Why are police asking for help with finding a woman who vanished nearly 50 years ago?

Related video: This Utah woman was last seen in 1978 — Police are still looking for answers

MURRAY, Utah (ABC4) — On Sept. 16, 1978, 29-year-old Linda Peterson — who was five-and-a-half months pregnant at the time — told her husband she was leaving on a trip to Kentucky with some friends. She hasn’t been seen since.

On May 20, 2025 — nearly 50 years after Peterson disappeared — the Murray Police Department posted on social media to ask for help from the public. Here’s why.

According to detectives with Murray PD, new developments with DNA samples and adoption records have renewed the investigation into Peterson’s disappearance.

“Early on in our investigation in 1978, we treated it like any other missing persons report and gathered the details of it,” Detective Gruendell with the Murray Police Department said. “Over the years in reassigning it, we ran into new technology like DNA.”

Peterson was adopted in Glendale, California, in 1949. Detective Gruendell said it took some time to get unredacted adoption records from California — the department didn’t get those records until 2012, and learned that only Peterson’s birth mother (not her father) was identified in the records.

Around the time Murray PD obtained the adoption records, detectives were later able to identify a first cousin of Peterson’s and obtain a DNA sample to put into a database. However, the case stalled because detectives needed a DNA match to a sibling or birth parent.

In 2025, the case reopened, and Gruendell said detectives were able to identify “natural siblings” of Peterson. Her siblings agreed to provide DNA samples, and Murray PD is working to put a DNA profile together.

“This is a huge thing for this case, and the reason is… any unidentified body that we have had between 1978 and now, we’ve never been able to test to find out if it is our missing persons case,” Gruendell said.

Gruendell continued: “Now we have the technology and the resources to push this case forward to actually reach out to other departments and go on NamUs and try to identify if she has passed away or maybe she just packed up and moved.”

Murray detectives said Peterson’s family is interested in bringing her home. Detectives also said that any details, no matter how small, may help find Peterson.

“We are running out of time to find anyone who knew her that we could possibly interview,” Gruendell said.

Who is Linda Peterson?

According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, Linda was first reported missing by her husband, William Peterson, on Sept. 30, 1978. He told police that his wife had left home with friends in a station wagon.

William said Linda was heading to Kentucky to meet with some other friends, but he “became worried when he didn’t hear from Linda,” according to the DPS. Detectives with Murray PD said that Linda had lived in Kentucky for four months in 1974, but officials have not been able to identify the friends that she left with for the trip in 1978.

“We have not [been] able to have enough evidence to corroborate that she actually went to Kentucky for that trip,” Detective Gutierrez with Murray PD told ABC4.com.

Linda is described as being 5’8″ tall, weighing 130 pounds, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), she was last seen wearing an orange maternity top and blue jeans.

Linda worked as a nurse at the University of Utah in 1977 and 1978. She would now be 76 years old. Her husband worked as a pharmacist, and told police his wife was with a woman he did not recognize, named Susan or Suzanne, in the station wagon.

Anyone with information or memories has been asked to call 801-264-2673 or email Detective Gruendell at kgruendell@murray.utah.gov.