Where Is Peggy Lynn Alt? Lost Since March 2, 1985

Missing Person: Peggy Lynn Alt

Image: The plaid coat Peggy Lynn Alt was last seen wearing on March 2, 1985.

Details from a Government Source

On March 2, 1985, Peggy L. Alt was last seen at her High Ridge, Missouri, residence. She was reported missing by her father on March 4, 1985—her 18th birthday. She has not been heard from since, with no contact with family. Foul play is suspected.

Last Seen Wearing: The jacket shown above.

Last Contact: March 2, 1985 (Saturday)
Last Location: Her residence, High Ridge, MO (Williams Creek Road)
Age at Disappearance: 17
DOB: March 4, 1967
Sex: Female
Height: 60 inches
Weight: 125 lbs
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Hair Color: Blond/strawberry
Eye Color: Brown
Distinctive Mark: Burn scar on left arm, near bicep
Government Source: MP9849
Discussion Page: Peggy Lynn Alt

Commentary and Research

By: Shane Lambert
Written: March 8, 2025

Has Peggy Lynn Alt Been Found?

As of March 8, 2025, Peggy remains missing. Reported absent on her 18th birthday, her family likely noticed her absence that day. She vanished two days earlier, on a Saturday, which may not have initially raised alarm. In 2011, the case was reopened, including a search of a cistern near High Ridge, but no new leads emerged.

Sources on Her Disappearance

Per The Charley Project, Peggy packed her belongings and left voluntarily on March 2, 1985. Hitchhiking is a possible but risky travel method she may have used, especially in 1985 when the FBI noted numerous unsolved cases linked to transients on highways like I-44 and I-55, which connect High Ridge to neighboring states. Authorities showed little initial interest, halting the search after 11 days. A 2015 article in the Leader (Tracy Bruce, March 28, 2015) revisited her case.

Serial Killers Near High Ridge, MO in 1985: Relevance to Peggy Lynn Alt’s Disappearance

Organized by Serial Killer

Charles Ray Hatcher

Active Period: 1960s–1982

Primary Location: St. Joseph, MO; IL, CA (~300 miles from High Ridge, St. Joseph)

Victim Profile: Children, adults (varied)

Status in March 1985: Dead (since Dec 1984)

Relevance to Peggy’s Case: None – Dead in 1985. X

Lorenzo J. Gilyard

Active Period: 1977–1993

Primary Location: Kansas City, MO (~250 miles from High Ridge)

Victim Profile: Adult women (often prostitutes)

Status in March 1985: Active, not yet caught

Relevance to Peggy’s Case: Low – Far, profile mismatch. ?

Robert Berdella

Active Period: 1984–1987

Primary Location: Kansas City, MO (~250 miles from High Ridge)

Victim Profile: Young men (lured to home)

Status in March 1985: Active, not yet caught

Relevance to Peggy’s Case: None – Men targeted, far. X

Kenneth McDuff

Active Period: 1966; 1989–1992

Primary Location: Texas (~700 miles from High Ridge)

Victim Profile: Young women (varied methods)

Status in March 1985: Incarcerated (paroled Oct 1989)

Relevance to Peggy’s Case: None – In prison until 1989. X

Terry Blair

Active Period: 1982; 1990s–2004

Primary Location: Kansas City, MO (~250 miles from High Ridge)

Victim Profile: Women (known or prostitutes)

Status in March 1985: Incarcerated (released 1991)

Relevance to Peggy’s Case: None – In prison, no 1985 link. X

Ottis Toole

Active Period: 1960s–1983 (possibly later)

Primary Location: Multi-state (incl. AR, OK) (~150–300 miles from High Ridge, AR, OK)

Victim Profile: Varied (often hitchhikers)

Status in March 1985: Incarcerated in FL (~1,000 miles)

Relevance to Peggy’s Case: None – In prison, ruled out. X

In March 1985, when Peggy Lynn Alt disappeared from High Ridge, Missouri, one serial killer was actively operating in Missouri: Lorenzo J. Gilyard. Gilyard, known as the Kansas City Strangler, was in the midst of his 1977–1993 killing spree, targeting adult women—often prostitutes—in Kansas City, Missouri, approximately 250 miles from High Ridge.

Do you have information about Peggy Lynn Alt’s disappearance? If it is SOLID information, contact the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. If you have an idea to share, feel free to offer your thoughts in the comments below.

Susan Redding -- Missing from Georgia Since 1981

Details from NamUs**: 

Susan left Washington and returned to Georgia in 1975. She was last seen by family at her mother's home and there is no information to indicate she went back to Washington State. She was last heard from when she called her mother and grandmother’s homes in the mid-1980s, prior to her father's death in 1987.

Missing Person: Susan Redding (no legal middle name)

Parents: Frank and Margaret Redding (according to a person I interviewed online that claimed to be the MP's sister)

Might go by: Curly, Sue (doesn't go by Randy according to Susan's sister; NAMUS says she did go by Randy, in contrast)
Last-seen: April 8th, 1975 (inconsistent as per sources; other source says 1981, sister says 1975)

Last-contact: there's a suggestion in the NamUs description that this person was known to be alive in the early 1980s because of a phone call
The area where the MP was last seen: Decatur, Georgia, but the missing person had links to Seattle, Washington
Link to government source: NamUS #MP20630

VITAL DETAILS

Ethnicity: Black, African American
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 16 years old
Birthdate: April 8th, 1959 in Griffin, Spaulding County, Georgia
Hair: Black, often wore a wig
Eyes: Brown
Scar: Above right eye
Height/weight: 5-foot-4 and 105 to 115 pounds
BMI*: Susan Redding was in the normal range for BMI.

• BMI is body mass index. It relates to an individual's height and weight. I include it believing it can help picture a missing person or describe one.

Tattoos: Susan Redding did not have any tattoos associated with her profiles. If you know this to be a mistake, then please contact this site.

Susan Redding's "last-seen" date is not clear. Some sources say she went missing on her birthday in 1975, however, her NamUs profile specifies the last contact of 1981. 

An individual who identified as Susan's sister contacted me on August 24th, 2021. She said that Susan was last seen on April 8th, 1975 in Decatur, Georgia. The sister of Susan said that Susan was going to the dry cleaners. She was in the company of an older white man. There was, according to Susan's sister, some kind of dispute between this man and one of Susan's brothers because of the age gap between Susan and the man. Susan may have been a prostitute at this point in her life, according to the sister. She had recently gone through some changes in terms of her personal style.

NAMUS says Susan may have been heard from in the mid-1980's via a phone call (but not after 1987). The date she was last seen and the date she was last heard from can certainly be different. However, this is a case where the details are not really ironed out. 

Susan's sister said that the phone call was placed to the grandmother's home shortly after the grandmother's death. The death of the grandmother occurred in October 1982 and the phone call would have been in the days afterward. The call was answered by a now-deceased aunt. According to the sister, Susan may have hung up the phone when she heard the mother's voice in the background. Susan appeared to be calling to discuss the death of her grandmother but Susan was estranged from her mother and that's a possible explanation as to the abrupt phone call ending. 

Nonetheless, that Susan learned of the grandmother's death suggests that she was in the verbal grapevine of a family member still as there wasn't social media back in the 1980s or even Internet. When someone died, you usually learned from a family member or the newspaper obituaries with the former being more likely, in my opinion. What this case sounds like, in my opinion, is a voluntary disappearance that has resulted in an unclear fate and there are family members who would like answers.

What stands out with this case, is the fact that she often wore a wig. If you are looking among the Jane Doe databases for this missing person, then any Jane Doe that was found with a wig can be cross-referenced against Susan's profile. That would involve looking at the date of death versus Susan's date of disappearance, her height, and other considerations.

The missing person did not have any articles or items associated with her missing person's reports, at least of the ones that I consulted. That probably has something to do with the fact that her missing-date details are not very clear at all.

I was not able to find a missing person journalist article at Newspapers.com. Websleuths looking at this missing person could do their own search to see if they can locate one. Furthermore, it would help to know this missing person's middle name as there are a lot of other people named Susan Redding, even with a similar birth year.

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

Author: @UncoolNegated on Twitter

All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

@UncoolNegated on Twitter is not a Private Investigator, however, he is currently studying to be one as of March 2021.

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: Information posted is thought to be correct as of the time posting. If a missing person is found, then this article might stay posted until that is noticed. I try to stay on top of the news but it's not possible to follow all cases. Articles will be edited or deleted when credible news of the missing person is authenticated.