# List of kidnappings: 1980–1989

The following is a list of kidnappings that occurred in the 1980s, summarizing the events of each case, including instances of celebrity abductions, claimed hoaxes, suspected kidnappings, extradition abductions, and mass kidnappings.
| Date | Victim(s) | Abductor(s) | Location | Age of victim(s) | Outcome | Notes |
| 14 February 1980 | Timothy White | Kenneth Parnell | Ukiah, California, US | 5 | Rescued/escaped | White was abducted by Parnell, who had abducted Steven Stayner seven years earlier. Stayner helped White escape on 1 March 1980. |
| 28 May 1980 | Dorothy Jane Scott | Unknown | Anaheim, California, US | 32 | Murdered | She was abducted in her own car from the hospital parking lot where her friend was getting a spider bite checked out. Her bones were found on 6 August 1984, next to the bones of a dog not far from Santa Ana Canyon Road, being identified by her jewelry and dental records. She had previously received numerous phone calls alternating from infatuated to threatening from an unidentified stalker. The stalker later started calling her mother and claiming responsibility for her murder. Her case remains unsolved. |
| 13 June 1980 | Tiffany Papesh | Brandon Flagner | Maple Heights, Ohio, US | 8 | Murdered | A girl was kidnapped while shopping alone for a family member. Flagner was convicted of her murder, despite the fact that her body was never found. He eventually recanted his confession. His conviction has yet to be overturned. |
| 3 December 1980 | Patsy Gaisior | Robert Ruff, Frank Johnson | Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, US | 31 | Murdered | The body of the victim was never recovered, but two suspects were convicted. |
| 1981 | Bryon Anthony "Bizzy Bone" McCane II | Byron McCane | Columbus, Ohio, US | 5 | Rescued | McCane was kidnapped by his stepfather and was led to believe that his grandmother and mother were dead. He didn't reunite with his mother until a neighbor from the reservation in Oklahoma where he was living recognized his picture from a photo shown at the end of the 1983 movie, Adam. McCane grew up to become a rap artist. |
| 6 January 1981 | Marion Crofts | Tony Jasinskyj | Aldershot, England | 14 | Murdered | Abducted, raped and beaten to death while cycling to a clarinet lesson. Her case remained unsolved until 1999, when the perpetrator's DNA was matched to former lance corporal Tony Jasinskyj, who was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| 24 January 1981 and 6 February 1981 | Agnes Ng Siew Heok, Ghazali bin Marzuki | Adrian Lim, Catherine Tan Mui Choo, Hoe Kah Hong | Toa Payoh, Singapore | 9 (Agnes), 10 (Ghazali) | Murdered | In what became notoriously known as the Toa Payoh ritual murders, Lim and his accomplices Tan and Hoe first lured Agnes to their flat on 24 January, drugged her, then drew blood from her before suffocating her. Two weeks later, on 6 February, Ghazali was also lured in and murdered. This was an act done to distract the police from investigating an existing rape charge upon Lim. All three were found guilty after a 41-day trial and were given the death sentence on 23 May 1983, and were hanged on 25 November 1988. |
| 21 March 1981 | Michael Donald | Henry Hays, James Knowles | Mobile, Alabama, U.S. | 19 | Murdered | African-American who was abducted by two Ku Klux Klan members, Henry Hays and James Knowles, having been selected at random in revenge for the murder of a white police officer by African-American robber Josephus Anderson. The two Klansmen drove Donald out into a neighbouring county, beat him with a tree branch, slit his throat three times and hanged him from a tree. Hays was given the death penalty for the crime, making him the only Klansman to be executed for killing an African-American. |
| 11―12 April 1981 | Tina Sharp | Unidentified | Keddie, California, U.S. | 12 | Murdered | One of four victims of the unsolved Keddie Cabin murders, when four inhabitants of cabin No. 28 in the resort town of Keddie were murdered on the night of April 11―12, 1981. Tina Sharp, unlike the other three victims, was missing from the scene when the crime was discovered; her remains were later found near Feather Falls in 1984. |
| 20 May 1981 | Lee Standifer | David Earl Miller | Knoxville, Tennessee, US | 23 | Murdered | Lee Standifer was on a date with her killer when she was attacked and murdered inside a house of an ordained minister in Tennessee, and her body was found hanged a day later in the backyard. The perpetrator, David Earl Miller, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death in 1984, and he was executed by the electric chair on December 6, 2018. |
| 27 July 1981 | Adam Walsh | Ottis Toole | Hollywood, Florida, US | 6 | Murdered | Walsh was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall and was later found murdered. His father, John Walsh, later became the host of America's Most Wanted. |
| 12 August 1981 | Jennifer Cardy | Robert Black | Ballinderry, County Antrim, Northern Ireland | 9 | Murdered | The first victim proven to have been murdered by Robert Black, a paedophilic serial killer convicted of four murders. She was kidnapped by Black while cycling to a friend's house and was found dead hours later, having been sexually abused and strangled. |
| 16 August 1981 | Charles Armstrong | Provisional Irish Republican Army | Dundalk, Ireland | 55 | Murdered | Armstrong was an Irish laborer from Crossmaglen who was abducted and killed by the Provisional IRA, and his body dumped in a bog in County Monaghan. |
| September 1981 | Sidney Jaffe | Timm Johnsen and Daniel Kear | Toronto, Canada | 56 | Released | American-Canadian businessman who was kidnapped by two bounty hunters and returned to Florida, where he was tried in absentia for failing to appear for land sales fraud. |
| 15 September 1981 | Ursula Herrmann | Werner Mazurek (but see below) | Schondorf, West Germany | 10 | Died | Ursula Herrmann, a 10-year-old schoolgirl, was abducted on her way home from a gym class. Her family received a ransom demand for 2 million Deutsche Marks, but the kidnapper or kidnappers cut off all communications before arrangements were made for delivering the money. Several days later, Ursula was found dead in a box buried in a nearby forest. The box had been stocked with enough food and drink to last a number of days but it had inadequate ventilation, and the child is believed to have died in a matter of hours; some evidence suggests she may have been dead before being locked in. Despite an extensive investigation, no culprit was apprehended at the time. In 2007, police and prosecutors renewed their investigation into Werner Mazurek, who had been a suspect at the time and had been directly implicated by an alleged accomplice, who had, however, quickly retracted his confession and witness statement and had since died. Based on this statement and circumstantial evidence, Mazurek was convicted in 2010 of kidnapping resulting in death and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mazurek continues to protest his innocence, and the victim's family have not accepted Mazurek's guilt. The family have attempted to force a new inquiry, but the case is officially closed. Since the crime was not deemed to have been a murder, it would by now have been prescribed. |
| 29 October 1981 | Tina Harmon | Robert Anthony Buell | Lodi, Ohio, US | 12 | Murdered | Harmon was abducted while away from her home in Creston, Ohio. She was found raped and strangled five days later. Her murder remained unsolved until 2011, when DNA from the scene was matched to Robert Buell. It is unknown if Buell was the only person involved in her murder. |
| 3 November 1981 | Marcy Renee Conrad | Anthony Jacques Broussard | Milpitas, California, U.S. | 14 | Murdered | High school student who was abducted, raped and killed by another student, who then dumped her body in a ravine, but brought several students to view the body. Two days later, he was denounced and arrested. |
| 17 December 1981 | James Lee Dozier | Red Brigades | Verona, Italy | 50 | Rescued | Dozier was a US general working for NATO in Italy. He and his wife were kidnapped by a Marxist terrorist group and freed by a NOCS commando on 28 January 1982. |
| 18 December 1981 | Nina von Gallwitz | Unknown | Cologne, Germany | 8 | Released | Von Gallwitz was kidnapped on her way to school. Her parents paid a ransom of 1.5 million German marks and she was freed on 15 May 1982 at a rest area called Ohligser Heide, after 149 days. |
| 1982 | Chila Silvernails | Joseph Kondro | Longview | 8 | Murdered | Chila Silvernails disappeared in 1982 from Kalama and was found dead the next day after being killed. |
| 20 April 1982 | Peter Pocklington | Mirko Petrović | Edmonton, Canada | 40 | Rescued | Canadian entrepreneur who was taken hostage, along with his wife, maid and babysitter, by a Yugoslav immigrant who had planned to kidnap Pocklington's wife. After she escaped the others released, Petrović attempted to extort Pocklington's associates for a ransom, but was prevented from doing so after police went into the house and opened fire, wounding both him and Pocklington. Both men recovered, and Petrović was later deported. |
| 2 May 1982 | John E. Irving | Unknown | New Brunswick | 50–51 | Released | Canadian businessman who was kidnapped by a gunman and held hostage for ten hours before being rescued unharmed. |
| 25 May 1982 | Susan Singh | Michael Singh | Kansas City, Missouri, US | 34 | Murdered | Abducted from her home and murdered by her husband, Michael Singh. Susan was bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. Her husband was observed attempting to bury her body in a shallow grave and apprehended following a short chase. |
| 17 July 1982 | Krista Harrison | Robert Anthony Buell | Marshallville, Ohio, U.S. | 11 | Murdered | The victim was abducted by van at a park near her home. She was found six days later. Buell was convicted in 1984. |
| 30 July 1982 | Susan Maxwell | Robert Black | Coldstream, Scotland | 11 | Murdered | The second confirmed victim of paedophilic serial killer Robert Black. She was abducted while walking home from playing tennis and was found dead in a copse by the roadside on 12 August. |
| 22 August 1982 | Richard "Ricky" Stetson | John Joubert | Portland, Maine, USA | 11 | Murdered | Stetson had gone jogging on the 3.5 mile long Back Cove Trail in Portland, Maine. When he had not returned by dark, his parents called the police. The next day, a motorist discovered the boy's body on the side of US I-295. |
| 25 September 1982 | Lisa Ann Millican | Alvin and Judith Neelley | Rome, Georgia, U.S. | 13 | Murdered | The couple abducted Millican outside a gaming arcade in the Riverbend Mall and held her captive for three days, during which time both Neelleys sexually assaulted her multiple times. On 28 September, Judith Neelley poisoned her with an injection of Drano, before shooting her and throwing her over a cliff when that failed to kill her. |
| 4 October 1982 | Janice Chatman and John Hancock | Alvin and Judith Neelley | Rome, Georgia, U.S. | 23 & 26 | Murdered/survived | A young engaged couple from Rome. Both were abducted by Judith Neelley. Hancock was shot and left for dead in woodland, whereas Chatman was sexually assaulted and murdered by both Judith and her husband. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| 1983 | Enrique Mansilla | Unknown | Liberia | 25 | Released | Argentine former racing driver and later diamond hunter who was kidnapped and held captive in Liberia, but later released without incident. |
| 4 January 1983 | Louise Bell | Dieter Pfennig | Hackham, South Australia | 10 | Murdered | Louise Bell was abducted from her home in the early morning on 4 January 1983. Her body has not been found, but Raymond Geesing was convicted of her murder in 1984 and served 17 months in prison before being exonerated. 33 years later, Dieter Pfennig, who had previously been convicted of murdering a child, was convicted of Louise Bell's murder. |
| 11 January 1983 | Bobby Hester | Black Jesus cult | Memphis, Tennessee | 34 | Murdered | Police officer who was taken captive by the so-called "Black Jesus" sect while investigating a theft in the vicinity of the sect's headquarters. Hester's kidnapping led to a standoff between police and the cult which lasted until the house was raided on 13 January, at which point Hester's dead body was found. He had been beaten and stabbed to death by members of the sect several hours earlier. |
| c. 23 February 1983 | St. Louis Jane Doe | Unknown | St. Louis, Missouri, US | Between 8 and 11 | Murdered | The decapitated body of a girl was found on 28 February 1983. She had been bound, raped and strangled. Her murder remains unsolved and her body has never been identified. |
| 25 February 1983 | Jeanine Nicarico | Brian Dugan | Naperville, Illinois, U.S. | 10 | Murdered | Nicarico was abducted from her home by an unknown intruder or intruders. Her body was found two days later. Three individuals—Rolando Cruz, Alejandro Hernandez and Stephen Buckley—were later arrested for her murder. Two of these individuals were later convicted of Nicarico's murder, although their convictions were overturned in 1995. Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley filed a civil suit for wrongful prosecution against DuPage County; they were awarded a $3.5 million civil settlement on 26 September 2000. Serial killer Brian Dugan later pleaded guilty to murdering Nicarico. |
| May–July 1983 | Newton County John Does | Larry Eyler | Lake Village, Indiana, US | Between 15 and 23 | Murdered | Two teenagers/young men murdered by a serial killer in the early 1980s. One of these individuals has been identified as 19-year-old John Brandenburg. The second individual was described by Eyler as being in "his late teens or early twenties". He specifically stated this decedent had been murdered in July 1983. |
| 5 June 1983 | Richard Kelvin | Bevan Spencer von Einem | Adelaide, Australia | 15 | Murdered | Kelvin, the son of broadcaster Rob Kelvin, was dragged into a car a short distance from his home in North Adelaide. His body was found near Kersbrook in July. It appeared that he had been kept alive and sexually abused for around five weeks after his abduction before dying from blood loss resulting from having been sodomized with a large blunt instrument. A man named Bevan von Einem was convicted of the crime, but police believe he did not act alone and have linked Kelvin's death to the so-called "Family Murders", a series of similar crimes allegedly committed by a child abuse ring known as "The Family" of which von Einem is thought to be a member. |
| 16 June 1983 | Adella Marie Simmons | John Marek and Raymond Dewayne Wigley | Broward County, Florida, U.S. | 45 | Murdered | A 45-year-old mother of two daughters abducted, sexually assaulted and strangled. Both perpetrators were sentenced to death for her murder. Marek was executed via lethal injection for her murder on 19 August 2009; Wigley was killed in prison in 2000. |
| 6 July 1983 | Tammy Lynn Leppert | Unknown | Rockledge, Florida, US | 18 | Unknown | Leppert was a former child actress and model who disappeared in unknown circumstances. |
| 8 July 1983 | Caroline Hogg | Robert Black | Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland | 5 | Murdered | The third confirmed victim of paedophilic serial killer Robert Black. She was abducted while playing outside her home. She was found dead in a ditch ten days later. |
| 24 August 1983 | Guillermo Patricio Kelly | Aníbal Gordon | Argentina | 62 | Released | Leader of the Nationalist Liberation Alliance from 1953 and 1955, noted for guiding the group into dropping its antisemitic practises. After being exiled from the country by the Perón government, he returned in 1983, only to be kidnapped and released a few hours later. Aníbal Gordon, a suspected member of a right-wing death squad, would later be convicted of this crime, among several others. |
| 18 September 1983 | Danny Joe Eberle | John Joubert | Bellevue, Nebraska, USA | 13 | Murdered | Eberle disappeared while delivering the Omaha World-Herald newspaper. He had delivered only three of the 70 newspapers on his route. His bicycle was discovered along with the rest of the newspapers at the fourth address of his route. There appeared to be no sign of a struggle. After a three-day search, Eberle's body was discovered in a patch of high grass alongside a gravel road. |
| 20 October 1983 | Colette Aram | Paul Hutchinson | Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom | 16 | Murdered | A trainee hairdresser abducted, raped and strangled as she walked to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. Her murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch. Aram's murderer, Paul Hutchinson, was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. |
| 23 November 1983 | Don Tidey | Brendan McFarlane | Dublin, Ireland | 48 | Escaped | Tidey the managing director for the Quinnsworth supermarket chain, was abducted by PIRA volunteer, Brendan McFarlane at a bogus checkpoint near Dublin, while he was taking his daughter to school. McFarlane along with three other men sent the Associated British Foods a photo of Tidey and then called them, demanding IR£5m for Tidey's release. The Garda Síochána and Irish Army searched for Tidey for 23 days and on 16 December, Tidey was located at Derreda Wood just outside of Ballinamore, after a PIRA volunteer Freddie Scappaticci allegedly helped to locate Tidey. In what was called “Operation Santa Claus” the rescue team engaged Tidey's captors and a shootout ensued, resulting the deaths of Garda trainee recruit Gary Sheehan and Irish Army private Patrick Kelly, and Tidey escaping as he rolled down a hill and into the rescue team. All four captors were able to escape, but McFarlane was arrested on 16 January 1986 in the Netherlands. |
| 13 December 1983 | Christopher Walden | John Joubert | Papillion, Nebraska, USA | 12 | Murdered | Walden disappeared while walking to school. Walden's snow covered body was found two days later 5 miles (8 km) from town by 2 hunters. He had his throat cut so deeply he was nearly decapitated. |
| 6 February 1984 | Ravindra Mhatre | Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front | Birmingham, U.K. | 47–48 | Murdered | Indian consular official who was kidnapped by Kashmiri militants in an attempt to secure the release from prison of Maqbool Bhat. His captors murdered him after their demands were not met, leaving his body 20 miles outside city limits. |
| 16 March 1984 | Tracy Marie Neef | Unknown | Thornton, Colorado, US | 7 | Murdered | After being dropped off to Bertha Heid Elementary School by her mother, Tracy Neef was kidnapped by an unknown abductor between the school gate and front door. She was molested and then strangled or suffocated, and was found at the Barker Reservoir later the same day with her backpack and school supplies nearby; her case remains unsolved. James Benish, a retired police officer, affirmed that Neef's case may have been linked to two other unsolved murders, those of JonBenet Ramsey, also in Colorado, and of Aleisea "Lacey" Woolsey Ruff in Hawaii. He took note of common threads, that all 3 victims were young preteen girls, all had been sexually assaulted and murdered in similar fashion, and that there were similarities in the manner and circumstances of the documented or apparent abduction. Neef's unsolved murder and Benish's suggestions of a possible serial killer, and potential connection with the other cases, were detailed in the A&E Networks true crime program "Hunting JonBenét's Killer: The Untold Story". |
| 18 March 1984 | Katsuhisa Ezaki | The Monster with 21 Faces | Nishinomiya, Japan | 42 | Escaped | Katsuhisa, the president of Japanese confectionery company Ezaki Glico, was abducted from his home by two armed men, who took him to a warehouse in Osaka Prefecture and demanded a ransom from Glico of 1 billion yen. Katsuhisa was held captive for three days before escaping on 21 March. The person or persons behind the kidnapping, known as "The Monster with 21 Faces", remains unidentified. |
| 1 June 1984 | Mark Tildesley | Sidney Cooke | Wokingham, Berkshire, England | 7 | Murdered | Tildesley disappeared while visiting a funfair in Wokingham, Berkshire, during the evening. He was lured away from the fair and his bicycle was found chained to railings nearby. In 1990 it emerged that he had been abducted, drugged, tortured, raped and murdered by a London-based paedophile gang. |
| 5 July 1984 | Jerry Howell | Robert Berdella | Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. | 19 | Murdered | The first known victim of serial killer Robert Berdella. Howell is believed to have died of either asphyxiation or an inability to breathe due to a combination of gagging and medication overdose following approximately twenty-eight hours of captivity and abuse. |
| 7 July 1984 | Layla Dawn Cummings | Richard Norman Rojem Jr. | Oklahoma, U.S. | 7 | Murdered | Cummings, who was formerly the stepdaughter of Rojem before he and Cummings's biological mother divorced, was abducted, raped and murdered by Rojem. Rojem was convicted of the murder and he was executed on June 27, 2024, after spending close to 40 years on death row. Rojem was the longest-serving death row prisoner in Oklahoma at the time of his execution. |
| 19 July 1984 | Edith Rosenkranz | Glenn I. Wright and Dennis Moss | Washington, D.C., US | | Released | Edith, wife of Dr. George Rosenkranz, a wealthy Mexico City businessman, was kidnapped at gunpoint from the Washington-Sheraton Hotel during an American Contract Bridge League national tournament. She was returned unharmed two days later after her husband paid a ransom of US$1,000,000. The ransom money was later recovered and the two kidnappers were later convicted and sentenced, as was a third defendant, Orland D. Tolden. |
| 29 August 1984 | Elisabeth Fritzl | Josef Fritzl | Amstetten, Austria | 18 | Released | Elisabeth was held captive in a concealed corridor part of the basement area of the large family house by her father, Josef Fritzl, who physically assaulted, sexually abused, and raped her numerous times during her imprisonment. The abuse resulted in the birth of seven children and one miscarriage. One child died shortly after birth, three children joined their mother in captivity, and three were raised by Josef and his wife Rosemarie and reported to authorities as foundlings. Elisabeth and her three captive children were released by Josef in 2008 when one child became seriously ill. Fritzl was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for charges of murder by negligence of his infant son/grandson, as well as the enslavement, incest, rape, coercion and false imprisonment of Elisabeth. |
| 17 September 1984 | Vicki Lynne Hoskinson | Frank Atwood | Tucson, Arizona, US | 8 | Murdered | On 17 September, Vicki Hoskinson disappeared while out delivering a birthday card to her aunt. Frank Atwood, a sex offender on parole for abducting and sexually assaulting a young boy, had been seen driving in the area and accident reconstruction experts linked Hoskinson's bike to Atwood's car. Atwood was charged with kidnapping and Hoskinson's body was later found in the Sonoran Desert. Atwood was executed in 2022. |
| 9 October 1984 | Kim Sue Leggett | Unknown | Mercedes, Texas, US | 21 | Unknown | On 9 October, Kim Sue Leggett disappeared around 5 pm from her place of employment. She left behind a 1-year-old son and a husband. Kim's parents got two phone calls on the day she went missing. The caller said they had abducted Kim and wanted ransom. Later her parents also got a ransom note demanding $250,000. They never heard from the alleged kidnappers again. |
| 3 November 1984 | Lisa McVey | Bobby Joe Long | Tampa, Florida, US | 17 | Released | Abducted and sexually assaulted by serial killer Bobby Joe Long. McVey was released after 26 hours of captivity. Information McVey provided to authorities led to Long's arrest on 16 November 1984. |
| 6 November 1984 | Kylie Maybury | Gregory Keith Davies | Preston, Victoria, Australia | 6 | Murdered | Schoolgirl abducted on the night of the Melbourne Cup Day in 1984. Her body, showing signs of rape and strangulation, was found the next day. Her case remained unsolved until 2017, when convicted sex offender Gregory Keith Davies was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. |
| 12 November 1984 | Margaret "Peggy Sue" Altes | Unknown | Indianapolis, Indiana, US | 11 | Murdered | Peggy Sue Altes vanished from a park near her home in Indianapolis, and was found by hunters in woods in Hancock County, Indiana, just under a week later. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed. Her brother-in-law Jerry Watkins was arrested and convicted, but was absolved of the crime and freed from prison in 2000 when he was ruled out by DNA evidence. Joseph McCormick was then charged with her murder in 2001 and admitted to molesting her after her kidnapping, but denied killing her and had charges reduced after cooperating with investigators. The following year, Kenneth Munson, brother Hugh Munson and William L. Beever were charged with Altes' murder, but charges were subsequently dropped against the last two. Kenneth Munson pled guilty to battery charges against Altes and was sentenced, but the murder remains officially unsolved. |
| 20 December 1984 | Jonelle Matthews | Steven Pankey | Greeley, Colorado | 12 | Murdered | After arriving home from performing in a holiday concert at IntraWest Bank of Denver as a member of Greeley's Franklin Middle School Choir, Jonelle arrived at her Greeley home after getting a ride from her friend DeeAnn Ross and DeeAnn's father. Shortly after receiving a phone call after 8.30 pm, she was discovered missing by her father an hour later. Her body was not found until 24 July 2019, nearly 35 years after the disappearance, with a gunshot wound to her head. Police later identified the kidnapper as Steven Dana Pankey, a former Greeley resident who ran for governor in Idaho in 2014 and 2018, and for lieutenant governor in 2010. On 13 October 2020, Pankey was indicted on charges of murdering and kidnapping Matthews; he was later extradited to Colorado. After a first trial beginning October of 2021 ended in a mistrial, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on October 31, 2022. |
| 22 December 1984 | Deirdre Sainsbury | Colin Campbell | Roehampton, United Kingdom | 29 | Murdered | Abducted while hitchhiking in Roehampton, West London; her nude, mutilated body was discovered discarded on a golf course in Denham, Buckinghamshire. She had been bludgeoned about the head and strangled. |
| 19 January 1985 | Toni Jean Gibbs | Faryion Wardrip | Wichita, Texas, US | 23 | Murdered | Gibbs, a nurse, was abducted after completing her shift at a hospital. She was kidnapped and her abandoned car was found soon after. Her body was found a month later. Faryion Wardrip was convicted of her murder in 1999. |
| 7 February 1985 | Enrique Camarena | Unknown | La Angostura, Mexico | 37 | Murdered | Camarena, a Mexican American DEA official, was abducted by drug lords and tortured. He was found dead on 5 March 1985. |
| 11 July 1985 | Suzanne Marie Collins | Sedley Alley | Millington, Tennessee, U.S. | 19 | Murdered | USMC lance corporal-in-training who was kidnapped while jogging near Naval Support Activity Mid-South. Her body, showing signs of rape and blunt force trauma, was found the next day. Sedley Alley, was subsequently arrested, convicted and executed in 2006. |
| 20 September 1985 | Ellen Blau | Faryion Wardrip | Wichita Falls, Texas, US | 21 | Murdered | Blau was abducted after working as a waitress. Faryion Wardrip was convicted of her murder in 1999. |
| 9 October 1985 | Sarah Pryor | Unknown | Wayland, Massachusetts, US | 9 | Murdered | Pryor disappeared while walking through her neighborhood. Her fate was unknown until 1998 when DNA tests proved that skull fragments discovered in the woods belonged to her. Her killer was never identified. |
| 9 November 1985 | Alexander Olive | Ulysses Roberson | South Lake Tahoe, California, US | 4 | Murdered | The subject's body was never found, but his father was convicted of his abduction and murder. |
| 21 November 1985 | Laura Murphy | John Brennan Crutchley | Malabar, Florida, U.S. | 19 | Escaped | Murphy was picked up while hitchhiking by John Crutchley, a suspected serial killer, who choked her into unconsciousness, raped her repeatedly and drank her blood. After being held captive for an entire night, Murphy was able to escape through the bathroom window and later filed charges against Crutchley for kidnapping and rape. |
| 17 March 1986 | Wanda and Sheila Romines | Stephen Michael West and Ronald David Martin | Union County, Tennessee, US | 51 (Wanda), 15 (Sheila) | Murdered | A mother and daughter overpowered and murdered while being held hostage in their own home. Wanda and Sheila Romines were targeted by West and Martin, who initially gained entry to the premises upon Martin—a school friend of Sheila's who also knew her mother—borrowing money. Both were overpowered and stabbed to death, with Sheila also being raped prior to her murder. |
| 23 March 1986 | Richard Chadek III | Unknown | Omaha, Nebraska, USA | 13 | Murdered | Chadek disappeared while riding his bike near his home. His bike was found in a bank parking lot. His body was discovered on Easter Sunday 31 March. He was found in a field northwest of Omaha strangled. It was determined he was kept alive for several days after his kidnapping. |
| 26 March 1986 | Sarah Harper | Robert Black | Morley, West Yorkshire, England | 10 | Murdered | The final confirmed victim of serial killer Robert Black. She was abducted while buying a loaf of bread at a corner shop 100 yards from her home. Her body was found in the River Trent on 19 April. |
| April 1986 | Unnamed 19-year-old woman | William Lewis Reece | Columbus, Ohio, US | 19 | Escaped | A surviving victim of serial killer William Lewis Reece. This young woman was driving to her job as an aerobics instructor when her vehicle stalled along Interstate 35. Reece lured her into his vehicle upon the promise of taking her to apayphone; the woman was restrained and raped, but later escaped her attacker. |
| 6 April 1986 | Anthonette Cayedito | Unknown | Gallup, New Mexico, US | 9 | Unknown | Cayedito was kidnapped from her home. She was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries a few years after her disappearance. It is believed that she phoned 911 a year after her kidnapping in a desperate attempt to be rescued. She may have also been seen by a waitress in Carson City a few years later. The girl has never been located. |
| 3 May 1986 | Sandra Court | Unknown | Bournemouth, UK | 29 | Unknown | Court came home after a night out in the early hours of 3 May 1986, but no one was at home to let her in. She was last seen walking barefoot, appearing slightly drunk, at around 2:45 am. Only a few hours later her dead body was found in a water-filled ditch in a field several miles away, indicating she had been abducted by someone and taken there by car. Her murder remains unsolved, although police believe the case is linked to the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh only a few weeks later (see separate entry below) and that both were abducted and killed by John Cannan. A pay-and-display parking ticket proves he had travelled to Bournemouth that day, and two hairs discovered in one of his cars in the early 2000s were found which matched Court's DNA. The chance of the hairs belonging to anyone other than Court were 40,000 to 1. |
| 14 May 1986 | Toh Hong Huat, Keh Chin Ann | Unknown | Singapore | 12 (both) | Unknown | Toh and Keh both disappeared while on their way to Owen Primary School. Despite an extensive search and sightings, the boys have never been found and the case remains unsolved. The boys have also been dubbed as the "McDonald's Boys", due to McDonald's in Singapore offering a S$100,000 reward for any information on the boys. |
| 24 May 1986 | Michelle Dorr | Hadden Clark | Silver Spring, Maryland, US | 6 | Murdered | A girl was kidnapped while playing outside her home. |
| 28 July 1986 | Suzy Lamplugh | Unknown (the police named John Cannan as the man who they believed abducted and murdered her in 2002) | Fulham, London | 25 | Unknown, but declared dead in 1993 and presumed murdered | Estate agent Lamplugh disappeared after going to an appointment with a supposed client named only "Mr Kipper". Later that night her abandoned car was found several streets away. Witnesses came forward to say that they had seen her with a smartly dressed man holding champagne outside the house for sale, and there were also sightings of her arguing with a man and fighting with him in a BMW car speeding away from near the scene. Declared dead in 1993, police are adamant that her abductor was John Cannan, who had been released from a nearby prison nearby three days earlier, owned a BMW like the one seen and had abducted and murdered Shirley Banks in Bristol in 1987. He is also suspected of being the House for sale rapist, who raped around 20 women in houses for sale in the west Midlands in 1979 and 1980. |
| 19 August 1986 | Samantha Knight | Michael Guider | Bondi, New South Wales, Australia | 9 | Died accidentally | Paedophile Guider abducted Knight from her home and drugged her with Temazepam in order to molest her, accidentally giving her a fatal overdose. Guider was jailed for Knight's manslaughter in 2001. |
| 30 September 1986 | Mordechai Vanunu | Mossad | Rome, Italy | 31 | Released | Vanunu, an Israelinuclear whistleblower, was lured to Italy from London, where he was abducted by Mossad and brought back to Israel, where he was convicted of treason and espionage. He served 18 years in prison, eleven of which were in solitary confinement. |
| 25 November 1986 | Kristie Granado | Todd Kohlhepp | Tempe, Arizona, U.S. | 14 | Released | Granado was abducted at gunpoint by future serial killer Kohlhepp, who was a year older than her, and brought back to his home, where Kohlhepp tied her up, taped her mouth shut, and raped her. He afterwards walked her home and threatened to kill her family if she told anyone. Granado reported the crime and Kohlhepp later pleaded guilty to kidnapping. |
| 12 January 1987 | Terry Waite | Islamic Jihad Organization | Beirut, Lebanon | 47 | Released | Waite was the envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Lebanon in 1987; he was sent to negotiate the release of four British citizens, but was kidnapped himself. |
| 19 March 1987 | Susan Michelbacher | Paul Ezra Rhoades | Idaho, U.S. | 34 | Murdered | On 19 March 1987, serial killer Paul Ezra Rhoades killed his third victim, 34-year-old Susan Michelbacher, whose body was found two days after her death and presumed disappearance. Rhoades was later convicted of murdering Michelbacher and two other women in Idaho, and sentenced to death. He was executed in 2011. |
| 4 July 1987 | Helen Kunz | Christopher Jacobs | Wausau, Wisconsin, U.S. | 70 | Murdered | On 4 July 1987, an assailant shot four members of the Kunz family dead on their farm near Wausau, Wisconsin, and abducted 70-year-old Helen Kunz. She was found shot to death in a swamp nine months later. Farmer Christopher Jacobs III was acquitted of the murders and later bragged that he had killed the family "to prove he was a man"; he was ultimately convicted of kidnapping Helen Kunz, but was protected from further murder charges by double jeopardy. |
| 4 August 1987 | Carlina White | Annugetta "Ann" Pettway | New York City, US | 19 days | Raised by abductor | White was taken from Harlem Hospital Center as an infant and raised by Pettway. She was reunited with her family in January 2011, 23 years later, in the longest known non-parental abduction. |
| 9 September 1987 | Gerrit Jan Heijn | Ferdi Elsas | Bloemendaal, Netherlands | 56 | Murdered | Heijn was a Dutch businessman, the top executive of Ahold, Holland's largest retailer. He was killed shortly after his abduction. Elsas pretended the victim was still alive and received a ransom. He was caught after spending one of the banknotes of the ransom, whose numbers had been recorded. He was released in 2001 after serving a prison sentence but was killed in a road accident. |
| 4 July 1987 | Michael Houghton, Laura Sanders | Scott Hain, Robert Lambert | Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S. | 27 (Houghton), 22 (Sanders) | Murdered | Houghton and Sanders were carjacked and taken hostage by two teenagers, Scott Hain and Robert Lambert, who drove them several miles before stopping, robbing them at gunpoint, forcing them into the trunk of the car, and burning them alive. Scott Hain was executed in 2003. |
| 29 March 1988 | Christopher Bryson | Robert Berdella | Kansas City, Missouri | 22 | Escaped from captor | A male prostitute abducted, held captive and subjected to sexual abuse and torture for four days by serial killer Robert Berdella. Bryson escaped his captor by loosening his right wrist from his restraints, untying the binding to his left wrist, then burning through his ankle restraints using a book of matches Berdella had inadvertently left within his reach. Berdella was arrested the same day. |
| 1 April 1988 | April Tinsley | John Miller | Fort Wayne, Indiana | 8 | Murdered | Eight-year-old girl who was abducted, raped and strangled to death. John Miller was convicted 30 years later after being implicated by DNA analysis. |
| 18 June 1988 | Marie Wilks | Unknown | Tewkesbury, England | 22 | Murdered | Pregnant woman who was abducted by an unidentified assailant while using the emergency telephone on the side of the M50 motorway. Her body was found two days later, but her murder is unsolved. A man, Eddie Browning, was originally convicted of her abduction and murder but was released on appeal in 1994 after 5 years imprisonment. |
| 4 July 1988 | Wojciech Pryczek | Mariusz Trynkiewicz | Poland | 13 | Murdered | On 4 July 1988, 13-year-old Wojciech Pryczek was lured into the apartment of Mariusz Trynkiewicz, who then strangled him and buried his corpse in the forest. Trynkiewicz had been released from prison earlier that day in connection with the care of his sick mother. He was later sentenced to death for the murder of Pryczek and three other boys, with his sentence subsequently being commuted to 25 years in prison. |
| 10 September 1988 | Jaclyn Dowaliby | Unknown | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | 7 | Murdered | Jaclyn Dowaliby disappeared from her bedroom on the night of 9-10 September 1988. Evidence suggested the intruder had entered through the house's basement window, then taken a sleeping Jaclyn from her bed and escaped through the kitchen door. Jaclyn's body was found in Blue Island on 14 September. Police at one point suspected that the kidnapping was staged to cover up Jaclyn's murder by her parents and her father was convicted of murdering her, but was exonerated after serving just over a year in prison. |
| 12 September 1988 | Melissa Ann Tremblay | Unknown | Massachusetts, US | 11 | Murdered | Tremblay was abducted her from outside a social club where she had gone with her mother and her mother's boyfriend in September 1988 and was later found dead on the tracks of the Boston and Maine Railroad. A suspect named Marvin McClendon was brought to trial in 2023, but his first trial ended in a mistrial and he was ultimately found not guilty in November 2024. |
| 20 September 1988 | Tara Calico | Unknown | Belen, New Mexico, US | 19 | Unknown | Calico disappeared near her home after taking her usual bike ride. A missing persons poster claimed she was being followed by a 1953–54 Ford Pickup and was never heard from again. No sign of Calico was found until on 15 June 1989 when a woman found a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young girl and boy, both bound and gagged, in the parking lot of a convenience store in Port St. Joe, Florida with a white pickup truck parked next to it. The girl in the photo is believed by the family to be Calico, but this has not been confirmed. It is unclear whether Calico is still alive. |
| 19 November 1988 | Michaela Garecht | Unknown | Hayward, California, US | 9 | Unknown | Garecht was abducted by a Caucasian male thought to be about 18–24 years old. She rode to a small neighborhood market on her scooter. When she tried to grab her scooter, a man forced her into his car. She was never seen or heard from again, but on 21 December 2020, David Emery Misch was arrested and charged with her abduction and murder, based on fingerprint matches on the scooter. |
| 21 November 1988 | Gordon Church | Michael Anthony Archuleta, Lance Conway Wood | Millard County, Utah, U.S. | 28 | Murdered | On 21 November 1988, while on his way to meet friends for a meal prior to Thanksgiving holiday, 28-year-old Gordon Ray Church encountered Michael Anthony Archuleta and Lance Conway Wood at a 7-Eleven in Cedar City, Utah. After the group drove to a secluded area in Cedar Canyon, Church revealed that he was gay. Church was subsequently kidnapped, raped, tortured, and ultimately murdered in a secluded area in Millard County, Utah. Church died in the early morning hours of 22 November; his body was dumped in a shallow grave and found the following day. Archuleta and Wood were arrested after the latter confessed to his parole officer; both were charged and convicted of Church's murder. Archuleta and Wood were sentenced to death and life imprisonment respectively. |
| 25 November 1988 | Junko Furuta | Hiroshi Miyano, Jō Ogura, Shinji Minato, Yasushi Watanabe | Tokyo, Japan | 17 | Murdered | The kidnapping began when the four perpetrators, already with a history of abduction and gang rape, attacked Furuta while riding home on her bike. She was held captive for 40 days in the house where Minato lived with his parents. Torture over the subsequent days included gang-rape, starvation, forced alcohol ingestion, beatings, and burnings. The four perpetrators brought in two more boys to participate in the rapes. The rapes diminished as Furuta's wounds became rancid. The final beating began with Miyano pouring lighter fluid on Furuta and setting her on fire. This attack reportedly lasted two hours, finally killing her. The perpetrators dumped her body in a drum and filled it with wet concrete. The perpetrators' sentences ranged from juvenile detention to 20 years in prison. The parents of Minato were ordered to pay ¥50 million to Furuta's parents for their role in not reporting the crimes. |
| 13 December 1988 | Joaquin Esteves | Orlando Cruz Vasquez | San Jose, California, US | 64 | Murdered | A suspect was convicted of the victim's murder, yet no body was ever recovered. |
| 27 December 1988 | Sharon Wills | Mr Cruel | Melbourne, Victoria | 10 | Released | A ten-year-old child abducted from the suburb of Ringwood, Melbourne by serial child rapist and suspected child murderer Mr Cruel. Wills was released after approximately eighteen hours of captivity. |
| 1989 | Unnamed 30-year-old woman | Unidentified serial killer | Järvenpää, Finland | 30 | Survived | In 1989, an intoxicated 30-year-old woman exited a restaurant in Järvenpää and was approached by a man who offered her a ride, during which the woman was offered alcohol and pills before being driven to a forest area. Although the woman survived the encounter, the victim's mother later revealed that she had died of natural causes years later. In 2017, it was published in the media that this case may have been connected to the Hausjärvi Gravel Pit Murders; the circumstances of this case highly resembled those of Helena Meriläinen's abduction in 1990. |
| 14 January 1989 | Paul Vanden Boeynants | Patrick Haemers and his gang | Belgium | 69 | Released | Vanden Boeynants, a Belgian politician was kidnapped, and was released one month after his abduction when a ransom was paid. |
| 22 March 1989 | Ann Marie Harrison | Michael Anthony Taylor Roderick Nunley | Raytown, Missouri, U.S. | 15 | Murdered | Fifteen-year-old Ann Marie Harrison was kidnapped by two men as she waited for the school bus outside her home in Raytown, Missouri, on March 22, 1989. Harrison was subsequently raped and murdered by her abductors, Michael Anthony Taylor and Roderick Nunley, who were each found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to execution by lethal injection. Taylor and Nunley were executed in 2014 and 2015, respectively. |
| 9-10 April 1989 | Heidi Paakkonen | David Tamihere | Coromandel Peninsula | 21 | Murdered | Paakkonen and her fiancée Urban Höglin disappeared while backpacking through the Coromandel forests. David Tamihere, a wanted rapist camping in the area, was later convicted of their murders; it is believed that he murdered Höglin, then abducted Paakkonen and raped and murdered her. Höglin's body was found the year after the trial in circumstances which contradicted part of the prosecution case, but the court of appeal ruled in 2024 that the rest of the evidence proved Tamihere's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Paakkonen's body remains undiscovered. |
| 11 April 1989 | Phang Tee Wah | Ibrahim Masod and Liow Han Heng | Singapore | 56- | Murdered | 56-year-old Phang Tee Wah was kidnapped by Liow Han Heng and Ibrahim Masod, who both held Phang captive at Liow's Yishun flat, before they strangled Phang to death and disposed of his body at Pasir Ris. Despite Phang's death, the kidnappers attempt to extort a S$1 million ransom from his son and wife, and also sold Phang's watch for S$6,200. The two kidnappers were later arrested and charged with kidnapping and murder, and they were both sentenced to death in July 1992. However, Liow died from a heart attack in August 1993 while on death row, and thus Ibrahim became the sole kidnapper of the case to be officially executed on 29 July 1994 after failing to appeal his capital sentence. |
| 17 July 1989 | John McAnulty | Provisional Irish Republican Army | Dundalk, Ireland | 48 | Murdered | McAnulty was a grain importer who was kidnapped from a pub and subsequently murdered for being an alleged informant. |
| 28 July 1989 | Abdel Karim Obeid | Israeli commandos | Jibchit, Lebanon | 32 | Released | Hezbollah member and Imam who was kidnapped from his home by Israeli soldiers on 28 July 1989. Two other Hezbollah members were abducted that same night, while Obeid's wife was left bound and gagged in the closet. He was released in a prisoner exchange in January 2004. |
| 2 October 1989 | Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve | ELN guerillas | Arauquita, Colombia | 73 | Murdered | Roman Catholic priest and staunch opponent of the ELN who was abducted and killed on 2 October 1989. His remains were located the next day next to the Venezuelan border. |
| 2 October 1989 | Liang Shan Shan | Oh Laye Koh | Yishun, Singapore | 17 | Murdered | Liang, a Malaysian schoolgirl studying in Singapore, was abducted by school bus driver Oh Laye Koh, who enticed her into boarding his bus after she left school. She was found murdered at Yishun Industrial Park twelve days after her abduction. Koh was acquitted of the crime, but later convicted on appeal and given the death penalty. |
| 22 October 1989 | Jacob Wetterling | Danny Heinrich | St. Joseph, Minnesota, US | 11 | Murdered | Wetterling was kidnapped on his way home by a masked gunman. |
| 27 October 1989 | Amy Mihaljevic | Unknown | Bay Village, Ohio, US | 10 | Murdered | The victim was lured by an unidentified assailant through telephone to run an errand for her mother. The girl had been seen meeting the subject at a plaza and was never seen alive again. Her body was found in 1990. The case remains unsolved. |
| 30 October 1989 | Lee Iseli | Westley Allan Dodd | Portland, Oregon, US | 4 | Murdered | Lee Iseli was abducted, sexually abused and strangled by serial killer Westley Allan Dodd in Portland, Oregon. According to Dodd's own testimony, he resuscitated Iseli after killing him and then asphyxiated him again, but more slowly. |
| 3 December 1989 | Melissa Brannen | Caleb Hughes | Lorton, Virginia, U.S. | 5 | Unknown (presumed dead) | Melissa Brannen was lured away from a Christmas party at the apartment complex where she lived with her mother and was never seen again, alive or dead. The complex's handyman, Caleb Hughes, was jailed for kidnapping Melissa with intent to rape her and is assumed to have killed her, but with no body he could not be charged with murder. |
| 8 December 1989 | Rubaiya Sayeed | Kashmiri separatist militants | Srinagar, India | 23 | Released | Rubaiya Sayeed, the third daughter of Indian Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was abducted by Kashmiri separatist militants at 3:45 p.m. on 8 December 1989. Sayeed, a 23-year-old medical intern, was on her way home from Lal Ded Memorial Women's Hospital via a local mini bus when she was forced out of the vehicle at gunpoint. The kidnapping was carried out in Srinagar by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which demanded the release of five jailed members of the organization in exchange for Sayeed's release. Sayeed was set free at 7:00 p.m. on 13 December 1989 when these conditions were met. The JKLF admitted to having carried out the kidnapping in 2004, and one of the key leaders of the organization, Yasin Malik, was identified by Sayeed as one of her kidnappers in July 2022. |