The last time anyone saw 25-year-old Darla Harper was at her apartment in Gravel Ridge, Arkansas, on March 4, 1986. That day, she spent the evening chatting with a neighbor, who came to visit her. The neighbor left at around 9:30 p.m. Afterward, Darla and her young daughter, Leslie, were alone.
Between 11:00 and 11:30 p.m., the same neighbor heard noises coming from Darla’s apartment, but did not investigate the source of the sounds because they weren’t very loud and didn’t seem threatening.
Darla graduated from Pine Bluff High School in 1977 and worked as a personnel analyst in the Little Rock office of the Internal Revenue Service.
When she didn’t show up to work the next morning, her manager was worried. Darla was a dependable employee and never missed work without calling to let someone know.
She didn’t answer the phone, so a coworker was sent to her apartment to check on her. When the coworker arrived, Darla was not there.
Her front door was open, and her two-year-old daughter was alone. The coworker also noticed blood on the outside of Darla’s front door. He immediately called the police to report Darla missing.
Investigators came to analyze the scene and question neighbors. The neighbor who had visited Darla that day had heard noises coming from her apartment around 11:00 p.m.
To her, it sounded like furniture being moved. She picked up the phone to call Darla, but decided against it because the noises had stopped, and she didn’t want the sound of a ringing phone to wake Darla’s daughter.
Darla’s mother knew something terrible must have happened because Darla would never leave her daughter unsupervised. Darla had just finalized her divorce with her ex-husband, Barry, four months before her disappearance. Barry denied knowing anything about Darla’s disappearance, and there was no evidence to link him to the crime.
The day after Darla went missing, her car was found abandoned in a commuter parking lot near Crystal Hill, Arkansas, which was nine miles away from her apartment. It was not an area she frequented. Traces of blood and an unidentified set of fingerprints were found inside the car.
When detectives spoke with Darla’s daughter, Leslie, she told them that “three men came in funny hats.” She saw “Mommy in a bag,” and her feet were broken. While Leslie cannot be considered a reliable witness, the police believe that Darla was the victim of foul play.
About five months after Darla disappeared, a neighbor came forward and claimed to have seen Darla being kidnapped. However, the statement has never been confirmed.
In 1990, Barry’s wife at the time told police that Darla’s remains were buried in the backyard of the home that Darla and Barry lived in together before their divorce. The property was searched, and some bone fragments were unearthed, but it was unclear if they were human.
In 2009, a man walking his dog through the woods in Sherwood, Arkansas, stumbled across what appeared to be a shallow grave. He notified the police, and they came to check it out. The site was three miles from Barry’s home. Nothing notable was found.
To this day, Darla’s case has still not been solved. Her family believes that she is no longer alive. At the time of her disappearance, Darla Harper was 5’4″ and weighed 115 pounds.
She had brown eyes and light brown hair. She was wearing a pullover shirt, jeans, a teardrop-shaped diamond pendant, a horseshoe-shaped diamond ring, and a diamond cluster ring.
If you have any information about Darla, you can contact the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office at 501-340-6601.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
