Abby Connolly
It’s hard to think of something scarier than letting your child play outside and ride their bike, only for them not to return home.
This tragedy happened to the parents of Lisa Dickinson, the young girl who went missing over 40 years ago and hasn’t been seen since.
Lisa was 9-years-old and living with her family in Walnut Creek, California, when she went missing. On September 5th, 1976, Lisa was last seen riding her bike in Walnut Creek around 7:00 p.m.
That evening, she was allegedly headed from her home to a nearby Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station. Lisa’s parents expected her to return home by 8:00 p.m. But when 9:00 p.m. rolled around, and there was no sign of her, they contacted the police.
Around three hours after she was reported missing, local police found Lisa’s bike abandoned in a grove of walnut trees at Heather Farms Park in Walnut Creek. Her bike was abandoned near the Contra Costa Canal, but when police searched the canal, there was no sign of her.
Some witnesses claimed to have seen Lisa hanging around the park’s entrance that evening.
Eventually, more witnesses came forward who claimed to have seen a man in his early 40s with brown curly hair and a mustache riding a motorcycle with a young girl that matched Lisa’s description on the back just two blocks from Heather Farms Park around 7:30 p.m.
Police have not confirmed who the man on the motorcycle was and whether or not Lisa was riding with him. But after receiving similar stories from several witnesses, they listed a man by the name of Louis, a man who was 35-years-old at the time, as a prime suspect in her case.
Although Louis had been imprisoned for crimes unrelated to Lisa’s disappearance between 1987 and 2002, he was never charged in connection to her case due to a lack of evidence.
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