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Reidenbach,Michele missing October 6,1981; Pennsylvania
Topic Started: Aug 9 2006, 01:39 PM (1,292 Views)
oldies4mari2004
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/r/reid...ch_michele.html


Michele Reidenbach
Posted Image

Above: Reidenbach, circa 1981;
Right: Age-progression at age 37 (circa 2001)


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: October 6, 1981 from Zelienople, Pennsylvania
Classification: Non-Family Abduction
Date Of Birth: December 29, 1964
Age: 16 years old
Height and Weight: 5'2, 110 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Dark blonde hair, blue eyes. Some agencies spell Reidenbach's name "Michelle." She was a chain smoker in 1981.


Details of Disappearance

Reidenbach attended her classes at Seneca Valley High School on October 6, 1981, had her senior class picture taken, and went to Zelienople, Pennyslvania afterwards. She had an after-school job at an appliance store, Mel Den, in the 200 block of south Main Street. She usually worked there with a classmate, but her co-worker was sick and did not report to work.
At 4:30 p.m., Reidenbach left the store and walked approximately one block to a pharmacy to buy cold medicine, as she was feeling ill. It was established that Reidenbach did arrive in the store and purchased the medicine. She was last seen in a supermarket parking lot on south Main Street. She never went back to her job and has never been heard from again. She left her purse, schoolbooks, and cigarettes behind at Mel Den when she vanished. She also left $100 in cash in her dresser at home.

Reidenbach's disappearance was discovered at 4:55 p.m. when her mother came to Mel Den to see her. One of Reidenbach's six siblings was paralyzed and in the hospital at the time and her mother wanted to know if Reidenbach wished to visit her. She ended up going to the hospital without her. Reidenbach's brother later came to the store as usual to drive her home, but he never saw her. Her mother called police later that evening after Reidenbach did not arrive home.

Investigators do not believe Reidenbach ran away. She left all her belongings behind and was not having any personal problems at the time of her disappearance. Her family describes her as a streetwise person who would not be likely to go anywhere with a stranger; they believe she was abducted by someone she knew and trusted.

Police questioned several people in Reidenbach's disappearance, including her boyfriend, who has passed a polygraph and was ruled out as a suspect in her case. Reidenbach's family has also been ruled out as suspects in the investigation. She is described as a responsible teenager who was devoted to her hospitalized older sister. Her case remains unsolved.

Some agencies state that Reidenbach vanished from Evans City, Pennsylvania.



Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Zelienople Police Department
412-452-6320



Source Information
The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
WPXI
NewsLibrary
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Updated 2 times since October 12, 2004.

Last updated October 10, 2006; details of disappearance updated.

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oldies4mari2004
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Police Probe Missing Girl Case 25 Years Later
(KDKA) ZELIENOPLE Pennsylvania State Police are still investigating the disappearance of a teenager from Zelienople 25 years later.

Michele Reidenbach, 16, a student at Seneca Valley High School, went missing on September 22, 1981.

State Police say she showed up for work at an appliance store and went to the drug store to buy cold medicine while on a break.

Police say it’s unclear if she ever returned to work.

Anyone with information is asked to call Butler State Police at 724-284-8100, the Zelienople Police Department at 724-452-3003 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.
http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_264120349.html
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06265/724058-54.stm

25 years later, disappearance still a mystery
Friday, September 22, 2006

By Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



The disappearance a quarter century ago of Michele Reidenbach continues to stump police in Butler County and beyond.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the 16-year-old Seneca Valley High School senior's disappearance.


Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette file photo (2001)
Kim Shuler, holding a 1981 photograph of Michele Reidenbach, and Judy Wolfe were friends of Michele, who vanished without a trace on Main Street in Zelienope on Sept. 22, 1981.
Click photo for larger image.

"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about the case," state police Cpl. Raymond J. Melder said yesterday.

Cpl. Melder, a native of Butler County, had been on the job for about a year when Michele was reported missing. Though he was not involved in the investigation back then, he was familiar with the family, all of Harmony, and he knew about the case.

Michele was a responsible teenager. She worked part time at the former Mel Den's Appliance Store in Zelienople. She was devoted to an older sister who was paralyzed and in the hospital.

On that rainy Tuesday when she was last seen, Michele had been to school.

Afterward, she had her senior photos taken and went to work. While there, she took a break to walk down the street to a drugstore for cold medication. She had contracted a bug.

Her late mother, Gloria, said then that she had intended to meet Michele so the two could visit her other daughter in the hospital. Gloria Reidenbach was running late, however, and went to the hospital without her younger child.

Michele was last seen at a supermarket parking lot on South Main Street in Zelienople.

Michele was 5-foot-2 and weighed 110 pounds. Her eyes are blue, her hair dark blonde.


Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette
An age-progressed photo shows how Michele might look today.
Some of these characteristics likely have changed. Michele would be 42 Dec. 29.

Police believe Michele's case would have been handled differently now than it was 25 years ago. Investigators today begin their missing-persons probes sooner. They have and use more resources quicker as well, Cpl. Melder said.

He and Michele's siblings, he said, remain hopeful.

Michele's likeness is posted on the Internet Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. More than 1 million other children are there as well.

Anyone with information about Michele can call Zelienople police at 724-287-7769.

Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...opic=7761&st=0&
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.wpxi.com/target11/1959465/detail.html

Years Later
Zelienople Girl Disappeared In 1981
Rick Earle, Target 11 Investigator

POSTED: 5:04 p.m. EST February 5, 2003
UPDATED: 5:18 p.m. EST February 5, 2003


PITTSBURGH -- Target 11 investigates a missing person's case that began 21 years ago. In 1981, a 16-year-old Zelienople girl vanished. To this day, police believe foul play was involved.

Michelle Reidenbach was 16 when she disappeared. Pictured right, is what she looked like then.

She would be 37 today and below is a computer generated picture of what Michelle would look like today.

Jeff Reidenbach said, "That's the hardest thing, not knowing one way or another. I think it's stressful. It's something you think about every day."

Jeff is talking about Sept. 22, 1981, the day his 16-year-old sister, Michelle, disappeared.

Jeff said, "Really there wasn't a whole lot you could do. Mostly police did it. If they asked you to do something you did it, but not a whole lot you could do. When they checked with her friends, you don't know anywhere else to look."

Target 11's Rick Earle asked, "Do you think she ran away?" State Police Cpl. Ray Melder said, "No. I don't believe so, nor does any investigator involved with this case."

Melder has been working the case for the past decade. He keeps a picture of Michelle, along with a timetable of events from the day she disappeared, on the wall of his office at the Butler barracks.

Melder said Reidenbach left Seneca Valley High School around 3 p.m. and drove with several friends to Zelienople.

She spent time with a girlfriend at a gas station and around 4 p.m. walked across the street to the appliance store where she worked.

About an hour later, she left the appliance store and walked about a block away to a Rite Aid drug store to buy medicine for a cold.

Melder said, "The clerk at the Rite Aid does recall seeing Michelle come into the store purchase the cold medicine. That was the last time we are certain of that she was seen."

Fred Landay said, "She was a good girl. She was a nice girl."

Landay was the owner of the appliance store where Michelle worked.

Landay said, "I didn't see her that day. She was working upstairs doing envelopes for a private sale and she just never came back. She left her purse and just never came back."

Over the years, police questioned several people, including Reidenbach's boyfriend. Police ruled him out after he passed a lie detector test.

Recently, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children released an age-enhanced photograph (pictured, right) of what Michelle would look like today. Jeff said, "Sometimes you wonder if you want to know if it's bad, you know but after this long you don't have a lot of hope. Until you find something out you hope that that will be what happens."

Police told Target 11 over the years they continue to get new information and leads and every time they follow them up.

If you have any information about this case you're asked to call police at (724) 284-8100.
Copyright 2003 by Wpxi.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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oldies4mari2004
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Unsolved Cases: Michele Reidenbach

Seneca Valley High School senior disappeared in 1981 after leaving work to buy cold medicine.


By Zandy Dudiak
Email the author
August 25, 2012


Michele Reidenbach smiled for the camera as she posed for her senior pictures on Sept. 22, 1981.

A senior at Seneca Valley High School in Jackson Township, Butler County, she had saved up $100, tucked in a drawer at home, to pay for her class ring. The 16-year-old from Evans City, like other seniors, had the exciting, final year of high school ahead.

After school that day, she went to her part-time job at Mel-Den TV and Appliance, a store at 240 South Main St. in Zelienople, where she addressed envelopes and wrote advertisements for the owners. At 4 p.m., she left her job to walk to a Rite-Aid pharmacy located a half block away to buy cold medicine. A clerk at the store confirmed that she purchased the medicine and left the store.

The last confirmed sighting of Michele was at the Super Duper supermarket parking lot on South Main Street in Zelienople that afternoon. Her boss, Fred Landy, said he saw her talking with someone in a red car, according to an account in the Post-Gazette.

It would seem that she had intended to return to work. Police found her school books and purse were still at Mel Den. She was a chain smoker, according to reports, and was never without her cigarettes.

She wasn't having troubles at home and was very attached to her family, according to the Pennsylvania Missing Persons website. She was devoted to an older sister who was paralyzed and in the hospital.

The fact that she had her senior pictures taken that day, had left the ring money at home, and her purse and books at Mel Den convinced authorities that she had been abducted.

Police described Michele as a white female; 5 feet, 2 inches tall; 110 pounds; with brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing blue jeans, and a wine-colored, V-neck sweater. She wore a gold necklace with a "knot" pendant.

Michele's disappearance and that of Toni McNatt-Chiappetta of Clairton on Nov. 6, 1981 have some similarities with the case of Christine Guenther of Peters Township, if only for the fact that they all happened within two months of each other.

Christine disappeared from the bus stop at Donaldson’s Crossroads on Oct. 26, 1981, after she was given an early dismissal from Peters Township High School. Her body was discovered on Oct. 31, 1981, by a hunter scouting the area around Cecil Sturgeon Road in South Fayette. She had been bludgeoned to death in the head.

Zelienople police wanted to question David Neal, then 29, of Seven Fields in 1989 in connection with Michele's disappearance after he was found guilty of murdering a transvestite in Pittsburgh. However, Michele's mother, Gloria Reichenbach, told the Post-Gazette at the time that there was no evidence linking him to her disappearance.

In 1993, a newly formed Butler County police task force announced that state troopers had conducted second interviews with persons who were questioned immediately after Michele went missing. Butler County District Attorney Sheryle Long said they had a few leads and expressed optimism about solving the case.

But the case remains unsolved. Michele would be 47 today.

Anyone with information about Michele's whereabouts is asked to contact the Pennsylvania State Police in Butler at 724-284-8100 or the Zelienople Police Department at 724-452-3003. All information may be submitted on an anonymous basis.

For more information about this and other missing person cases, visit Pennsylvania Missing Persons, NamUs or the Doe Network.

http://northhills.patch.com/articles/unsol...enbach-c277561e
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tatertot
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https://butlerdispatch.com/2017/06/19/unsol...g-senior-photo/

Unsolved Case: Seneca Valley teen disappeared in 1981 after taking senior photo
Posted By: Janice Calkoon: June 19, 2017

Butler County has several “well known” unsolved/cold cases… but some really touch your heart. Whether it’s the case of Cherrie Mahan or another, this is one that may bring a tear to your eye.

Michele Reidenbach, from Evans City, went to the Seneca Valley High School (now Intermediate High School) to pose for her senior picture on October 6th, 1981. Only shortly after leaving, she would never be seen again. Michele was so excited, she had saved $100 for a class ring and was about to finish her final year of high school, but tragedy struck.

Timeline of October 6th, 1981 (Date Michele went missing):

After leaving the high school, Michele went to work at Mel-Den TV at 240 South Main Street in Zelienople.

At 4PM, she left Mel-Den TV to go to the nearby Rite-Aid store to purchase cold medicine. The clerk confirmed the sighting.

After leaving Rite-Aid, the last sighting ever was from her boss, who noticed her in the “Super Duper” parking lot on South Main Street talking to someone in a red car.

The police found her school books and purse still at Mel-Den TV, this indicated she was planning to return back to work. Authorities believe she was abducted because:

She left her belongings at Mel-Den TV

Her $100 class ring money was still in her dresser at her house

She had school pictures taken that day

The police released limited details about her, claiming she was a white female, 5′-2″, 110 pounds, brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen in a wine-colored V-neck sweater and blue jeans. She also had a gold necklace with a “knot” pendant.

Michele’s disappearance led to questioning of friends and family members. Police still believe the suspect was someone she knew and trusted. David Neal (then 29 years old) of Seven Fields was one of those questioned. He was found guilty of murdering a transvestite in Pittsburgh, but no evidence could link him to Michele’s disappearance.

Pennsylvania State Police conducted second-interviews in 1993, with a few possible new leads. Back then, the police were optimistic about solving the case but the case was never closed nor solved. Michele would be 52 years old.
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