Thirty years ago, on March 2, 1985, Peggy Alt left her home on Williams Creek Road in High Ridge on foot, two days before her 18th birthday. No one reports ever seeing her again.
Peggy’s sister, Bobbie O’Kelley, 45, who now lives in Poplar Bluff, said she still holds a slim hope that her sister, who would now be 48, is alive. And she is haunted by the uncertainty.
“I can accept it if it turns out she is dead,” she said. “I don’t need to know who, what or when, just where she is and whether she’s OK or not.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) recently released a profile and two photographs of Peggy – one showing how she looked then, and an aged-enhanced photo of how she might look today – in order to call attention to the case on the 30th anniversary of her disappearance.
Lt. Gene “Doc” Coombs of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said the case offers no physical evidence, but a nagging mystery. An investigation into Peggy’s disappearance was canceled 11 days after it started. He has been unable to find out who called off the search or why.
Coombs reopened the case in 2011. He said he suspects foul play in Peggy’s disappearance, but he lacks evidence.
“A couple of folks are not talking. Until I get some physical evidence, there’s nothing more I can do. I’ve run out every lead,” he said.
Peggy’s father, Robert Alt, reported her missing to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office the day she disappeared, said O’Kelley, who was 15 at the time.
A formal report was taken by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at 8:43 p.m. on March 4, Coombs said.
But after “canceled” was written on the report on March 15, 1985, the investigation was dropped until Coombs became involved.
That happened when a Clay County detective called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office with a discovery, a skull with a bullet hole in it. O’Kelley had heard about the find and asked Clay County officials whether it could be her sister, Coombs said.
Coombs, who had recently joined the Jefferson County force, picked up the investigation. He said he met with Peggy’s mother, Marie Alt, who told him her daughter was still missing.
Once Coombs determined that Peggy Alt had never been found, he created a DNA profile for her using buccal swabs (a swab of the skin inside of the cheek) from her parents, who now live in Cedar Hill, as well as some of her siblings. The profile did not match the skull in Clay County.
Coombs then listed the profile with national NameUs databases, trying to find a match with unidentified remains. To date, there has been no match.
He also ordered a search of the grounds surrounding the family’s former home using cadaver dogs. When officers found a cistern, they dug it up and cleaned it out, but found no evidence. NCMEC paid for the excavation, Coombs said.
“The (property) owners were very cooperative,” he said.
Coombs said he has contacted Peggy’s boyfriend, a man who was 10 years older than Peggy.
“He was interviewed in depth and denied any knowledge of what happened,” Coombs said.
Since then, he has followed leads that go nowhere, he said.
“There are a lot of people who claim to know things who have a lot of innuendo and no substance,” Coombs said.
Peggy was a senior at Northwest High School when she went missing, O’Kelley said. She said her sister was also her best friend.
“I went to her for everything,” O’Kelley said. “She liked to take walks, was an avid reader and liked kids. She was fun-loving and sweet, but she had her moments. She was a normal teenage girl.”
Peggy was the second child of nine Alt children. The oldest child died in infancy. Of the remaining children, there were six girls and two boys. O’Kelley was the fourth child.
“It wasn’t a happy family,” O’Kelley said. “The five older girls looked out for each other, and when we got older we were baby sitters for the younger ones.”
Their mother worked nights and their father went from job to job, she said.
She said her sisters told her Peggy was missing when she woke up late on the morning of March 2.
“They said she had taken a walk and never came back,” O’Kelley said. “I thought she went to her boyfriend’s. She did that a lot.”
When Peggy didn’t come back by dark that day, though, O’Kelley said she knew something was wrong. She said her mother and Peggy’s boyfriend searched for Peggy for about two weeks.
In the years since, O’Kelley said she thought the Sheriff’s Office had been investigating the case all along.
“I was a little upset, a little shocked, and there are some things I didn’t know till now,” she said.
O’Kelley, who is married and works as an assistant manager at a Popeye’s restaurant, will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Hannibal-LaGrange University. O’Kelley and her husband have three children and three foster children.
“You never met your Aunt Peggy,” O’Kelley told one of her children in an aside during a phone call with a reporter.
For O’Kelley, the feeling of loss never goes away.
Coombs said the complete lack of information makes it hard to be optimistic about Peggy’s well being.
“We (he and O’Kelley) kind of agree that Peggy would have shown up by now,” he said. “There’s no record of any activity with her Social Security number. And she was a 17-year-old girl. It would really be hard for her to change her identity and just disappear.”
“I hope the girl just ran away and is living on the West Coast somewhere,” he said. “Nothing would please me more than to know I was wrong. I just think something bad happened to the poor girl.”
Coombs said the Sheriff’s Office now requires that officers verify in person that a missing person has been found.
He said he welcomes information in the Alt case.
“I’m not looking for an arrest. I’m looking for Peggy right now,” Coombs said. “Relationships change, as we all know. Maybe somebody will have something to say.”
Messages left at Peggy Alt’s parents’ home were not returned.
Anyone who has any information about the disappearance of Peggy Alt is asked to call Coombs at 636-797-5562.