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The Flamingo Club Disappearance: Who Took Annita Price?
A young mother and waitress vanished from the road in 1974 and her case remains unsolved.
It was spring 1974, and 26-year-old Annita Maria Price from West Virginia was just setting out to go to work. She was a waitress at Benwood’s Flamingo Club, and she had borrowed her boyfriend’s car to make the short drive out of Moundsville.
But although the car was later recovered along the highway, Annita herself had vanished — and she was never seen again. Nearly 50 years on, can this cold case ever be cracked?
A mystery begins
Annita was last seen at around 8:45 PM on May 30th 1974, and she was driving a green early 1970s AMC Sportabout, also referred to as a Gremlin. The drive to work at the club should have taken a mere four minutes, but she failed to show up.
The vehicle was found the next morning along State Route 2 in McMechan with Annita’s purse and wallet inside, and her makeup was spread out across the front seat. There was no sign of a struggle, and police seemed to adopt the then-common attitude that Annita would turn up sooner or later.
However, her daughter Madonna Layne told WTOV 9 it should have been clear from the outset that something wasn’t right.
