Historical

On Labor Day, Sept. 5, 1977, Rachel, 11, left home at 3 p.m. to walk two blocks to Hughes Market, 15120 Sunset Blvd., to purchase bread, hot dogs, and cold drinks. She wore a checkered blue, yellow, and pink bikini and a white T-shirt. Rachel was last seen at 4 p.m. …

Connie told her tent mates she planned to skip breakfast and walk back to the dispensary to drop off the ice pack. However, she left the ice pack in her tent and never visited the dispensary. Instead, Connie walked away from Camp Sloane to Indian Mountain Road and disappeared.

The family settled in for the night. Annie Moore slept in a back bedroom while her grandmother stayed in an adjoining room off her parents’ front bedroom. Around 10:10 p.m., Annie turned off the bedroom light to go to sleep. Rosa Moore had not yet fallen into slumber when she noticed an overhead light fixture drop to the floor. Next came a deafening roar.

“He said he would have to take me to Atlantic City because the government insisted I go there. He said it wouldn’t take long to straighten things out. He telephoned my mother and said he was taking some other girls to Atlantic City and would have to take me.”

Thora Afton Chamberlain, 14, disappeared from Campbell, California, on Nov. 2, 1945, after getting into the car of a man who offered her a babysitting gig. Investigators arrested Thomas Henry McMonigle for her murder despite never finding her remains. He was later convicted and sentenced to death. McMonigle was executed at San Quentin in 1948.