Ann Gotlib (born May 5, 1971) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

immigrant to the United States who disappeared at the age of 12 from the premises of a

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

mall on June 1, 1983. The case to find her abductor was covered heavily by the Louisville news media and stretched for the next twenty-five years until a

person of interest "Person of interest" is a term used by law enforcement in the United States, Canada, and other countries when identifying someone possibly involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. It has no leg ...

was eventually identified.

Background

Gotlib, a Soviet Jewish immigrant, emigrated to the United States in 1980 and was fluent in both English and Russian.

Disappearance

Ann was last seen on June 1, 1983, between 5:30 and 6:00 PM. She was visiting

Bashford Manor Mall Bashford Manor Mall, named for the surrounding neighborhood of Bashford Manor, was a enclosed mall in Louisville, Kentucky which opened in 1973 and once had about 85 stores, including Ayr-Way, Bacon's, and Ben Snyder's. History The mall first op ...

, across the street from the apartment complex where she lived with her family. Her bike was later found outside the

Bacon's Bacon's was a chain of department stores based in Louisville, Kentucky. History Jeremiah Bacon opened a store called Bacon's Dry Goods in 1845 on Market Street near Hancock Street. In 1876 he moved into a structure four times larger than the o ...

Department Store at the mall.

Investigation

The

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

headed the investigation. Police followed up on thousands of leads and questioned between 30 and 40 suspects over the years. Three days after her disappearance, a police dog traced her scent to the apartment of Ester Okmyansky, the grandmother of the last person to see Gotlib alive. Okmyansky said Gotlib had never visited the apartment, and after a thorough investigation of her family, police concluded the dog had been in error. Others investigated included a sex offender who had been at the mall within an hour of Gotlib's disappearance and a serial sex offender who had supplied an alibi. An often repeated conspiracy theory held that Gotlib had been abducted by the

Soviet government The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...

to force her parents to return to Russia. Both the FBI and the Gotlib family had dismissed this theory. Another theory was that she had left voluntarily after having trouble adapting to life in the United States. Investigators and her family dismissed this as well, saying she gave no indications of anxiety prior to the disappearance, and if she had run away voluntarily she likely would have taken some money or possessions, and made contact eventually. In 1990, Texas Death Row inmate

Michael Lee Lockhart Michael Lee Lockhart (September 30, 1960 – December 9, 1997) was an American serial killer who received death sentences in three states (Florida, Indiana, and Texas). He was executed on December 9, 1997, by the state of Texas. Arrest and Convi ...

claimed to have killed Gotlib and buried her body at

Fort Knox Fort Knox is a United States Army installation in Kentucky, south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. It is adjacent to the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States' official gold res ...

and eventually provided a map of the burial site, but after a thorough investigation police found no physical evidence to verify his claim. Up through 2008 the

Louisville Metro Police Department The Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) began operations on January 6, 2003, as part of the creation of the consolidated city-county government in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It was formed by the merger of the Jefferson County Pol ...

still listed the disappearance as an open case. Nevertheless, it was considered a cold case due to the amount of time that had passed. The investigation documents fill four filing cabinets.

2008 developments

On December 4, 2008, Louisville Metro Police announced a major break in the disappearance case of Ann Gotlib. A spokesperson for the LMPD, commenting on new developments in the case, suggested that it was the police's belief that convicted felon and former veterinarian Gregory Oakley Jr. — who had been a suspect since the initial disappearance in 1983 — had possibly been responsible for the young girl's disappearance. Oakley died in Alabama in 2002 after being released from the

Kentucky State Reformatory Kentucky State Reformatory (KSR) is a medium-security prison for adult males. The prison is located in unincorporated area, unincorporated Oldham County, Kentucky, Oldham County, Kentucky, near La Grange, Kentucky, La Grange, and about northeast ...

in La Grange on a medical pardon, where he was serving time for burglary and rape. That case was similar to the Gotlib case by the fact the victim was a 13-year-old girl having red hair. Police believe that Oakley followed Gotlib to the

parking lot, where he abducted her leaving nothing but her bike. According to a man who had once served time in a Kentucky prison in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Oakley, Oakley confessed to abducting Gotlib and killing her with an overdose of Talwin, a pain killer. Police had considered Oakley a suspect in the Gotlib case since January 1984, when Oakley was arrested and eventually convicted of raping a 13-year-old Louisville girl. Oakley failed a polygraph test concerning Gotlib, but police never had enough evidence to tie him to her disappearance.

Impact

Due to the startling way in which Gotlib had vanished in broad daylight without any trace, it was a key case that led the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

to create the

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress. In September 2013, the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, and the Pres ...

in 1984 to coordinate departments involved in missing-persons cases. The center credits the Gotlib case with increasing national awareness of missing and abducted children and revolutionizing how missing-child cases are handled. One new technique that came out of the investigation was the use of billboards and other tactics to generate widespread awareness of a missing person, which was considered futile according to conventional wisdom at the time.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gotlib, Ann 1971 births 1980s missing person cases American people of Russian-Jewish descent Kidnapped American children Missing American children Missing person cases in Kentucky People from Louisville, Kentucky Possibly living people 1983 in Kentucky History of Louisville, Kentucky