In 1984, she disappeared without trace. A Handwritten Note Just Led To Her Husband’s Arrest.

Authorities Pennsylvania We have arrested the husband and wife of a woman who disappeared in 1984 without leaving behind a note that claimed she was running an errand.

Maryann Bagenstose, a 25-year-old nurse’s aide in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was supposed to meet with her estranged husband, then 29-year-old Jere Musser Bagenstose, to trade in her car and purchase a new one, KIRO 7 reported. According to police, Maryann expressed excitement about the purchase of the new vehicle and said that she spoke often with her husband despite their separation.

Jere told Pequea Township police that he arrived at the home where his wife, their two-year-old son, and a boarder lived to pick her up, but that she wasn’t ready. Jere said he then took his son to nearby Long’s Park and when he returned to the house, Maryann was not there and had left a handwritten note saying she had walked to the Turkey Hill store.

She was never seen alive again.

Jere never reported his wife missing, but her mother did on June 7 after she couldn’t reach her daughter.

Jere and a police officer were speaking on June 8th 1984 when they noticed cardboard covering newly dug dirt. A search warrant executed on June 13 did not find Maryann’s body, however. Investigators discovered a crumpled letter in a wooden nailkeg. It read: “Had to run a quick errand, be right back.”

When asked about the note, Maryann’s mother Geraldine Engongoro told reporters that her daughter wouldn’t have walked to the store because she had a limp from a previous car crash and wore a lift in one of her shoes, KIRO 7 reported.

Maryann was missing for 10 days and Jere was scheduled to appear at a custody hearing on June 15th. When Maryann didn’t appear at the hearing, custody of their son was awarded to Jere.

Jere had also moved back into the couple’s home.

Witnesses at the Turkey Hill store told police they hadn’t seen Maryann on the day of her disappearance, and workers at Long’s Park said they never saw Jere or his truck on that day. Police also discovered that Jere had an unexplained absence from work the day Maryann disappeared, as well as an unspecified injury on his left arm. For this reason, he gave inconsistent statements.

Though police suspected Jere was behind his wife’s disappearance, he maintained that he had nothing to do with it and that she was still alive. He claimed that witnesses had told him Maryann was there, and that he had also received postcards from her. However, he did not turn them over to police.

Lancaster Online last week reported that it was actually investigators who sent those postcards to Jere, as well as a private detective hired by Maryann’s mother. The postcards were designed to communicate the idea of to “provoke something new in the investigation. … The idea being if she’s still alive, perhaps you want to make somebody aware of that,” Heather Adams, Lancaster County District attorney, stated at a press conference on 12/22/2022.

Maryann’s disappearance was reopened in late 2018, with investigators focusing on the note found during the June 13, 1984, search warrant. Investigators obtained handwriting samples of Maryann and Jere from Jere to confirm that the note was written by Jere.

Jere was detained on December 22, 2022 and is currently being held without bail.

“An arrest in this 38-year-old case has certainly been long awaited,” Adams made the remarks at the press conference. “This is not a case solved with DNA. Rather, the arrest of Jere Bagenstose is the result of decades of hard work and dedication by law enforcement personnel, beginning in 1984 with members of the Pequea Township Police Department and continuing with numerous criminal investigators in the Pennsylvania State Police leading up to the present day.”

Maryann’s body has never been found.

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