What happened to Cathy Malcolmson?

On Aug. 13, 1985, Cathy Malcolmson was at home in Stow, having lunch with her father in the backyard.

On that sunny Tuesday afternoon, the 16-year-old and her father talked about a graduation party the family was going to have that weekend for her older brother, who had just finished up summer classes and was done with high school.

Around 1:30 p.m., Cathy was ready to go to her job at the IGA supermarket in Hudson, where she worked as a cashier. The store was about three and a half miles away.

Dressed in a striped shirt, light blue slacks, and sneakers, and wearing a silver ring and two bracelets, Cathy grabbed her handbag, got on her bike, and pedaled away from her house. Her family never saw her again.

Her parents had no idea anything was wrong until about 3 p.m., when a supermarket employee called the house, wondering why Cathy had not showed up for work.

In an interview with the Milford Daily News in 2003, her father recalled the last time he saw his daughter.

“The last thing I said was, ‘I don’t want you riding your bike home in the dark,’” John Malcolmson said in the interview. “And she never made it to work that day.”

For her cousin, Mark Malcolmson, the memory of that August day is still fresh in his mind.

“Cathy was my closest cousin,” Malcolmson said in an interview. He was home at his parents’ house in Sterling when he got a phone call from Cathy’s father.

“My Uncle Jack called me up and asked if I had seen her,” he said. “I told him she probably slept over a friend’s house.”

Malcolmson recalled speaking to Cathy over the phone a week or two before she vanished. They talked about Live Aid, a benefit concert that was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985.

“That’s the last I heard from her,” he said.

‘Vivacious and bubby’ personality

In an interview with the Worcester Telegram in December 1985, her mother, Mary Malcolmson, said Cathy didn’t have a steady boyfriend but had a wide circle of friends, both boys and girls. She was also active in their church, her mother said.

She was a “very vivacious and bubbly person,” her mother said. “Her hobbies were her friends.”

Mark Malcolmson said his cousinloved music and “played the piano beautifully.” Growing up in the age of MTV, she listened to pop music and mastered the moonwalk, the dance move Michael Jackson made famous, he said.

“I can tell you that Cathy had a personality that would brighten anybody’s day, with a sense of humor and warmth that made it impossible not to love her,” he said. “I think of her daily and miss her dearly.”

An important clue

After Cathy went missing, her family and friends circulated fliers with a photo of Cathy and the words “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?” But the search went nowhere.

Eighteen months after she vanished, a key piece of evidence turned up: Cathy’s bicycle.

It was found in a wooded area along Route 62 in Hudson, near the Riverside Gun Club, police said. The man who came across it figured someone had abandoned it there.

He found the white 12-speed Murray bicycle in a brushy area, about 10 to 15 feet from the side of the road that Cathy would have taken towork.It was about two and a half miles away from the supermarket, and a mile away from her house. The bike’s rear wheel was warped, police said.

In February 1987, police used trained dogs to search the area, but didn’t find any additional evidence. Investigatorssearched the area again in April, to no avail.

A possible suspect

Less than two months after Cathy disappeared, a girl from Wayland went missing. On Oct. 9, 1985, Sarah Pryor, 9, went for a walk outside her family’s home and was never seen again.

The next month, a man named John Robert Whirty was arrested after he allegedly tried to abduct a woman at knifepoint in Newton. Originally from Sherborn, Whirty had been convicted of strangling a 15-year-old girl to death in Texas in 1967 and was on parole when he returned to Massachusetts in 1984.

In 1998, Middlesex District Attorney Tom Reilly told WBZ-TV that he believed there was a link between the Pryor and Malcolmson cases.

“Within a short period, two young girls missing in broad daylight in relative proximity … same type of abduction, and I believe there is a very definite connection,” Reilly said.

Whirty emerged as a potential suspect but was never charged with Sarah Pryor’s murder or Cathy’s disappearance. He denied any involvement in either case and died in a Texas prison in 2022.

Fresh look at a decades-old mystery

In February, Stow Police Chief Michael Sallese announced that the department had created a new task force to reexamine Malcolmson’s disappearance.

“Cathy’s disappearance has always remained on the minds of our department members and this town,” Sallese said in a statement. “There have been both technological and investigative advancements since her disappearance and we are looking forward to utilizing those tools. Our hope is that given the time that has passed, people who may not have come forward then will come forward with information now and we can finally get some answers as to what may have happened to Cathy.”

This task force is being led by Sergeant Cassandra Scott of the Stow Police Department, who said investigators are looking at the case with a “whole new set of eyes,” examining every possibility and checking out every tip and lead that comes in.

“Somebody knows something,” Scott said.

Anyone with information that could help investigators can call the task force tip line at 978-897-4545, ext. 1985, or send an email to: [email protected].

Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

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Emily Sweeney can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.

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