Overview

Last seen: August 4, 1974
Location: Near Seventh and Spruce streets, Rawlins, Carbon County, Wyoming
Destination: A local movie theater in downtown Rawlins
Status: Missing; foul play suspected
NamUs: MP6400
NCMEC: 603810
Law-enforcement case number: 12943

Deborah left the home of a relative intending to walk to a movie theater, but she apparently never arrived. She did not return to the residence and has never been seen or heard from again. Authorities and her family came to reject the original possibility that she had simply run away, and her disappearance remains an open case.

Detailed Case Breakdown

Deborah Rae Meyer: The 1974 Rawlins, Wyoming Disappearance That Remains Unsolved

More than five decades after Deborah Rae Meyer vanished while walking to a movie theater in Rawlins, Wyoming, investigators still do not know what happened to her. Deborah disappeared on August 4, 1974, during a summer in which four girls and young women vanished from the Rawlins area. Two were later found murdered; Deborah and Carlene Brown have never been located.

Brief Case Summary

Last seen: August 4, 1974
Location: Near Seventh and Spruce streets, Rawlins, Carbon County, Wyoming
Destination: A local movie theater in downtown Rawlins
Status: Missing; foul play suspected
NamUs: MP6400
NCMEC: 603810
Law-enforcement case number: 12943

Deborah left the home of a relative intending to walk to a movie theater, but she apparently never arrived. She did not return to the residence and has never been seen or heard from again. Authorities and her family came to reject the original possibility that she had simply run away, and her disappearance remains an open case.

Deborah Meyer Disappears in Rawlins

Deborah Rae Meyer was living in Red Lodge, Montana, and was staying with relatives in Rawlins during the summer of 1974. Accounts say she was staying with an aunt and had been working at a local restaurant. On the evening of August 4, Deborah planned to see a movie in downtown Rawlins.

She left her relative’s residence near Seventh and Spruce streets and set out on foot. According to the available case information, Deborah did not reach the theater. When she also failed to return home, she effectively disappeared without a trace.

There has been no confirmed sighting of Deborah since that night.

Public databases contain inconsistencies concerning whether Deborah was 14 or 15 when she disappeared and whether her birth year was 1958 or 1959. Recent Wyoming reporting describes her as 15, while some longstanding missing-person databases list her as 14. The core circumstances of her disappearance — August 4, 1974, in Rawlins — are consistent across the major sources.

Why Investigators Came to Suspect Foul Play

At first, authorities reportedly considered the possibility that Deborah had left voluntarily. Her family strongly rejected that explanation. Deborah’s mother later told cold-case investigator Janet Franson that her daughter had no reason to run away and would not have done so.

Other circumstances also raised concern. Case accounts state that Deborah left personal belongings behind and never collected a final paycheck from the restaurant where she had been working. She was reportedly not known for running away or hitchhiking.

Over time, investigators came to suspect that Deborah had been abducted and killed, although her remains have never been recovered and no one has been convicted in connection with her disappearance. Her parents eventually had her legally declared dead, with the date of her disappearance recorded as the date of death.

The Other Rawlins Disappearances and Murders of 1974

Deborah’s disappearance did not occur in isolation. Four girls and young women disappeared in and around Rawlins over roughly seven weeks during July and August 1974. The cases have since become collectively known as the “Rawlins Rodeo Murders,” although Deborah’s fate and that of Carlene Brown have never been definitively established.

On July 4, 1974, 19-year-old Carlene Brown and 19-year-old Christine “Christy” Gross disappeared after attending the Little Britches Rodeo. Brown has never been found. Gross’s skeletal remains were discovered south of Sinclair, Wyoming, in October 1983. She had suffered fatal blows to the head.

Then came Deborah’s disappearance on August 4.

On August 23, 10-year-old Jaylene “Jayleen” Banker disappeared after becoming separated from friends at the Carbon County fairgrounds. Her body was found near Rawlins in April 1975. Her death was ruled a homicide caused by a fractured skull.

The close timing and geography have led investigators and researchers to examine whether some or all of the cases were connected. No such connection has been conclusively proven in court.

Royal Russell Long and Other Suspect Theories

One name repeatedly associated with the investigation is Royal Russell Long, a convicted kidnapper who later abducted two teenage girls in Wyoming. One escaped; 12-year-old Sharon Baldeagle disappeared while Long fled and has never been found. Long ultimately received two life sentences for kidnapping and died in a Wyoming prison in 1993.

Retired homicide detective and longtime cold-case investigator Janet Franson has investigated Long’s possible connection to the Rawlins cases since 2001 and has publicly said she believes he was responsible. She points to his history, his association with carnivals and fairs, and similarities she sees among his suspected victims.

Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation cold-case commander Ryan Cox told Cowboy State Daily in June 2026 that Long had been considered a suspect but was not the only viable suspect. DCI did not publicly disclose what physical evidence, if any, remains available for testing.

Ted Bundy’s name has also circulated for decades. Bundy was active in the western United States during 1974 and moved to Utah that August, but he has never been tied by evidence to a Wyoming homicide. Current reporting treats the Bundy theory as unresolved speculation rather than an established investigative conclusion.

Latest Investigation Information

The most significant recent public update came in June 2026, when Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken confirmed that the Rawlins cases remain open. The Sheriff’s Office inherited decades-old files that are being preserved while the agency works through the process of retrieving and digitizing older cold-case records.

A Wyoming law enacted in 2024 requires law-enforcement agencies to report qualifying cold cases dating back to January 1972 to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation’s statewide cold-case database. Sheriff Bakken said his department has been gradually digitizing older records as staffing and current investigations permit. As of the June 2026 reporting, Deborah’s case had not yet appeared in that DCI database, although the Sheriff’s Office continued to regard the cases as open.

There is also an important forensic advantage should Deborah’s remains someday be located: Franson said Deborah’s DNA is already contained in a national database, meaning unidentified remains could potentially be compared against her genetic information.

The public record does not indicate that an arrest is imminent, that a single suspect has been conclusively identified, or that investigators have announced a definitive connection among all four 1974 cases. The current effort remains focused on preserving and reviewing the old files, locating the two women still missing, and taking advantage of modern identification methods where evidence permits.

Identifying Information

Deborah was approximately 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed about 115 pounds. She had brown hair and brown eyes. One of her most distinctive identifying characteristics was a full set of dentures at an unusually young age. Missing-person records also describe a small circular growth on one ear.

Those dental characteristics have played a role in comparisons with unidentified remains. Deborah was previously considered as a possible identity for unidentified women in other states, but at least some of those comparisons — including the woman formerly known as “Sahara Sue” in Nevada — were excluded. Deborah remains missing.

More Than 50 Years Without an Answer

Deborah Rae Meyer walked away from a relative’s home to see a movie on an August evening in 1974 and seemingly vanished between the house and the theater.

For her family and the Rawlins community, the disappearance became part of a much larger tragedy. Four girls disappeared in one Wyoming community within weeks of one another. Two were eventually found murdered. Two — Deborah Meyer and Carlene Brown — remain missing.

More than 50 years later, investigators have old case files to review, DNA technology that did not exist in 1974, and several theories that continue to be examined. What they still do not have is the answer to the central question: What happened to Deborah Rae Meyer?