Bambi Lynn Dick (January 4, 1966 - October 8, 1983) was a teenager who was found murdered in Porter County, Texas, on October 8, 1983.
She was identified in March 2009.
Disappearance[]
17-year-old Bambi Lynn Dick disappeared after attending a Quiet Riot and Axe concert at Davenport’s Col Auditorium in Davenport, Iowa, on September 29, 1983. Her parents filed a missing persons report with the Davenport Police Department within two days after she had failed to return home from the concert. She allegedly never had problems with running away from her home.
Case[]
On October 8, 1983, a biker discovered her body in a culvert 17 miles north of Amarillo, Texas, and 80 feet from U.S. Highway 287. She was partially clothed and died from strangulation, potentially inflicted with a rope or cord by an assailant positioned behind her. Her killer dragged her body along the roadway and partially shoved her inside the culvert on the east side of the road. There was no evidence of sexual assault or drugs or alcohol in her system. Authorities noted that Dick had a well-groomed appearance and did not believe that she had a transient lifestyle or was local to the area.
Investigators had little evidence to go off of and were unable to identify her body at the time. An individual with the Schooler-Gordon Funeral Home provided funeral services at no cost and donated her burial plot. Authorities videotaped the service and kept the recording on file for future reference in her case.
Identification[]
On January 6, 1984, the state of Iowa removed Dick's case from their missing persons database due to her no longer being a minor. Despite this, her family members continued their search for her for decades and looked on the internet for unidentified persons fitting her description. Dick's brother later uploaded her missing persons case to the North America Missing Persons Network. The Doe Network also added Dick's unidentified person's case on their website as "55UFTX- Unidentified Female." These two cases caught the attention of a resident who maintained a missing persons website in California.
The individual looked at the unidentified female's case and noticed it shared many characteristics with Dick's missing person's case. The individual contacted Amarillo officials to inquire about her potentially being a match for their Jane Doe. An authority figure with the Potter-Randall Special Crimes Unit contacted Dick’s parents to request DNA samples to compare against the unidentified female. The University of North Texas Center for Human Identification tested the samples, which showed they were closely related to her. A highly publicized memorial service was held for Dick, during which her brothers and nephew unveiled a new gravestone in her honor.
Her family members chose to have her place of burial stay at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Amarillo due to the diligence and care that Texan citizens put into her case. Investigators are focusing on solving her murder.
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