Mattie Lou Zabel -- Missing From Cedar Falls, Iowa Since 1978

Details from NamUs**: 

"Mattie worked as a teacher's aide at River Hills School in Cedar Falls, Iowa. She was reported missing to the Cedar Falls Police Department on March 21, 1978. She left a frozen chicken thawing in the kitchen sink for dinner. No clothing was taken and she would not have had the assets to walk away. The day after she went missing, one of her sons found her car at Black Hawk Park in Cedar Falls. The vehicle was found locked with Zabel’s purse inside. An extensive search by Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Deputies, search dogs, divers and a National Guard helicopter turned up no trace of Mattie."

 
Popular Tag: "Car Found Person Missing" is a popular tag for this site. It describes a missing person who either owned or was using a vehicle at the time of his/her disappearance. The vehicle is found but the person is not. Click the hashtag at the bottom of this blog post to see just how many times this pattern is present in missing person cases.

 

Missing Person: Mattie Lou Zabel

Alias: Her maiden name might have been Garner.
Last-contact date: March 21st, 1978 at about 130pm
The area where the MP was last seen: Black Hawk Park in Cedar Falls, Iowa
Link to government source: NamUs MP 

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VITAL DETAILS

Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 45 years old
Birthdate: March 7th, 1933
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Scar: None listed
Height/weight: 5'2" and 118 pounds
BMI*: Mattie Lou Zabel was in the normal range for BMI.
Tattoos: Mattie Lou Zabel did not have any tattoos associated with her profiles. If you know that the missing person did have tattoos, then please post a remark at the end of this blog post on the matter.

Mattie Lou Zabel, a missing person, was last heard from on March 21st, 1978 when she was 45 years old. This individual has now been missing for about 43 years as of the original publication date of this blog post. 

I did find that this person had some information available at Ancestry. Her information there takes for granted that she died at about the time of her disappearance.

One detail that I think is missing from a lot of the online profiles for this individual is that she was seen at the park where her car was found. The way the NamUs description reads, we're to believe that the frozen chicken thawing in the sink (it was on the counter according to the husband) was the last evidence that was seen of her. However, the park staff saw her at the park. Furthermore, footprints that were presumed to be of the missing woman were found near the river.

Thu, Mar 23, 1978 – 3 · The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) · Newspapers.com

What would have been interesting in this case if they found footprints leading away from the river or a second set of footprints near hers. But in early journalism after the disappearance, there was no indication of foul play. 

The river around where the footprints were found was searched many times by divers. About four months after she disappeared, someone spotted a body in the same river downstream in a town called Gilbertville. The sheriff of Cedar Falls wondered if it was that of the missing woman. The person who saw this body claimed that it had long hair and a green shirt. I did not find any follow-up journalism on this lead until 1992 when there was a suggestion that it was someone else. It seems that a description of what the missing person was wearing as per the park staff would have helped.

Wed, Jun 7, 1978 – 5 · The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa) · Newspapers.com

In addition to the NamUs description at the start, according to her case summary at Iowa Cold Cases all of the following are true:

• she had a husband and three children
• "Police hypothesized that Zabel either fell into the swift and swollen Cedar River while taking a walk or committed suicide"
• This missing person was known to struggle with depression but was thought to be improving
• Her credit cards were not used in the years after her disappearance and she was declared dead in absentia seven years later

If these kinds of mysteries intrigue you, then you can find more like them at Websleuths.com.

Author: Shane Lambert, (Freelance Writer)

All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

Shane Lambert, (Freelance Writer) is not a Private Investigator, however, he is currently studying to be one as of March 2021.

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Website hashtag: #MPCSL

*For BMI values, I use the UPPER or HIGHER ranges that are given for height and weight.
**Text might be paraphrased. If taken verbatim, then grammar or spelling errors are not necessarily corrected from original sources.
Disclaimer: Whenever possible, government sources are preferred for getting the details of a missing person's case. However, any source that the article writer deems reputable may be used.

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