Simone Stephanie Ridinger was born to John and Jane Ridinger on January 5, 1960. The Ridinger family originated from Chappaqua, New York, but later moved to Sherborn, Massachusetts. Her father operated S. Wilder & Co. in Holliston and South Orleans for 20 years.
Simone was a beautiful girl, small in stature, with blonde, wavy hair and brown eyes, who liked to march to the beat of her own drum. A free spirit, Simone often hitchhiked from one place to another, as hitchhiking was a standard mode of transportation in the 70s for people without vehicles.
Simone, 17, worked as a waitress at Rainbow Restaurant, now Bagel Table, at 9 South Main Street in Natick. After her shift ended at 3 p.m. on September 2, 1977, Simone intended to hitchhike to Chappaquiddick Island, where her mother stayed at a family vacation cottage.
Chappaquiddick, or Chappy Island, is roughly 100 miles from Natick and sits next to the more oversized island of Martha’s Vineyard, just south of Cape Cod. Chappaquiddick, or Chappy Island, is notoriously known for the high-profile 1969 car accident involving the late Ted Kennedy that resulted in the drowning death of 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne.
Simone likely would have hitchhiked to the Falmouth area and boarded a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. From there, she would have had to thumb a ride or find alternative transportation to the family cottage. According to The Harborside Inn’s website, Chappy Island and Martha’s Vineyard were “connected by a narrow two-mile strip of beach (Katama Beach), which, occasionally, would become breached due to weather. After a storm in April 2007, the two entities were disconnected and separated by a 300-yard breach.”
Simone never made it to her family’s cottage. She was last seen wearing blue jeans with rips and patches, white high-top sneakers, silver jewelry, spoon rings, bracelets, and turquoise stones. She carried a gray duffel bag that contained her blue waitress pullover vest top and dark blue polyester skirt.
Her mother was initially unconcerned because Simone frequently ran late, and she thought maybe the teenager had changed her mind about coming to Chappy Island. Additionally, the cottage had no electricity or a phone, so Jane could not contact Simone.
After Jane left the island, she discovered no one had heard from Simone in more than a week. Simone’s family searched for her but failed to find her and alerted the police on September 11, 1977.
Simone’s family dispersed flyers with her picture and description and phoned her friends. They had not seen or heard from her. John Ridinger belonged to a citizens band radio (CB radio) club. Its members searched Simone along Cape Cod but found no sign of the girl.
Strange Account Years Later
The case was dormant until 1986 when a man came forward with a strange account. He claimed a Massachusetts state trooper pulled him over on September 3, 1977, at around 6:45 a.m. on Route 128. The man was traveling to Osterville to pick up clock parts. He saw a girl matching Simone’s description sitting in the back seat of the trooper’s cruiser. The girl was headed to Cape Cod, the trooper said.
According to the man, the trooper asked him if he could transport the girl to Cape Cod because the man was headed in that direction. The man agreed and claimed he dropped her off at a Rotary club near the airport in Barnstable.
The man said Simone walked toward the Howard Johnson or a Ground Round restaurant and provided police with a description of the girl: “16-18 years old, 5’7 “, 135-140 lbs., medium build with dark blonde curly hair. She was wearing blue jeans, grubby white sneakers, a blue pullover blouse, was carrying a small grayish duffel bag, and wearing ‘gaudy’ jewelry.”
The man said he had seen a newspaper article featuring Simone’s disappearance and pictures of the missing teen. He recognized her as the girl in the cruiser. He has since died.
The man’s account is hard to believe except for the clothing description; it was too detailed. It’s doubtful that a police officer would let a lone female teenager enter a stranger’s vehicle, even in the 70s. Furthermore, the officer would have logged the traffic stop and why Simone was in his cruiser. So, investigators could have confirmed all of this, yet I found nothing on whether they did.
Recent Investigation
Authorities did not make public the clothing description the man provided until 2017. The previous year, investigators located and interviewed five people who had worked with Simone at the restaurant. Why they never came forward before 2016 is anybody’s guess. But, detectives confirmed one of them, a female, had worked with Simone on the day she vanished.
“She changed out of her waitress uniform and put on blue jeans, white high-top sneakers, and had a white t-shirt on,” the woman said. “She put the waitress uniform (a blue pullover vest and blue skirt) into a small gray army style duffel bag and immediately started thumbing for a ride.”
The woman explained that most of the servers carried a change of clothes to work because they disliked their work uniform. She also recalled Simone telling her she planned to meet her mom “on the Vineyard.”
There has been no further information on the investigation since 2016, and Simone remains missing. Her mother died in 1997 from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 58.
John Ridinger passed away in Florida in 2007. He was 82. Simone is not mentioned in his obituary. It’s unclear where he was on the day Simone disappeared. He and Jane had divorced sometime after Simone vanished, and he married another woman in 1981.
Sources:
“Chappy Island.” The Harborside Inn. https://www.theharborsideinn.com/island-activities/chappy-island/
Crimaldi, Laura. “Police, Group Renew Effort to Resolve 1977 Mystery.” The Boston Globe. January 5, 2020.
“Simone Stephanie Ridinger.” The Doe Network. https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1255dfma.html
