Circumstances of Disappearance
In December of 1974, Laurie Partridge left Ferris High School early, complaining about not feeling well walking at 37th & Havana Streets on Spokane's South Hill.
Unable to get a ride, she decided to walk the two-plus miles to the home where she lived with her parents and five younger siblings, saying the air might help her feel better.
The family reported her missing after she failed to show up for work that evening at Lincoln Heights Theater.
The contents of her purse were located two days later (December 6, 1974) near the location where she was last seen.
Initially, sheriff's deputies thought she might have run away from home, given her displeasure when the family moved to Spokane from California, but by the time she vanished she had started working on the high school newspaper and was on the drill team. Detectives staked out a Beach Boys concert to which Partridge's father had given her tickets but didn't see her, eventually learning that the tickets had been used but too late to determine by whom. Three people were questioned by detectives, including one who later turned out to be serial killer Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy, but none panned out.