Case Details
- Photo URLs:
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- Missing Since:
- Missing Since 01/16/1981
- Missing From:
- Missing From Fort Myers, Florida
- Classification:
- Classification Non-Family Abduction
- Gender:
- Female
- Race:
- Race White
- Date of Birth:
- Date of Birth 12/13/1963 (61)
- Age:
- Age 17 years old
- Height and Weight:
- Height and Weight 5’4 – 5’5, 105 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description:
- Clothing/Jewelry Description A brown velveteen jacket, a white pullover shirt, designer blue jeans, brown pumps, two gold bracelets, and a gold necklace with a charm.
- Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, green/hazel eyes. Mary has a scar between the fingers of her left hand. She wore braces on her teeth at the time of her disappearance, and she smoked cigarettes. Her ears are pierced.
- Details of Disappearance:
- On January 16, 1981, 18-year-old Mary Opitz vanished from the Edison Mall parking lot in Fort Myers, Florida. She’d been at the mall with her family, bought pretzels, and said she was going back to their car. An hour later, her pretzels and shopping bags were found on the car, but Mary was gone.
Initially, police thought she ran away. But her family knew this wasn’t true. Mary was saving money, redecorating her room, and had left her purse and extra clothes behind.
A month later, another young woman, Mary Elizabeth Hare, disappeared from the *same* parking lot. Hare looked like Mary Opitz. Both were from New York, had similar accents, and were well-behaved teens. Sadly, Hare’s body was found murdered months later. This made police suspect foul play in Mary Opitz’s disappearance.
Investigators believe Christopher Wilder, a serial criminal, may be responsible. Wilder was linked to many disappearances, rapes, and murders of young women in the early 1980s, often luring them with fake modeling jobs. He was eventually killed in a shootout with police in 1984.
Despite the suspicions surrounding Wilder, Mary Opitz has never been found, and her case remains a mystery.
- Agency:
- Lee County Sheriff’s Office 239-477-1200
- Source Links:
This person was missing Missing Since 01/16/1981