LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The community never stopped searching for Ann Gotlib. Years after she disappeared from the Bashford Manor Mall, people still called the police to report what they remembered from that day.
After a lengthy fight for records, the FOCUS team obtained a small portion of documents from the case file. Reports from investigators describe several tips they hoped would lead them to her body.
In a handwritten note from 1990, one person described a dig near her home, and officers were sent officers out to investigate. Two men in a pickup truck were reportedly seen digging a hole in a dirt road to an abandoned house on Bearcamp Road.
When detectives contacted the woman, she said the area around her home had been excavated. The report says the investigation was "continuing" but did not include any additional details.
That same year, there was another interesting lead. This time, the tip came from a county employee who asked police if they wanted to inspect a well on Newburg Road before it was filled in.
Investigators planned to inspect the well but noted that, due to rainy weather, the inspection was canceled.
According to the report, the well was filled in and there was no evidence of a body.
In 1989, someone contacted police remembering they saw a man standing behind a white van on Rose Island Road the day after Gotlib disappeared.
The person told police the man was parked in from of a gate near a wooded area in an isolated section of the road and the man resembled the composite drawing of a person of interest.
Days later, police got another similar tip from the Prospect area.
Thie report came from two people that were collecting cans off Rose Island Road and Belknap Beach Road. They told police that they found a "new shovel that still had the price tag on the handle." They believed the shovel had been used once and discarded.
Detectives searched the area and noted, "the investigation revealed no evidence of any gravesites, although there is plenty of acreage in that area where one could hide a body."
Nearly forty years since she vanished from the former Bashford Manor Mall, Ann Gotlib still has not been found. She would be 50 years old today.
The FOCUS team will keep searching through the documents in the case file and will show you what we are finding as we discover more about the case.
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