Mary Beth Grismore was an attractive, young blond-haired woman whose friends described her as "having everything to live for." Nicknamed Pixie by her friends, Grismore was born and raised in Corydon, Iowa where she became a runner-up in a Miss Iowa beauty pageant. She enjoyed singing and playing the piano and once organized a barbershop quartet. 

Pixie left home at an early age in search of employment. She fell in love with a co-worker, Robert Hale, who would bring her to live in his hometown in Marshall, Indiana near Turkey Run State Park. She had two sons by Hale before the couple divorced in 1977 when she was 25. Returning to her roots, Pixie fell in love again and remarried an Iowa farmer, David Grismore, who lived a few miles from her Iowa hometown, on February 12, 1978. Days later, she returned back to her home in Marshall, Indiana for one last trip to gather up her remaining belongings and visit with old friends. 

Grismore's Disappearance

After she finished packing her personal belongings into her husband's 1973 Ford Thunderbird for the trip back to the Iowa farmhouse awaiting her, Pixie, two friends and her sister travelled together to nearby Terre Haute, Indiana for a last night on the town together on February 21, 1978. They saw a movie, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," starring Diane Keaton and Richard Gere, in which Keaton's 28-year-old female character is raped and murdered by a jealous lover, a foretelling of the fate Grismore would soon meet. They ate at the Red Lobster and then went dancing at Bo Disco on Third Street, a popular Terre Haute nightclub at the time. Her sister and two friends dropped her off at her home at 1:30 a.m. It was the last time they would see her alive. When one of the friends tried to call her the next morning to awaken her as she promised, she got no answer. Her new husband in Iowa also tried unsuccessfully to reach her. When her friends and family went to the home, there was no sign of the 26-year-old Pixie or her car. The china, antiques and personal belongings had been left behind, as well as her clothing, including those she had worn the night before.

As the days passed by, police reported that leads in the investigation of her disappearance were "scarce." Police turned to an Illinois psychic, who told them Pixie had been shot twice in the head by a man hiding in a closet of her home. The psychic suggested police search Turkey Run State Park for her body. Despite an extensive search of the park, her body wasn't found. On May 3, 1978, police in Whitehall, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, were investigating an abandoned car complaint at a Holiday Inn motel parking lot. After discovering the car belonged to a missing person, police impounded it and pried open the locked trunk where they made a grisly discovery. The badly-decomposed body of the 5'8", 137-pound Grismore was identified through her medical and dental records. According to the Franklin County coroner, the cause of her death was strangulation. Police found fingerprints on the car's rearview mirror they gathered as evidence for their investigation; otherwise, her car revealed little else about her death.

Police Report No Leads In Solving Grismore's Murder

In the 33 years following the discovery of her body, media coverage of Grismore's unsolved murder has been nearly non-existent. A search of the Indiana State Library's newspaper index found just two articles in the Indianapolis News, one story a year after her death and a second story five years later in 1983. "The file is active, and we check every lead we get, but there is nothing new to report," Det. Jerry Stadler of the Indiana State Police told the News on February 27, 1979. "The file is active, and we check on any lead we receive," Parke County Sheriff Mike Easlinger is quoted as telling the News in a January 5, 1983 story. Easlinger acknowledged police were no closer to solving her murder than the day her body was found nearly five years earlier. While the Ohio Attorney General's website for unsolved murders still lists Grismore's death as an unsolved murder, the Indiana State Police's website page for cold cases makes no mention of it. As far as can be discerned from news reports, police don't know whether Grismore was murdered in Indiana or Ohio where her body was discovered. The FBI joined in the investigation when it became apparent her body had been transported across state lines. According to Ohio's website, investigators are still looking for information regarding her murder:

Her death has been ruled a homicide and investigators believe her death could have taken place shortly after her disappearance. Several leads have been established: however, investigators need more information. Before Mary's death, she had recently married and taken the Grismore last name. Her last name just before the recent marriage was (Hale). Investigators are attempting to locate anyone who may have any information regarding her murder.