A Pa. teacher’s aide disappeared without a trace 15 years ago. Detectives haven’t given up searching for her

Karen Adams was single, but she had a dog at home that she wasn’t likely to leave behind.

She was 54, a teacher’s aide and a cashier who called Independence Township home. And, for the past 15 years, she has been a case that detectives, in Beaver County and with the FBI, haven’t been able to get to the bottom of.

Because, they say, back on March 12, 2007, she walked out of Mountaineer Casino and Racetrack in Hancock County, West Virginia after a night of bingo, got in her red, four-door 2005 Suzuki Forenza with Pennsylvania license plate “ETD5587″ and drove away at around 3 a.m.

She hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Her car, too, has never been found. They say there have been no charges to her credit cards and no calls from her cellphone. She has disappeared, they say, almost without a trace. Sure, there have been some leads, but according to a report in the Beaver County Times, they have all gone nowhere.

Police have run DNA tests on bodies that have been recovered with no matches coming back for Adams. Cars have been recovered, too, according to the Times, from waterways along what would have been her route home. But none of those cars were that red Forenza with the Pennsylvania tags.

It has been frustrating.

But, despite the time that has elapsed since that morning, Adams is in the news because, the Times reported, investigators are still intent on cracking this case.

And, as it slips past this 15-year-mark, the Times reports that investigators are again asking the public to pitch in with any information they might have to help them figure out what happened to Adams and to bring “truth and closure” to her family.

“It has been so many years,” Bonnie Sedlacek, a Beaver County detective, told the Times. “The family still would like to have closure and would like to know what happened.”

Detectives ask that anyone with any information about Adams’ disappearance contact the FBI’s Pittsburgh Office at 412-432-4000 or Beaver County Crime Solvers at 724-774-2000.