Marilyn Kay Pratt -- Missing From Spokane Since 1971

Details from NamUs**: "Marilyn was last seen on the evening of 10/08/1971 by her husband and friends at a local restaurant. Marilyn only had her purse with her when she was last seen. Marilyn has not been seen or made any contact with family or friends since that evening."

Missing Person: Marilyn Kay Pratt

Alias: Lynn Pratt
Last-contact date: October 8th, 1971
The area where the MP was last seen: Spokane, Washington

• Spokane is a small city in America's northwest; the closest major city would be Seattle

Link to government source: NamUs #MP77394

Ethnicity: White/Asian mix

Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 30 years old
Hair details: Brown
Eye details: Blue
Scars: Abdomen
Height/weight: 5-foot-2 to 5-foot-6 and 160 to 170 pounds
BMI*: The missing person was overweight by BMI at the time of the last contact.

• BMI is body mass index. It relates to an individual's height and weight.

Marilyn Kay Pratt was mainly associated with the area around Spokane, Washington. Marilyn has not been seen since October 8th, 1971 when she was 30 years old.

This missing person's case was not really below the radar: there were numerous newspaper articles that were published regarding her disappearance. Many of them appeared in The Spokane Chronicle or The Spokesman-Review. I did not find anything that was published close to her date of disappearance. The first mention of her that I found in relation to her disappearance was in 1979.

Mon, Mar 5, 1979 – 2 · Spokane Chronicle (Spokane, Washington) · Newspapers.com

Wed, Mar 7, 1979 – 11 · The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington) · Newspapers.com

She was declared legally dead on April 10th, 1979. There was a huge article in The Spokesman-Review on May 10th, 1983. It raised the question of who the real Marilyn Pratt was. She is depicted as a borderline alcoholic in that article, someone that may have cheated on her spouse. The article left open the question of whether she was alive or dead.

On the balance of everything, this felt like a missing person case where the individual might have been alive after she disappeared.  The husband wanted to have her declared dead in absentia so that she couldn't return and take custody of the children. The sense I got was that he was bitter that she walked out on him. I did not get the feeling that he was involved in her disappearance.

A married woman, with five children, with what relatives called a drinking problem, that lived in a poor neighborhood, that walked out of a bar after a small argument and then disappeared permanently is probably somebody that hit a breaking point. If she did crack, then the question is what did she do next? Join a life with another man? There was a hint of infidelity with Marylin. There's also the possibility of suicide.

What would be interesting in this case is a Jane Doe with particulars that match Marylin in the Spokane area. However, with a chance that she lived after her last-seen date, it would be interesting to produce an authenticated document that suggests that she tried to enter a different life somewhere else.

If you know where this person might be or have any information on this case, then please contact the authorities. In Canada, look for Canada's Missing website with the Federal government. In the USA, you can look for the NamUs profile. Conversely, you can post a remark to this article.

*For BMI values, I use the UPPER or HIGHER ranges.

**Content may be paraphrased or verbatim. If verbatim, grammar or spelling errors are not necessarily corrected from original sources.