct the entire bus and abandoning it in the Berenda Slough, a shallow branch of the Chowchilla River, where a second van was waiting. Ray and the children were forced into the vans and were taken to a quarry in Livermore, California, where they were led into a buried truck. Ray and all of the children managed to force their way out sixteen hours after being trapped in the truck. All kidnappers were arrested within two weeks after the kidnapping. |
| 10 August 1976 | Jan Broberg | Robert Berchtold | Pocatello, Idaho, US | 14 | Rescued | |
| 4 November 1976 | Alejandro Iaccarino | Jorge Rómulo Ferranti, Bruno Trevisán | Buenos Aires Province, Argentina | 30 | Released | Argentine businessman Alejandro Iaccarino was abducted along with his older brother and parents in the Buenos Aires Province and Santiago del Estero regions of Argentina on 4 November 1976. Iaccarino and his family were kidnapped by the military dictatorship of Argentina so their assets could be seized. While their parents were released after 17 days, Iaccarino and his brother remained imprisoned until 4 September 1978. Jorge Rómulo Ferranti and Bruno Trevisán were both charged in connection with the abductions. |
| 14 December 1976 | Richard Oetker | Dieter Zlof | Germany | 28 | Released | Businessman and billionaire heir who was kidnapped by a Slovene-born mechanic, who kept him shackled inside a crate and gave him electrical shocks when he resisted. While Oetker was rescued 47 hours later and Zlof sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, the incident has left him with permanent injuries to his lung. |
| 23 January 1977 – March 1978 | Christine Marlot, Jacqueline Weiss, Chantal Gras, Madeleine Dejust, Martine Renault, Françoise Lemoine, Bernadette Lemoine | Émile Louis | Yonne, Burgundy, France | | Murdered | Seven young women who disappeared in the Yonne department between January 1977 and March 1978. Only two of their bodies were ever recovered, but prime suspect Émile Louis was convicted of all seven murders in 2004. |
| 8 February 1977 | Dick Hall | Tony Kiritsis | Indianapolis, Indiana, US | | Released | Kiritsis broke into the office of his mortgage broker Dick Hall, who he was convinced was plotting to seize his property, and wired his shotgun to the back of Hall's head in such a way that the gun would go off and kill Hall if the police shot or restrained Kiritsis. Kiritsis marched Hall back to his apartment and held him hostage for 63 hours until Hall's lawyer was able to trick him into releasing Hall unharmed. Kiritsis was found not guilty by reason of insanity. |
| 19 May 1977 | Colleen Stan | Cameron Hooker | Red Bluff, California, US | 20 | Escaped | Stan was kidnapped by Hooker while hitchhiking. She was tortured and sexually abused over seven years until Hooker's wife, Janice, helped her escape in 1984. |
| 12 June 1977 | Oklahoma Girl Scout murders | Unknown | Mayes County, Oklahoma, US | 8–10 | Murdered | The Oklahoma Girl Scout murders is an unresolved crime that occurred at Camp Scott. The victims were three Girl Scouts, who were raped and murdered and their bodies left in the woods near their tent at summer camp. The case was classified as "solved" when Gene Leroy Hart, a local jail escapee with a history of violence, was arrested, and stood trial for the crime; he was acquitted. Thirty years later authorities conducted new DNA testing, but the results proved inconclusive, as the samples were too old. |
| 5 September 1977 | Hanns Martin Schleyer | Brigitte Mohnhaupt and the Red Army Faction | Cologne, Germany | 62 | Murdered | Schleyer, a German manager, was kidnapped by the extreme-left militant organisation Red Army Faction, carried out by Mohnhaupt. He was hidden in a high-rise in Erftstadt. After the imprisoned RAF members were found dead in their prison cells in Stammheim Prison, he was killed on 18 October 1977. His body was found in a car in Mulhouse. |
| 13 October 1977 | Gabriele von Lutzau, Horst-Gregorio Canellas | PFLP militants | Mogadishu, Somalia | 23 (Lutzau), 56 (Canellas) | Rescued | Both were aboard the Lufthansa Flight 181 when it was hijacked by four PFLP extremists, who travelled across several countries before landing in Mogadishu, Somalia. They were all rescued in a joint German-Somali rescue operation. |
| 15 November 1977 | Megumi Yokota | North Korean government | Niigata Prefecture, North Korea | 13 | Unknown | Megumi Yokota is a Japanese woman who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977, when she was a thirteen-year-old junior high school student. She was one of at least 17 Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The North Korean government has admitted to kidnapping Yokota, but has said that she died in captivity. Yokota's parents and others in Japan have publicly expressed the belief that Yokota is still alive in North Korea and have waged a public campaign seeking her return to Japan. |
| 1978 – March 13, 1986 | Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok | North Korean government | Hong Kong | 51 or 52 (Shin), 51 (Choi) | Escaped | South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee was kidnapped in January 1978, causing her former husband, filmmaker Shin Sang-ok, to search for her and ultimately get kidnapped in July of that year. Kim Jong Il ordered his agents to kidnap them and bring them to North Korea to work in its film industry. Shin directed seven films for Kim, including Pulgasari (1985). The couple escaped in 1986. |
| 1978 | Doina Bumbea | North Korean government | Pyongyang, North Korea (tricked into going to the city) | 28 | Retained until death | Possibly kidnapped to provide wives to American defectors in North Korea to avoid them from marrying Korean women and having ethnically mixed Korean children. Bumbea was forcibly married to James Joseph Dresnok and died in Pyongyang in January 1997 from lung cancer. |
| 16 March 1978 | Aldo Moro | Red Brigades | Rome, Italy | 61 | Murdered | Moro, former Italian Prime Minister, was captured by a Marxist-Leninist urban guerilla organization and killed almost two months later. |
| 20 March 1978 | Denise McGregor | Unknown | Wallan, Australia | 12 | Murdered | Denise McGregor was a 12-year-old girl who was reported missing on 20 March 1978, after last being seen purchasing goods at a store. Her body was found the next day; she had been abducted, strangled, and sexually assaulted. |
| 25 April 1978 | Lee Kim Lai | Ong Chin Hock, Yeo Ching Boon and Ong Hwee Kuan | Mount Vernon, Singapore | 18 | Murdered | Kim Lai was a police officer who was kidnapped from a sentry post and killed for his gun. |
| 25 April 1978 | Thomas King | Darrell Crook and Gregory Fischer | Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada | 40 | Murdered | A constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. King was ambushed, overpowered, beaten, and ultimately shot to death by local high school students Darrell Crook and Gregory Fischer following a routine traffic stop. His body was then mutilated and discarded in the South Saskatchewan River. |
| 20 August 1978 | Clinton Avenue Five | Philander Hampton, Lee Evans (alleged) | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. | 16-17 | Unknown (presumed murdered) | The Clinton Avenue Five were five teenagers - Melvin Pittman, Ernest Taylor, Alvin Turner, Randy Johnson, and Michael McDowell - who disappeared on the night of 20 August 1978, having last been seen walking up Clinton Avenue together. 30 years after the disappearance, Philander Hampton confessed that he and Lee Evans had abducted and murdered the five boys as revenge for their having stolen cannabis from Evans; however, there was little evidence corroborating Hampton's claims. Hampton ultimately pled guilty to the crime, but Evans was acquitted and later sued the Newark police department for malicious prosecution. |
| 29 September 1978 | Mary Vincent | Lawrence Singleton | Berkeley, California | 15 | Survived | Hitchhiker Mary Vincent was picked up by Lawrence Singleton, who drove her into the woods, raped her, cut her arms off and left her for dead. She survived and later identified Singleton as her abductor. |
| 3 October 1978 | Rosemary Jackson | Buddy Justus | Georgia, United States | 32 | Murdered | Jackson and Hawkins were both abducted and murdered by spree killer Buddy Justus, who was convicted and executed for the murders of Jackson, Hawkins and one more woman in 1990. |
| 6 October 1978 | Stephanie Hawkins | Buddy Justus | Florida, United States | 21 | Murdered | Jackson and Hawkins were both abducted and murdered by spree killer Buddy Justus, who was convicted and executed for the murders of Jackson, Hawkins and one more woman in 1990. |
| 14 February 1979 | Kenneth Kraus | Iranian militants | Tehran, Iran | 22 | Released | A United States Marine wounded and taken hostange by Iranian militants during the February 14, 1979 attack upon the United States Embassy in Tehran. Kraus was tortured for sensitive information before being sentenced to death. After one week of captivity, President Jimmy Carter and Ambassador William Sullivan secured his release. |
| 1979–1980 (exact date unknown) | Eklutna Annie | Robert Hansen | Anchorage, Alaska, US | Between 16 and 25 | Murdered | An unidentified female was kidnapped by a serial killer. She was described by her murderer as either a prostitute or a topless dancer who attempted to escape from a vehicle after she was abducted. The victim was then stabbed in the back and buried in Eklutna, Alaska. Her body was discovered on 21 July 1980, between a month and a year after her death. |
| 25 May 1979 | Etan Patz | Pedro Hernandez | New York City, US | 6 | Murdered | Etan walked to the school bus stop by himself, but did not arrive at school. The search for him brought attention to child abduction in the United States, and he was the first missing person to be pictured on a milk carton. The anniversary of his disappearance is International Missing Children's Day. Pedro Hernandez was charged with Etan's murder, but his 2015 trial ended in a hung jury. His retrial ended in guilty convictions for murder and kidnapping, with a life sentence and possibility of parole after 25 years. |
| 22 June 1979 | Susan, Karen, and Michael Reinert | Bill Bradfield,Jay C. Smith (alleged) | Ardmore, Pennsylvania | | Murdered | Susan Reinert and her children Karen and Michael were taken after leaving home to attend a Parents without Partners meeting. Susan's car was later found in Harrisburg with her dead body stuffed in the trunk; Karen and Michael were never found, but were presumed to have been abducted and killed. Susan's fiancée, Bill Bradfield, and Jay Smith, the head teacher of the school where Susan and Bradfield both worked, were both separately convicted of conspiring to abduct and murder the Reinerts. Jay's conviction was later overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. |
| 24 June 1979 | Lucinda Lynn Schaefer | Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris | Redondo Beach, California | 16 | Murdered | The first victim of serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. Schaefer was last seen leaving a Presbyterian Church meeting in Redondo Beach. She was dragged into her abductors' vehicle and driven to the San Gabriel Mountains, where she was repeatedly raped, then strangled to death before her body was wrapped inside a plastic shower curtain and thrown over a cliff. Schaefer's body was never recovered. |
| 8 July 1979 | Andrea Joy Hall | Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris | Pacific Coast Highway, Los Angeles | 18 | Murdered | The second victim of serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. Hall was lured into her abductors' GMC Vandura van, overpowered and driven to the San Gabriel Mountains, where she was sexually assaulted by both of her assailants before an ice pick was thrust through both her ear canals into her brain. She was then strangled to death before her body was thrown over a cliff. Hall's body was never recovered. |
| 21 July 1979 – 11 May, 1981 | Atlanta child murders | Wayne Williams | Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. | | Murdered | Between July 1979 and May 1981, at least 28 black children, adolescents or young adults were abducted in the city of Atlanta. 27 were later found murdered, but one, 10-year-old Darron Glass, was never found. A common methodology of manual strangulation/asphyxiation linked at least 17 of the crimes to one perpetrator. A man named Wayne Williams is officially considered responsible for around 24 of the murders linked to the case but was only convicted of murdering two adults killed at around the same time in a similar fashion, although evidence directly linking him to some of the child murders has been found. The families of many victims have not accepted Williams' guilt, and some observers have accused the Atlanta P.D. of scapegoating Williams. |
| 19 August 1979 | Katherine Jo Allen | Walter Blair Jr. | Kansas City, Missouri, US | 21 | Murdered | Allen was a 21-year-old college student abducted at gunpoint from her apartment by Walter Blair, who had been paid $6,000 to execute her to prevent her from testifying against her alleged rapist at his upcoming trial. Her body was found twenty minutes after her abduction. She had been shot in the head and upper chest. |
| 25 August 1979 | Betty McConnell | Terry Hyatt | Asheville, North Carolina | 21 | Murdered | A victim of serial killer Terry Hyatt. McConnell disappeared en route to meet a friend at an Asheville bowling alley. She was discovered mortally wounded close to the unincorporated community of Alexander hours after her sister reported her disappearance; McConnell died shortly thereafter. |
| 3 September 1979 | Jackie Doris Gilliam | Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris | Hermosa Beach, California | 15 | Murdered | The third and fourth victims of serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. The two girls were lured into their abductors' vehicle after they were observed sitting on a bus stop bench near Hermosa Beach. They were overpowered and driven to the San Gabriel Mountains, where they were held captive for almost two days before their murders. Gilliam was struck in each ear with an ice pick, and then strangled to death; Lamp was then bludgeoned and strangled to death. |
| 3 September 1979 | Jacqueline Leah Lamp | Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris | Hermosa Beach, California | 13 | Murdered | The third and fourth victims of serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. The two girls were lured into their abductors' vehicle after they were observed sitting on a bus stop bench near Hermosa Beach. They were overpowered and driven to the San Gabriel Mountains, where they were held captive for almost two days before their murders. Gilliam was struck in each ear with an ice pick, and then strangled to death; Lamp was then bludgeoned and strangled to death. |
| 31 October 1979 | Shirley Lynette Ledford | Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris | Sunland-Tujunga, Los Angeles | 16 | Murdered | The final victim of serial killers Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. Ledford was lured into her murderers' GMC Vandura van and subjected to a two-hour ordeal of sexual abuse and torture before she was strangled to death with a wire coat hanger. Her body was discarded upon a bed of ivy within the front lawn of a Sunland property. |
| 4 November 1979 | Bruce Laingen | Iranian militants | Tehran, Iran | 57 | Released | Laingen, Morefeld, Tomseth, and Limbert were among 52 American diplomats and citizens held captive during the Iran hostage crisis. They were released after 444 days of captivity on 20 January 1981. |
| 4 November 1979 | Richard Morefield | Iranian militants | Tehran, Iran | 49 | Released | Laingen, Morefeld, Tomseth, and Limbert were among 52 American diplomats and citizens held captive during the Iran hostage crisis. They were released after 444 days of captivity on 20 January 1981. |
| 4 November 1979 | Victor L. Tomseth | Iranian militants | Tehran, Iran | 38 | Released | Laingen, Morefeld, Tomseth, and Limbert were among 52 American diplomats and citizens held captive during the Iran hostage crisis. They were released after 444 days of captivity on 20 January 1981. |
| 4 November 1979 | John W. Limbert | Iranian militants | Tehran, Iran | c. 36 | Released | Laingen, Morefeld, Tomseth, and Limbert were among 52 American diplomats and citizens held captive during the Iran hostage crisis. They were released after 444 days of captivity on 20 January 1981. |
| 5 November 1979 | Martin Allen | Unknown | London Underground | 15 | Unknown, believed murdered | 15-year-old schoolboy Martin Allen vanished after getting on a London Underground (tube) train on the southbound Picadilly line platform at King's Cross station while on his way home from school. Witnesses came forward to say that they had seen a boy matching Allen's description being held by an unknown man with his arm round him at Gloucester Road tube station (on the Piccadilly line), with both the boy and man looking scared. They both got off at the next stop at Earls Court station, when the man said to the boy: "Don't try to run". |