(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – Federal authorities in the Midwest hope the public can help them solve a 50-year-old missing persons case involving a 6-year-old Chicago girl.
Cathy Barbara Davidson was reported missing in Warren Dunes State Park in Michigan on Sept. 1, 1973. New information suggests she may have died and that her death was covered up by adult guardians, the FBI’s Detroit office says in a news release this week.
During the summer of 1973, the girl’s mother allowed Cathy and her sister to stay with their father, Robert Davidson, and his new wife, Anna Young, in the Hermosa neighborhood, officials said.
Cathy’s sister later returned to her mother’s by summer’s end, but Cathy stayed at her father’s house. The adults would later tell Michigan state police that Cathy disappeared at Warren Dunes State Park during a trip there over the Labor Day weekend, the FBI says.
A search for the girl was unsuccessful. Years later, suspicion would grow about stepmother Anna Young, who started a religious cult in Florida in the early-1980s, FBI officials said.
In 2021, Young pleaded guilty to the murders of two children who lived with the cult. She was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison but died a month later in March 2021 from COVID-19, the FBI says.
In 2016, federal authorities began exploring tips from family members that Cathy’s reported disappearance was a coverup for the girl’s abuse-related death in Chicago.
The FBI said Davidson and his brother told someone where Cathy’s body was placed. Davidson died in 1988 under mysterious circumstances within the cult. His brother died in 2007.
"Cathy’s family, still living, awaits to learn what has happened to her and where she is," FBI Detroit Special Agent Trisha Kovac said Monday. "I believe that someone out there knows something that can help us find Cathy and bring her back to her family."
Anyone with information can contact their local FBI office or go to tips.fbi.gov.
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