After This Minnesota Teen Experienced Car Trouble While Driving Home From Work In 1988, She Stopped At A Gas Station, Left With An Unidentified Man, And Was Never Seen Again
Born on February 13, 1968, Susan Anne Swedell of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, was known by her loved ones as “kind of the all-American girl.”
She and her younger sister, Christine Swedell, were inseparable, especially after their parents got divorced.
“We spent more time together than I think most siblings do,” Christine said.
“I talk like her. I laugh like her. I almost took her personality and meshed it into mine.”
The sisters, only three years apart, loved being outdoors – whether they were biking, walking, or feeding horses at a farm in their neighborhood.
Christine specifically remembers her sister being “very scholastic” as well, adoring school and constantly studying.
So, upon graduating from Stillwater High School, Susan studied psychology for a year at the University of Wisconsin. She eventually became quite homesick, though, and ultimately returned home.
At that point, in 1988, Susan was back living in Lake Elmo with her mother and sister. She also picked up two part-time jobs – the first at a small clothing store known as Body and Sole, located in Oak Park Heights, and the second at a K-Mart.
January 19, 1988, began like a typical day for 19-year-old Susan. That morning, she ate breakfast with Christine and departed for work at about 8:45 a.m.
Facebook – pictured above is Susan
By 9:00 a.m., Susan was working at Body and Sole. Then, at 1:30 p.m., she started working her second job at K-Mart.
It wasn’t until 9:00 p.m. that Susan called her mother, citing concerns about driving home after work. That night, a blizzard was passing through Lake Elmo.
“She hated any wind. She hated any storms. She was very scared of the weather, and Mom just took her time and said, ‘You need to be on the main roads,'” Christine recalled.
Tragically, Susan never made it home from work that evening, and she has remained missing ever since.
At approximately 11:00 p.m., once she failed to arrive, her mother contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office to file a missing person report.
An investigation was launched, and Susan’s car – a 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass – was found abandoned and locked at a gas station about one mile away from her home known as Kern’s North Star Station. Inside the car, Susan’s purse and glasses were left behind.
Authorities spoke with the gas station attendant, who claimed Susan had arrived at about 9:30 p.m. and inquired about whether she could leave the vehicle parked at the gas station overnight. Susan reportedly had been experiencing car trouble.
She did that, too, but the gas station attendant also detailed how another car pulled up behind Susan. A man was driving that vehicle, and he and Susan talked for approximately 15 minutes while standing next to each other.
Afterward, Susan got into the man’s car – described as possibly a 1979 Ford LTD or late 1970s Thunderbird – and left, heading in the direction of her home.
Christine stated that she believes her sister could have entered a stranger’s car if she was in need of help.
“She knew, obviously, about stranger danger and all of that. But if she is so upset about the weather and getting scared about her first car issues, I believe she would do that,” Christine said.
Less than a week later, Susan’s mother, Kathy Swedell, picked up her abandoned car and drove it to the grocery store. At that point, the vehicle began smoking and steaming.
“At the bottom of the radiator, there was a drain plug; it was called a petcock. And the mechanic determined that petcock, that drain plug of the radiator, had been loosened, and so coolant had leaked, causing the car to overheat,” explained Blake Trantham, a criminal intelligence analyst who’s been working on Susan’s case for six or seven years.
“So there’s speculation that maybe is what Susan was experiencing that night on the way home.”
Investigators interviewed Susan’s coworkers at both of her jobs, and her colleagues had nothing but nice things to say about the teen – calling her mild-mannered, friendly, and pleasant.
However, police did uncover how, at Susan’s job at Body and Sole, she’d been receiving strange calls from a man who contacted her for a couple of weeks leading up to when she vanished. This man was never able to be identified.
Over the years, authorities have re-interviewed the gas station attendant, created a composite sketch of the man Susan left with, and followed up on leads and potential DNA matches with unidentified missing people.
Sadly, there is little physical evidence in Susan’s case, and exactly what happened after she left the gas station on January 19, 1988, remains unclear.
“We’ve gotten so many leads over the years, I couldn’t even tell you how many we would be at now. We just hit a lot of dead ends,” detailed Detective Nick Sullivan.
“You know, the thing with all of our cold cases is, you know, we call them cold cases just simply because of their age. But all of our cases are always assigned to a detective. They’re always going to be actively worked if we get any tips in or anything like that. And Susan’s case is no different than that.”
Investigators haven’t been able to rule out the possibility that she ran away. At the same time, Susan had no reason to flee.
“Mom and Sue and I were extremely close, and she wouldn’t do that to us,” Christine stated.
“She would never do that to her grandparents or aunts and uncles. She was so close to the family.”
Now, over 36 years later, Christine continues hoping that she and her mother, Kathy, will receive closure.
According to Christine, her sister’s disappearance caused her to put her life on hold. She did not get married or “do any of that” because she wanted Susan to be there. And if Susan returned, she didn’t want her sister to have missed anything.
“We were going to have children together. So you see, we’re going to get married together, children together. Everything was lined up in our brains because we talked about it so much when we were little and what we were going to do – always thinking of what we were going to do and make Mom proud,” Christine remembered.
“So I’m still waiting.”
After “putting her life aside” for so long, Christine is working to find herself again. She’s studying Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Additionally, she continues to update the “Swedell Strong” Facebook page, where she spreads awareness about Susan’s case.
At the time Susan went missing, she was five foot four, weighed 100 pounds, and had sandy brown hair. She would be 56 years old today.
There is currently a $25,000 reward being offered by Spotlight on Crime for information that leads to her whereabouts.
If you have any information regarding Susan’s case, you are urged to contact the Washington County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Tip Line at (651) 430-7850.
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