In 1990, This 21-Year-Old Mysteriously Vanished After Leaving Work And Parking Her Car At Her Home Garage: She Never Went Inside And Was Never Seen Again

When Veronica Blumhorst was only 7 months old, she was adopted by her parents, Paul and Betty.
The couple already had one older adopted daughter. Then, Veronica became their middle child after having their youngest son.
The Blumhorst family resided in Mendota, Illinois, a tiny, tight-knit community of approximately 7,000 people. Paul and Betty’s family were no different.
Every summer, they would take a trip wherever the kids wanted to go. And as time went on, Paul and Betty watched as their children grew into young adults.
Their oldest daughter, Carolyn, was moved out and married by 1990. Their youngest, Todd, was also in high school.
As for Veronica, she was 21 years old by September 1990– still living with her parents while working at a local grocery store.
The grocery store where she was employed, Dempsey’s Super Valu, was located just a couple of blocks away from the Blumhorst home.
But, after Veronica worked a shift on September 19, 1990, something went tragically wrong. She vanished without a trace and remains missing to this day.
It all began that Wednesday while Veronica suffered through a night shift at the grocery store. Earlier that week, she had already taken off work after getting sick. However, she returned to work on Wednesday, hoping to stick out her shift.

FBI – pictured above is Veronica
While Veronica reportedly tried her best to tough it out, though, she felt increasingly sick as time went on. So, she ultimately decided to clock out early at 1:05 a.m., telling her coworkers that she planned to head home and sleep it off.
The following morning, Veronica was supposed to drive her younger brother, Todd, to school. Apparently, Todd’s car was having problems.
“When he [Todd] got up to go to school, Veronica wasn’t there. So he called me at work and said, ‘Veronica’s not home,'” recalled Veronica’s father, Paul.
At that point, Paul instructed his son to just take his car to school. Then, he claimed he would take a look at Todd’s vehicle a bit later.
It was not until about 10:00 a.m. that Paul returned home after working at the fire department. Afterward, he started searching for his daughter Veronica.
Once he couldn’t find her, Paul phoned his wife, Betty, who was working at a nursing home, to find out if she had heard from their daughter.
Betty detailed how she had woken up at approximately 2:00 a.m. that morning and noticed the outside light was on. Additionally, through the garage window, she saw Veronica’s car.
But while Betty saw that her daughter’s car was at home, she admitted that she could not remember Veronica actually entering the house.
Following this phone call, Paul headed out to his home’s detached garage to see for himself. There, he saw Veronica’s car– a Blue Chevrolet Corsica– sitting in the garage as usual.
Still, his daughter was nowhere to be found, prompting him to call his eldest daughter, Carolyn. But as Paul battled with a busy phone line trying to reach Carolyn, Veronica’s boyfriend actually showed up at the house.
According to Paul, Veronica had been dating her boyfriend, Jeff, for just over a year at that point. And he wondered if the young couple had just been hanging out together that morning.
That’s why Paul asked Jeff if he and Veronica had gone out to breakfast or something that morning. Although, Jeff claimed that they did not.
In fact, Veronica’s boyfriend claimed that he had not heard from Veronica, either. And this only fueled more worry about the situation.
Eventually, Paul ultimately decided to just head to his eldest daughter Carolyn’s home since she still was not answering the phone. Yet, again, no one knew where his daughter was.
Paul learned that Carolyn was actually supposed to accompany Veronica to a doctor’s appointment that day. However, Carolyn had not heard from her sister whatsoever.
So, by the time Paul arrived back home, police officers had arrived, Veronica was reported missing, and an investigation was launched.
“The Mendota Fire Department, the police department– they had people coming in from out of town. We searched everywhere that we could think of,” Paul said.
“We didn’t find anything.”
As time continued to pass by, Paul alleged that the search efforts gradually slowed until they essentially “stopped” after approximately two to three weeks.
The Mendota County Police Department was initially leading the investigation. However, the FBI Chicago office has since taken over.
It was determined that Veronica had left work at 1:05 a.m. before a coworker witnessed her driving away from the grocery store. Then, she reportedly drove four blocks to her home and parked her car in the detached garage.
Afterward, Veronica locked the driver’s side door, shut the overhead garage door, shut off the garage light, and walked out of the detached garage.
Yet, Veronica never actually went inside her home and was never seen or heard from again. According to the FBI, none of her personal belongings have ever been recovered– including her keys, purse, red smock, or clothing. No persons of interest or suspects have ever been named in Veronica’s case, either.
Paul thinks that his daughter would not have just left without telling anyone and believes that something tragic happened.
“If she was going somewhere, she would let us know. She would never be gone,” he said.
But decades later, despite suspicions that Veronica was murdered, she has remained a missing person.
“We feel that she is deceased. We feel that the only way it’s going to be solved is on a deathbed– somebody’s dying, and they admit to doing it,” Paul concluded.
Still, the Blumhorst family has never stopped searching for Veronica. Her late brother, Todd, created a Facebook group entitled Remember Veronica Jill Blumhorst in 2010 to raise awareness about the case.
“I have worked for over half of my life now trying to find her. I refuse to ‘get over it and move on.’ Rather, I am dedicated to remembering her and her memory,” Todd wrote in the group.
He has since passed away due to cancer but never gave up his fight for answers. And today, the group has continued on– being maintained to preserve both Veronica’s and Todd’s memories. At the time of Veronica’s disappearance, she was five foot one, weighed 100 pounds, and had short blonde hair. Veronica also had a scar on her chest, a surgical scar on her knee, wore braces at the time she vanished, and had both of her ears pierced.
If you have any information regarding Veronica’s case, you are urged to contact the FBI Chicago Field Office at 1(800) CALL-FBI.
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