Barbara Louise "Barb" Cotton, 15, of Williston, North Dakota, was last seen during the evening hours of April 11, 1981, after having dinner with a young man identified as her boyfriend and another person at a restaurant (Cakes and Cones) on Main Street in Williston. Following the meal, her companion offered to walk her home; she declined and left alone. He reported watching her walk toward Recreation Park, roughly five blocks from her residence. She was never seen again. Cotton, who stood 5'2" and weighed about 100 pounds, had brown hair and hazel-brown eyes, pierced ears with her left ear noticeably lower than her right, a dark brown mole on the upper right side of her chest, and a curvature of the spine that gave her a slight limp. Barb worked at the local Country Kitchen She was last seen wearing a light tan jacket, blue jeans, a blue pullover blouse, and rust-colored loafers. She left behind her eyeglasses, a nearly full carton of cigarettes, a paycheck, and her savings.
Williston police initially treated the case as a runaway, and a missing-person report was not filed for several days; it is now classified as an endangered missing person case and investigated as a possible abduction. Cotton was legally declared deceased in 1998. Her case remains open and unsolved.
