disappearance of Patricia Meehan

Patricia Bernadette Meehan (; November 1, 1951

Background Patricia Meehan was born to Delores "Dolly" and Thomas Meehan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she was raised. On April 19, 1989the day before her disappearanceMeehan spoke with her father in Pittsburgh over the phone, telling him she was under stress and wanted to come home.

Disappearance At 8:15pm on the night of April 20, Peggy Bueller and her father were traveling west on Montana Highway 200 near Circle, Montana, when they witnessed a vehicle heading east driving on the wrong side of the road. Bueller managed to swerve onto the shoulder, avoiding a head-on collision, but the vehicle crashed into the car traveling behind her, driven by off-duty police dispatcher Carol Heitz. Heitz emerged from the wreckage unharmed; on the road, she witnessed a blonde woman emerge from the other car, walk up to her and stare as though she were "looking right through her."

Investigation

In their search immediately following the crash, police discovered a trail of tennis shoe tracks beginning in a desolate field approximately from the scene of the crash. and neither law enforcement nor Meehan's family could explain her reasons for being in the area. or stowing away on a hay truck that had been parked from the crash site, though no sightings were reported to support either claim.

Reported sightings There have been over 5,000 reported sightings of a woman resembling Meehan since her disappearance.

On May 4, 1989, a police officer in Luverne, Minnesota, claimed to have seen Meehan sitting inside a Hardee's restaurant; she had been drinking water alone in a booth for over five hours until the restaurant's closing time, then walked to a nearby 24-hour diner. When the officer questioned her, the woman refused to give her name, and claimed to be from Colorado and then Israel. one in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where a waitress claimed Meehan had sat inside a truck stop diner drinking coffee from 12 am to 11:30am; the same day, a waitress at another diner in Murdo, South Dakota, reported seeing Meehan between 10pm and 11pm in the company of a man who appeared to be in his thirties. The following week, on May 19, 1989, a waitress at a restaurant near Meehan's home in Bozeman reported seeing her there. According to the waitress, Meehan ordered and ate breakfast in a hurried manner, and mentioned that she had to go shopping at 9am.

Over two weeks later, on May 30, a woman resembling Meehan was seen by a passing truck driver on Interstate 90 in rural Washington State. The driver offered her a ride, which she declined, and the woman told another passing female motorist that her car had broken down and that she was going to find a phone.

By June 1989, over twenty-five sightings of Meehan had been reported, three of which were confirmed by police. The woman bore a resemblance to Meehan, and the arresting officer initially believed it to be her. On September 1, the woman appeared in a Kootenai County court, where she claimed before the judge to be a missionary traveling between Montana and Washington. Although the reported sighting made news in The Seattle Times, it was confirmed through fingerprint analysis that the woman was not Meehan. which would have been Meehan's 38th birthday.