Simone Ridinger /// Part 1 /// 713 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Music] n [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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[Music] crime Simone ridinger was 17 Going on 30 she was mature for her age maybe a
little rebellious but definitely hardworking and smart at 17 she was already trying to
make her way in this world carving out her own path as she Advanced into young adulthood but life can move pretty fast
sometimes and that most certainly was the experience of Simone's family friends co-workers and
unfortunately the members of law enforcement that have worked Simone's case you see Simone disappeared back in
the late 70s she was last seen outside of her place of work the rainbow restaurant a nice quaint joint favored
by the locals the rainbow resta fed the good people and probably a few of the bad ones as well in the town of natic
Massachusetts the rainbow was open for breakfast and lunch but by midafternoon it was closing time and the end of a
shift and a day's work for the weight staff and Cooks today it's a bagel shop located at 9 South Maine across the
street from natic common the perfect location for a window pane facade and in 1977 a perfect
central location to meet up with someone after work or a great pickup spot for a
ride somewhere maybe even a ride out of town this is the still very solvable missing person's case of Simone ridinger
and this is true crime garage hold me what you do me me me what you do to me me what you do Simone ridinger was
last seen in the afternoon of September 2nd 1977 a lot of the reports out there will
say that she was last seen sometime between noon and 400 p.m. on September 2nd 1977 but that news is old news here is
what we know here's what we now know to be what the investigators believe to be true the true events of that day the day
in question September 2nd 1977 this day was a Friday the Friday leading into the long holiday weekend
for Labor Day 1977 Simone was a little more into adulthood than most are at the young age
of of 17 she already had a job and she already had an apartment unfortunately what Simone needs is an automobile and I
don't say that to be flippant about this situation but rather to be suggestive of
how things may have played out here in this still missing person's case like you said Simone is 17 years old she's
about 5 to 115 lbs yeah and one thing you and I were talking about off mic here was this case sticking around and I
think that this is the appropriate time in the show that we should hand out an attaboy and some very much well-deserved
praise and thank you because when this case first broke there was not a lot of information regarding The Disappearance
of Simone in fact we will see and go through some of the complications of this case especially early on in the
investigation but what we are going to see in this case is is the Sherborn police department and the detectives
that stuck with this case over the years and what they did is they reached out to
the media local and otherwise it's the old help me to help you scenario Sherborn PD comes out from time to time
periodically and talks with the newspapers they talk with the local news stations and they say here is what we
know here is what we think about this case and here's what we would like to know about Simone ridinger and the
events of that day or even weekend please let us know what you know because there there's a lot of information
there's a lot of blank spots in this timeline and the only way that this case is going to get solved is for
information to come forward new information and the adoy goes to the police department and the detectives
that have worked this case over the years for taking this information to the public and saying hey here's the story
of this young woman who went missing we are looking for information from the public and that has yielded information
time and time again when they've reached out to different media sources and that is something that
doesn't happen in every jurisdiction now there are a lot of cases out there that sadly someone goes
missing in the 70s and the case it drops from the news news eventually and people
move on the story goes away information stops coming in Simone's case is different because of the actions of the
Sherborne Police Department so over the years they have put out there a lot of what they know about the case and every
time they seem to find a new lead or more importantly someone with additional information someone who saw Simone
someone who knew her so for years they had the info of well Simone was last seen sometime between noon and 400 p.m.
On That September 2nd right and later after reaching out to the public police get contacted by two persons that worked
with Simone saying that they had never been interviewed by police before so they are able to provide some more
information and some clarification to Simone's movements and timeline of events for that day and what we will see
Captain is immediately with speaking with the the people that worked with her and believed that they worked with her
on that very day we can now close that window a little bit from noon to 4 to more likely 2:30 and it seems like
they're very concerned about the 3 to 400 p.m. range of that afternoon so we will see how this e and flow of
information will slowly shape this investigation over the years this is a good strategy not just for this case but
for other cases which law enforcement would do more of this not just share the information that they know but also
share the questions that they would like to have answered well and one person that we've given praise to plenty of
times on this show is Lou Smith great detective the late great L Smith who said that every one of his cases every
one of his homicide cases he would revisit them once a year every year if not for any other reason than
just to stir the pot because information can come about you shake some trees and
you see what comes out you stop shaking the trees nothing's going to fall in your lap but so back to the timeline
what what we learn from her co-workers is that she was scheduled to work up till 300 p.m. well in part that has to
do with the schedule of the restaurant itself right so it's open for breakfast and lunch not open for dinner Simone
worked that day and she had worked there I'm getting conflicting stories some say
that she had worked there for that summer and some have have said that she worked there on and off
for a good part of two years now of course we're looking at this case in the rear view mirr 46 years
later some of it gets a little fuzzy right the further you get away from this information and from the events back
then it gets a little fuzzy so we know she was hardworking we know know at the time she actually had her own
apartment and she left her job at the rainbow restaurant on South Main Street and the understanding the general
consensus here Captain is that she was going to hitchhike from NAIC Massachusetts to Cape Cod Massachusetts
yeah it wasn't uncommon for her to hitchhike but she would normally dis hitchhike back home which was only a few
miles away so on February September 1977 it's the Friday of Labor Day weekend and Simone ridinger had just
finished her shift waitressing at the rainbow restaurant on South Main Street in NAIC Massachusetts Simone's family
say that Simone had plans she was heading to Cape Cod to catch a fery to Martha's Vineyard where she was looking
forward to meeting up with family at the family's champ atic Cottage yeah sounds
fancy but I believe this was just a a cabin with no electricity and they didn't even have phone lines yeah the
way that this was described to me is pretty much as a vacation Bungalow type of property the kind of place where it
was fantastic to stay for a weekend a long weekend maybe even a week but a place that is not really set up or
equipped for one to live there for an extended period Simone has an older stepsister her name is Betsy and Betsy's
about two years or so older than Simone and she would later tell detectives that
she stopped by the rainbow restaurant on that day the day in question to see if Simone wanted a ride to the bus station
she thought her sister would hitch a ride to the bus station get a ride or she could offer her a ride to the bus
station you got to take the bus all the way out and then you're going to hop a ferry so there's a lot of traveling that
has to be done Planes Trains and automobile style here to get to her destination yeah from the rainbow
restaurant to Cape Cod we're looking at about 70 miles so what we have here is unfortunately Simone turns down the
offering of a ride from her steps sister and what's unclear to me Captain is what time of day this offer came
about I know that it came about in person right step sister goes to the restaurant offers a
ride my guess here is based off of what the later eyewitness reports would be that this was not at the very end of her
shift that this would have been prior to the end of her shift yeah she might have
turned down this ride simply because she couldn't get out of work in time and didn't want to be a hindrance to her
like yeah just you know no I got to finish work how about you just go on your way I'll be fine there are some
that say that Simone almost preferred to hitchhike and I don't know what the the
dynamic of the two's relationship was it sounds like they were fairly close that
they were very friendly and they they were in regular contact if not daily contact with each other but I have some
other suspicions on maybe why she turned that ride down and we'll get into that as we go through once we get past our
our timeline or at least the known events and details of this day in question right so according to Betsy
steps sister this is after a brief interaction with Simone she learned that Simone was all set didn't need a ride or
didn't want a ride from her a quick description here you heard part of it from the captain earlier of our missing
persons at the time of The Disappearance Simone Stephanie ridinger was age 17 5'2
in or 3 in tall approximately 115 to 120 lbs with brown eyes and wavy strawberry
blonde hair we've covered so many cases like this and one of the things that struck me when looking into this case I
I don't know if it struck you but it it seems like there's been a pattern lately
where under 53 roughly 100 to 120 lbs we see that time and time again with with descriptions of these victims family and
friends said that Simone wasn't shy about talking to strangers and meeting new people and due to the fact that
Simone would regularly hitchhike rides from both friends acquaintances and strangers it's believed that she planned
to hitch a ride to the cape and that maybe the bus idea was not even in her plans Simone's sister says quote it
doesn't surprise me that she would have hitchhiked and quote Simone's family and
co-workers they never see her again after this window that afternoon now on September 11
1977 Simone's mother her name is Jane Barrett she walks into the Sherborn police station and reported her daughter
missing to officer George Stevens Simone's mother in Champa quic on the vineyard for Labor Day
weekend this is where we start to see the complications in the timeline we know that s mother is in champ atic on
the vineyard for the Labor Day weekend she's there she just figured the Simone didn't make it out to the island and as
you brought up the home didn't have electricity or a phone so it wouldn't be terribly out of the question that she
didn't hear from her daughter to let her know hey plans changed maybe I have to work something came up or I can't get a
ride out there I'm not going to be able to join you for the weekend yeah and a couple things here so you have Simone's
supposed to get out there September 2nd so at first like you said the mom is thinking well maybe she met up with some
friends maybe we'll see her tomorrow she doesn't show up the next day well maybe
she changed her mind maybe people at work were like hey there's some there's some stuff going on here why don't you
just stay in town but like you said there's no way to check so that's why there's such a a distance in Time family
doesn't see her on the 2 they're not able to report her missing till the the 11th right yeah and here what we're
seeing Captain is truly just a breakdown of communication or a complete lack of communication due to the
circumstances so while you have Mom at the cottage she just assumes that Simone is
fine and is back at home at home you have steps sister Betsy who simply believes that her younger
step sister is at the cottage right and from my understanding this is where the new information the new stories in the
newspaper articles that have come out over the years due to the good work of the Sherborn police really work to kind
of clear things up so they don't shy away from the fact that the investigation was complicated from the
beginning and they also don't shy away from the fact that there were probably persons that should have been
interviewed back in 1977 that were not well they made some missteps and but we see this time and time again yeah she's
only 17 but she's living as an adult see that's that in there lies a big problem
I feel like because because we hear so many times in these cases where we have a missing teenager and someone says well
they they probably run away and I'm not saying it's not always law enforcement that that says that but that's an easy
leap to make they probably ran away especially in the 70s that's so very common but here it's like run away from
what they're not living she's not living with Mom and Dad right she has her own apartment she's as independent as a
17-year-old could be and so runaway here seems to be cross a line through that because that doesn't
seem like much of an option to me in this situation well we don't have people saying that she has friends in other
states or other cities where she could start a new life or oh maybe she has a romantic interest in another state
there's no there's no rumors of that and my my issues with the police in this case or any case
where they just go well she probably ran away to me it's just a lazy thought it's
like no let's let's just assume that something bad happened let's do the investigation within the next couple
days we might find out that she left on her own accord and then that's fine but and one thing that complicates our
situation in the storytelling here is we do not know what the interaction was between police and family back in 1977
so I can't sit here with any confidence and say the police believe that she had run away and that is why maybe they
didn't jump into full on Investigation mode well also in defense of law enforcement when the last known sighting
of her is on the second and she's not reported missing they're not notified till the 11th so we know how much that
first First 48 72 hours is important in an investigation and you lost that yeah so here here in lies some of the the
problems right the complications with this case early on we have the the facts are
that sister back at home who almost had daily contact with her stepsister doesn't see Simone and makes the obvious
the assumption that any of us would make we know she has plans to join mom out at
the cottage Cottage doesn't have a phone she's probably just out there with her the this entire time right Mom on the
other hand believes the opposite well Simone didn't make it out here she's probably just back at her apartment
everything's fine steps sister and Mom don't talk to each other during the course of of the time frame that we're
talking about the other problem too that we later learn is not so much that it was a long Labor Day weekend trip but
the police are now under the belief based of information that they received well after the fact that this was very
likely a weeklong trip for Mom out to the cottage right so that is when a lot of Suspicion
is really truly raised is when Mom gets back so what we have here years later we'll have this step sister that will
say you know she grew a little concerned after the holiday weekend but again mom is still out at
the cottage maybe Simone is is as well and it's not until mom gets back that this official missing persons report is
is reported to the Sherborn Police Department the other problem too is not just the delay in this
report but also the locations of everything okay so we have multiple locations involved in this
very short story right mom lives in Sherborn Simone lives in Framingham she works in
natic they're supposed to be out at the cottage at Chapa quic so we got four locations involved in a story that
really is you're really trying to hone in on a 24 to 48 hour time period and you got four locations involved in in in
that time period Well three of the locations are closer together and then you have like we said that 70 Mi
distance to the cape and so that complicates things even [Music] more [Music] [Music]
me what you do to me me what you do to me all right we are back cheers mates onward and
upward cheers to you cheers to everybody out there so we have our missing persons
report right and as the complaint reads from September 11 1977 Jane Barrett and it gives her
address here she lives in Sherborn as we already discussed reported her daughter
Simone Stephanie ridinger and gives a brief description of her daughter in this complaint as
well she says that the last known whereabouts of her daughter is that Friday that September 2nd Jane said that
she was supposed to go to the cape on that day to arrive by the 3 so that's a little bit of an interesting piece of
information right we're talking about this is not a location that would take you a full day to get
to but Mom is under the understanding that her daughter will be arriving on satday Saturday and we know her last day
at work was that Friday but she said that she never had left and yeah I believe the the travel time was also
because there's a possibility that Simone would meet up with some friends out on Cape Cod that that was a
possibility yes and we already went through that brief description a couple of times but to include and add to that
it says on this report last known to be wearing Indian print purple wraparound skirt medium brown leather boots so
that's all you get on this report now we do get a follow-up report and I believe
that this one is probably simply from just a month or two months afterward where we have another report filed
there's no date for this filing maybe it's just further information off of the first report but
let's go back to what she was wearing last scene wearing Indian wrap skirt purple boots broad brim leather
hat silver jewelry and turquoise stones and again this one has the updated information of saying possibly
hitchhiking toward Cape Cod so obviously we know that Simone worked at the rainbow restaurant that day we have
eyewitnesses that say that she worked there we have her steps sister that said she was working there that day we don't
have a definitive time of the last time somebody saw her seems like that is a little
blurry between 230 and 3 and yeah and the I think in part the noon to 4 right look a couple of these people
that came forward years and decades later that worked at the rainbow restaurant told police we were not
interviewed I I was not questioned back then in 1977 and here is what I remember
but one thing that I think that police did do well and it was smart to do so in that original bolo the the missing
persons report that went out to the public to be on the lookout for when they originally had that window
of noon to 4: I think that's quite responsible because I think they you know people aren't walking around
tracking every minute of their day and I think that that was a bit of a strategy
to say you know what we don't want anybody to exclude something based off of if they have information but it's a
half an hour different outside of the window that we believe we should be looking at here and so that is is a good
way for people to not dismiss anything and still come forward and frankly to be with this case police are saying at this
point we welcome any and all information as they have for for many years about Simone's case like you don't have to
know what happened to her right you also don't have to believe that you were one
of the last people to have seen her we are really just trying to fill in the blanks of her life and the events of her
life in that last couple of months before she went missing so really if if you know anything about her please let
us know so we can we can work to put together a more comprehensive timeline and more information about our
victim here well then one of the questions I had for you when I was looking into this
is if Simone was working at like a a gift shop and they closed at 3 then all the employees would leave together but
because it's a restaurant and like we said we've kind of we kind of narrowed it down from that 12 to 4 time period to
closer to 3:00 p.m. correct but but I wonder if that and maybe you can speak on this more because of your knowledge
of restaurants but normally if the restaurant is getting slower that they start releasing uh waiters and waitresses yeah
you rarely do you that that's one of the Annoying parts of working at a restaurant of in my experience anyway is
that if a friend or someone that you're you're trying to hang out with after work says hey what time what time will
you be done you kind of got to Ballpark it a little bit for him because often there's no set time to leave unless
you're like a closer right if unless you know that you're going to be there up until the moment that the doors closed
then you know it usually takes me x amount of minutes to clean everything up clean up my station do my outwork
and I'll be leaving 30 to 40 minutes as long as I don't have any squatters in the restaurant I will should be leaving
30 40 minutes after we close and this situation I actually think that that is probably very close to the situation
okay so we know that this is a restaurant that was only open for breakfast and lunch not open for dinner
at all and a lot of times in these cases and I can't say that this is absolutely
true this is just going off of an educated guest but a lot of times at these types
of establishments because they have shortened hours that they're open right A lot of times people were working the
breakfast and lunch shift and so in Simone's case here I think that it's pretty safe to say based
off of two different eyewitnesses two different people that were working with her that day that she worked up until
pretty close to the the time that the restaurant closed closed in fact may have worked through the closing time and
then left the restaurant shortly afterward according to these two eyewitnesses who worked with her that
day they say that the last they saw Simone riding her she walked out the front door of the restaurant everybody
was well aware of her plans and they saw her immediately attempting to hit your ride Thumb in the air
looking for a pickup on that street now that street is Main Street and it the nearest
intersection goes directly south east west and then North but it curves a little bit so it's
really difficult to this is not a country road out in the middle of nowhere where you can immediately go
well she either went North or South no she could have hopped in a car and very quickly within a matter of seconds been
heading in any direction that afternoon so I think really the time frame that that we're really trying
to pinpoint here is like that 300 p.m. to maybe 400 p.m. at the very latest based off of two persons that worked
with her that day I have some conflicting information from what you have because one of the eyewitnesses
that said she let saw her leave around 300 p.m. she had a duffel bag with her and so that she changed her clothes and
so they were saying that she was seen in blue jeans white T-shirt and white high
tops yes that's absolutely correct same jewelry as you were stating before yeah so the if you look there's a viap alert
for Simone ridinger and this is due in part to as we pointed out the Sherborn Police
Department's continued work on her case so this vicap report comes in in 2017 this is Sherborne police working to
get the FBI involved in this missing person's case so you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes or Adrien monk to figure
out what that means that means that they believe that Foul Play is involved that
that is why Simone is still missing that she encountered met with Foul Play and someone has concealed her to this day
that we've not been able to find her to this day so the FBI are involved they had the state police involved and and
there's been other organizations the national Center for missing and exploited children have been involved in
this case we know that because they were the ones that did the age progression of what she may look like
today I think they did that in 2017 as well right but the vicap report States attention homicide missing persons and
crime analysis units so those are the people that they were alerting about her being missing
and they give a couple pictures here of Simone they give a fairly zoomed in picture of her left hand that's really
kind of displaying some of that jewelry that we were talking about but you're exactly right Captain this report which
is the the most recent one gives a much different description of what Simone was
wearing that day blue jeans with rips and patches a white t-shirt white high top sneakers and a lot of silver
jewelry also Simone was carrying a gray duffel bag with her waitress uniform inside the waitress uniform is described
as a dark blue polyester skirt and vest top and the viap alert includes a drawing of
this polyester skirt and vest top okay so there's a little bit of background information here
on on this description what's difficult is we do not know where the the first description comes from it sounds like it
comes straight from her mother when she walked in and reported her daughter missing why they came up with that
outfit we don't know how did they come up with this other outfit well we know that this outfit is what the two
waitresses that were interviewed years decades later say this is what I remember her to be wearing and what's
interesting is these two persons are giving this description independently to the detectives right so
it seems to stand to reason that this is a very likely what she was last seen wearing in
these confirmed sightings by persons that are identifiable that they've spoke to directly this gray duffel bag is kind
of a common occurrence here at this restaurant so the The Waitresses tell the detectives years later look that
uniform all of us hated it right we all hated that uniform and almost every one of us would change in the the restroom
at work before even leaving before even going out the front doors of that restaurant well I think this duffel bag
kind of complicates things because this outfit maybe like you said described by the mother maybe she had multiple
outfits in that duffel bag we don't know we don't have any waitress coming forward saying I saw her open the duffel
bag and I looked through it right so where my head goes to here is based off of what we have the two waitresses
saying that we all hated the uniform everybody changed out of it before even leaving our
shift I'm guessing that she arrives to work in her work uniform or other clothes and that inside the gry duffel
bag when she arrives at work is this clothes clothing that we've just described the blue jeans with rips and
patches the white T-shirt and the uh possibly even the sneakers maybe she's wearing those and then she leaves before
leaving work she changes out of the work uniform which go then goes into the gry
duffel bag and now she puts on this outfit the reason why I say that because a lot of the early newspaper reports
they're interviewing The Stepfather they're interviewing the mother they're interviewing the sister and and all of
them are kind of saying the same thing you know the only thing that she had was clothing that she would have taken with
her for the trip for the weekend or you know now we hear that maybe mom was there for a whole week the waitresses
are saying something different and I don't I don't sit here and pretend that they would know 100% what is in this
gray duffel bag I trying to point out that I don't necessarily think think that maybe her first
destination was to the bus stop or to out to where she could catch a fery to chap
atic I'm starting to wonder if she doesn't have any clothing with her or anything else in that gray duffel bag
other than her work uniform was she intending her intent to return to her apartment first right and maybe possibly
that has something to do with turning down the ride with her sister and that she had one more two
more three more stops to make before she was going to make her way out to see Mom
because now we can cross reference this information with what mom told the police September 11
1977 my daughter was my understanding that she was going to arrive on that Saturday and I know she left work on
that Friday we have a big window of time there between those two air quotes scheduled events this is one of the
points of the case that just frustrates the hell of me and we can't reinie her because she has since passed
away it's when you have everybody that has been interviewed everybody that has come forward that
worked at that restaurant they're stating that she is going out to Cape Cod that day
by all accounts she was telling us what she was doing over the weekend we don't know if
she was going to be there for just the weekend or if she was going to be there for like a week like her her mother was
but it's just so strange to me that the mother wasn't expecting her till the following day MH cuz like you said well
then maybe she'd go back home maybe she wouldn't leave till the morning but that doesn't make sense with
the fact that the step sister offered her a ride to the bus station that day again what we do know from some of the
comments that the mother made is that she said well when she didn't show up I thought maybe she ran into some friends
at Cape Cod so you know there's there's these these gray areas and just like this case is so
frustrating too because she goes missing last scene on the 2 not reported till the
11th yeah it's by nobody's fault it's just what happened and then law enforcement questions a couple people
nobody's fault but there's not much information there so it's like well maybe she just ran away you're
doing exactly what law enforcement has done over the years it's cuz I'm where they're saying that
hey this is what we would like to know this is the information that we're seeking in this
case it's the discrepancies in some of these stories now there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all
of this we just don't know because we don't have the information yes but yes the the to break it down in its simplest
form why is Mother expecting Simone on the third and persons she works with in stepsister seem to be under the
impression that she's going out there on the second and it's not a greater great
enough distance that she would leave the afternoon of the 2 and not arrive until
Saturday the 3 right she would be there relatively early in the evening Saturday or sorry Friday night if she
was able to to make it directly from either her apartment or her work and head and get there in a reasonable time
frame she would be out there Friday evening so why is there this discrepancy in in these situations why
is Mom under one belief and all these other people are under another belief now we talked about the waitresses
saying that they were not interviewed we don't have any reason to not believe them right what what what's the point in
them saying right well nobody bothered to talk to us what we do believe based off of information that we've reviewed
is that there were people at the restaurant that were talked to in 1977 we we have every reason to believe that
the owner who was very well-liked personable with the staff and employees and personable with Simone he was
interviewed we know that her parents were interviewed in' 77 as well as so she was not attending school at the time
we should probably fill in some of the blanks of Simone's life yeah she dropped out of high school and her plan was to
get her GED plan was to get the GED she she enjoyed working we know that she she
didn't shy away from working and and from earning she had her own place what she
didn't have was a vehicle or driver's license it's a little gray on when she dropped out of school some some say that
it was after her sophomore year some say after her junior year what we can say for certain is this
is right around what would be the start of a new school year so what we can say is that we know that she's not been in
school since school ended going into that summer right and she disappears at the end of the summer we know that she
gets her own apartment she gets her own apartment from my understanding it's about two months approximately 2 months
before she goes missing this apartment is incredibly interesting to me for a mult multitude of reasons here
Captain the story has always been that Mom helped her get this apartment probably needed to to sign something to
to vouch for her daughter because her daughter's not 18 yet it's hard to say because it was
1977 correct but I'm sure that the persons wanted to make sure that they were going to get paid and and I'm
stating this information of mother helping daughter find the apartment and get set up based off of what the police
are saying right so they say that Mom helped Simone get this apartment but the apartment seems to be a big
mystery because the first thing I wanted to know from detectives is well we have
all this these things that we're questioning we have all this this stuff that we just don't
know I don't understand why we don't know more about the apartment so she what we do know is she lived on the the
ground level of this apartment there were persons that lived on the ground level and lived in the upstairs as well
she had her own space her own apartment in this what sounds like a building to me and I do have the address here
which you know the problem is it seems to me Captain like most of the work done on this case is has been done years
after the fact and so there's a lot of information that they hope to learn but may never
learn so the address was 29 lyen Street Framingham and the first thing I said to
detectives was well people pay taxes properties pay taxes we got to find the tax
information on this property the brick wall that you run into unfortunately head first every damn
time is going to be you know they only started a lot of times they only started digitizing those tax records at a
certain year okay so they only make their way to computers at a certain year and often
times they're only going back so many years I can tell you from experience a case a case from the 70s that I was
working on myself I could only find tax records going back to the early 80s and so once I hit 1981 I hit that brick wall
no more information that I could gain VI a computer on the tax records for that particular property right I'm
assuming the same has happened here and then on top of that if you were able to figure out who was paying the property
tax I.E the owner of this building that was leasing a space to our missing person is even if you do find that
person's name are they even around anymore to talk to them to ask them what do you know where's your paperwork from
1977 probably don't have it so I wanted to know more about the persons that were living in this
building and what they would have known did they see anybody coming or going regularly from Simone's apartment was
there anybody that they were suspicious of yeah that makes sense because the police are here to tell
us and it's no more evident than in the vicap report you don't just you don't call up the FBI
and do a vicap report unless you think that this person was met with Foul Play yeah the MF
FBI so everyone is saying this is a murder case unfortunately we are at a time frame and at a period in this
investigation and have been for a very long time where we are now not looking for a missing person we are looking for
remains thank you for joining us here in the garage today if you are a member of law
enforcement or a first responder and you have a case from your jurisdiction that
you would like featured on True Crime garage please go to our website true Crim garage.com and look up our contact
information and until tomorrow be good be be kind and don't [Music] litter

Simone Ridinger /// Part 1 /// 713

Part 1 of 2

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17 year old Simone Ridinger was last seen September 2nd, 1977 leaving her place of work - The Rainbow Restaurant in Natick, Massachusetts that afternoon. At least one person knows more about this story. There has not been a confirmed sighting of Simone since. Simone’s case is still active with both the Sherborn Police Department and the F.B.I. anyone with information about the disappearance, Simone’s life and Simone’s friends should call the Sherborn Police Department at 508-653-2424. The Natick Police Department is seeking information about the murder of Janine Callahan who left her home to walk to work on November 9, 1985. Her remains were discovered on December 8, 1985 at the end of a dirt road, now known as Cherry Farm in Burrillville, Rhode Island. If you have information about this case or any other Rhode Island cold cases please call 1-877-RI-SOLVE.

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Brief Summary

Simone Ridinger, 17, disappeared in 1977; investigation reveals complications and ongoing search for answers.

Key points

A Breakdown in Communication. Simone's family assumed she was safe, leading to a delay in reporting her missing.
The Disappearance of Simone Ridinger. Simone Ridinger, a 17-year-old, vanished in 1977 after leaving work. Her case remains unsolved.
The Disappearance of Simone. Simone went missing after leaving work, with conflicting reports about her last seen outfit.
Foul Play Suspected. The FBI is involved, indicating that foul play is suspected in Simone's case.
Missing Person Search. The search continues for a missing person, with a call for community assistance.
True Crime Garage Invitation. Law enforcement and first responders are invited to feature cases on True Crime Garage.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the still very solvable missing person's case of Simone Ridinger.

Introducing the case of Simone Ridinger.

4:16WatchNov 8, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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