Wendy Eaton vanished from Delco 50 years ago. Police are still searching for her.

Fifty years ago, 15-year-old Wendy Eaton vanished in Delaware County without a trace. Now, the search for her continues, and Pennsylvania State Police are renewing calls for the public’s help.

“As we mark the 50th anniversary of Wendy’s disappearance, the Pennsylvania State Police and her family continue to seek answers and urge the public to come forward with any information,” authorities said in a statement.

The case is one that has “haunted the community for half a century,” state police added. And despite countless tips and leads over the years, no clear picture has emerged of what happened to Eaton when she disappeared on May 17, 1975.

With cold cases like Eaton’s, public assistance is vital, investigators said. New information and eyewitness accounts can help reignite searches, and with new forensic technology, even seemingly minor tips could lead to larger discoveries. As a result, police said, “even the smallest detail could be crucial.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact state police at 215-452-5216.

“The disappearance of Wendy Eaton remains an active investigation, and authorities continue to pursue all leads in the effort to bring resolution to this enduring case,” authorities said.

Eaton disappeared on a beautiful spring Saturday, just nine days before her 16th birthday. She was described as 4-foot-10, musically talented, active in church, a Girl Scout, and a good student at Penncrest High School, where she was a sophomore.

She had picked up her driver’s permit the morning of her disappearance, and spent some time sunbathing at her parents’ home in Middletown Township as the rest of her family headed out to Edgmont Country Club to play a round of golf, according to Inquirer reports from the time.

Eaton stayed behind, and planned to walk into downtown Media to purchase a birthday gift for her older brother. Later that evening, she was booked to rehearse with a choir at Middletown Presbyterian Church.

But when her parents returned home, Eaton was nowhere to be found. The girl’s purse was still at home, as were her Bibles, and none of her clothing was missing, her mother, Joan Eaton, told The Inquirer in 1975.

“When we got back Saturday, the window was open. Her bathing suit was in the middle of the floor, her bed wasn’t made,” Joan Eaton said. “And she’d been listening to John Denver, the album was still out.”

Investigators later determined that Eaton had been seen by several eyewitnesses that afternoon and was last spotted at Indian Lane and Media Station Road in Middletown. Search dogs traced Eaton’s scent to that intersection, and then lost the trail, The Inquirer reported.

“She walks down the street, comes to an intersection, and she’s gone,” State Trooper Malcolm Murphy told The Inquirer in 1990. “There’s no screaming, no signs of struggle.”

In the days after the disappearance, Eaton’s father, Roland “Bud” Eaton, said he suspected his daughter had been abducted.

“Someone had to pick her up,” he said. “And probably someone she knew. She wasn’t a bold person. She wouldn’t get into a car with someone she didn’t know.”

Eaton was deeply interested in religion, and in the wake of her disappearance, her parents believed she might have joined a religious cult, according to Inquirer reports.

“Wendy was an idealist. Our hope was that if she was alive, she’d gotten tangled up in a cult,” her mother told The Inquirer in 1990. “We chased them all over the country.”

The Eatons themselves contacted a number of controversial religious groups, showed up at rallies hoping to spot the girl, and hired private investigators. Among the sects the family monitored were the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church and the Forever Family. At one point, a coroner even compared Eaton’s dental records with those of victims in the Jonestown tragedy, but found nothing.

A state police spokesperson, meanwhile, told the Daily News in 1983 that investigators pursued the cult angle “quite extensively.” In June 1976, for example, investigators were tipped off to a girl matching Eaton’s description who had been selling candy in Punxsutawney as part of the Forever Family, the Daily News reported.

Ultimately, that lead didn’t pan out. At the time, Eaton’s mother reacted with skepticism.

“I’ll tell you the truth, at this point, we’ve heard she’s been with the Unification Church, with this, with that, but none of it’s been proven out,” she said in 1976.

Following Eaton’s disappearance, her family began offering a reward for information. It started at $1,000, and grew over the years to 10 times that amount, according to Inquirer reports.

While the reward offer did not lead to finding Eaton, the want of money did lead to arrests connected to her case.

In January 1976, someone called Eaton’s father claiming to know where the girl was located — and that he would reveal the information for $10,000. The caller struck a half-now, half-later deal with Eaton’s father, and instructed him to leave $5,000 in a trash can in Crozer Park in Chester to get the ball rolling.

Eaton’s family, however, believed the call to be a hoax and contacted police. Stakeout teams monitored the designated drop site and arrested several people.

Ultimately, three teenagers were charged, according to a Daily News report.

After nearly a decade of searching, in 1983, Eaton’s family had her declared dead by a Delaware County judge. The move brought a technical, legal end to the ordeal, allowing life insurance claims to be processed, the Daily News reported that year. The family’s attorney told the People Paper the reasoning for the declaration was “very private.”

“They didn’t do this for monetary reasons,” attorney Thomas J. Beagan Jr. said. “They’ve been through an emotional and trying experience over the last eight years. It’s the finality of this, one more step to try to put it behind them.”

Eaton, Beagan added, had no estate or property, and left no will. He was not aware whether she had life insurance.

While the declaration represented a symbolic end to the case, it did not bring a literal one. Authorities said the case remained open and was still considered a missing-person investigation. Investigators would continue to look into leads and tips.

“We pulled out all the stops trying to find her,” a state police spokesperson told the Daily News in 1983. “It is one of those cases where a person literally disappears off the face of the earth.”

By 2021, the case was being investigated as a homicide — news that broke 46 years to the day after Eaton went missing, according to an NBC10 report.

On May 17 that year, investigators were spotted digging in a wooded area behind a home near the intersection where Eaton was last seen in 1975. Officials did not say what information led them to search that area so long after Eaton’s disappearance, or whether they were investigating the previous owners of the home, or how the case came to be probed as a homicide.

“I believe the state police have done a remarkable job of getting this case to the position where we’re in right now,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told NBC10. “Where we think we can find some physical evidence on that property.”

Since then, police have not publicly commented on whether anything was discovered. By the time the case was reclassified as a homicide investigation, Eaton’s parents had long since died.

“Every stone had been turned,” Joan Eaton told The Inquirer in 1990. “They say time heals. But it’s always there.”