Missed Moments

On October 18, 2011, in Anniversaries, Missing Persons, by Jody Ewing

All were young. They should have been just getting settled into careers, raising children, discovering challenges and rewards that accompany adulthood.

Instead, they all went missing under mysterious circumstances, leaving in the wake families still left wondering what happened to their loved ones.

Richard Forsyth

Richard Forsyth

Richard Neil Forsyth was only 27 when he disappeared October 18, 1979. He’d last been seen leaving his apartment carrying something wrapped in a rug. He was never heard from again.

Steven Kirchhoff in 1978

Steven Kirchhoff in 1978

There’s still speculation his disappearance may somehow be connected to another Waterloo man’s disappearance: 22-year-old Steven Kirchhoff disappeared the year before and authorities believe his disappearance may have been drug-related. Forsyth paid cash for a Cadillac one week after Kirchhoff disappeared, only to later go missing himself.

Rodney J. Olsen

Rodney J. Olsen

Exactly seven years after Richard Forsyth went missing, 32-year-old Rodney Olsen vanished from his northeast Mason City farm on October 18, 1986. The father of a young son, Olsen had only recently moved from his native Britt to the Mason City area.

Several months after his disappearance, Olsen’s black 1978 Pontiac Sunbird was found in a Forest City trailer park. Officials found no clues to indicate what might have happened to Olsen.

Melissa Hasley

Melissa Hasley

October 18 proved to be another fateful day in 2002, when 31-year-old Melissa Hasley attended a party in the 1700 block of Grand Avenue in Des Moines, Iowa. Hasley had last been seen sitting on the apartment building’s fire escape with some friends. When a fire door alarm went off, Hasley exited the building through the alley door on the building’s north side, never to be seen again.

If you have any information about the whereabouts of any of these individuals, please contact the respective law enforcement agencies as listed on each victims’ case summary page.

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