CHARLOTTE — Denise Porch vanished without a trace from the Yorktown Apartments in Charlotte in 1975. Nearly five decades later, her family and police still hold out hope someone will come forward with answers.
The Yorktown Apartments off Tyvola Road became the site of a mystery that would baffle police for half-a-century.
Channel 9 reported in 1975 that the property manager, Denise Porch, who was then 21, disappeared.
A bystander got a good look at the driver and told police he favored the man in the police drawing.
Porch was recently married to her husband, Dean Porch, who never got over the loss of his wife and believes she was abducted.
He is now deceased.
Denise Porch’s younger sister, Diane Hill, said they grew up in the small town of Denton in Davidson County.
“We always came back home, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. My mom did all the cooking,” Hill said.
Porch got married in 1973 and moved to Charlotte where she got a job at the Yorktown Apartments.
“My mother didn’t like that idea at all,” Hill said.
Porch was last seen on July 31, 1975, at 3:11 p.m.
“Her husband called us,” Hill said. “He called at 7:30 that night and asked my mom if Denise was at the house. She said, ‘No, I haven’t seen her today.’”
“That evening, her husband comes home and realizes her car is outside, expects to find her inside,” said Lt. Bryan Crum, who is with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit. “It appeared as if she completely vanished without a trace.”
Porch’s car, purse and identification were left behind at the apartment.
“Officers were concerned about that,” Crum said. “They started a canvas in earnest. This was after the husband had asked around to see, ‘Have you seen Denise?’”
Years passed without answers.
The family eventually declared Porch dead.
“I know my mother wasn’t happy at doing it because that was her giving up and she never gave up, until the day she died,” Hill said. “She was hoping that something would turn up.”
“So, for us, it dosen’t change anything,” Crum said. “We want to find Denise.”
But that could be more difficult now.
People who may be witnesses could have died now that it’s been decades since the vanishing.
“We know that some folks had last seen Denise riding in her car with two folks who were unidentified,” Crum said. “No one knows who they are. That wasn’t unsual at the time. She might have somebody hop in the car to drive them over to take a look at a particular unit.”
The structure of the police department was different. In 1975, CMPD didn’t have a Missing Persons Unit. Youth Bureau investigators would work those cases. Cellphones didn’t exist and DNA was unheard of in police work.
“You can fingerprint everything you would like to, but it doesn’t give you the full story,” Crum said.
“My mother was just, she was just pitiful, and she lived the rest of her life like that,” Hill said. “She, in her mind, thought that she would see her again, but she didn’t.”
Call Crime Stoppers at 704-334.1600 if you know something.
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