MISSING E4: Ethel Louise Atwell

On Oct. 24, 1978, Ethel Louise Atwell of Newark, went to work on Staten Island and never returned home. It was dark - around 6 a.m. - when she arrived at her job as a nurse aide at the Staten Island Developmental Center on the grounds of the former Willowbrook State School. Workers heard the 46-year-old scream from the parking lot. By the time police arrived, Ethel had disappeared, but they found her purse, buttons from her coat, her dentures, and one of her shoes just outside her parked car. Her keys were found in the woods. Police and volunteers scoured the 300-acre property for days -- her sons looked for her in the woods for months -- but no one found any evidence of Ethel. In August 1978, only two months before Ethel's disappearance, another nurse was found buried in a shallow grave not far from where Ethel parked her car. Several children also disappeared from Staten Island in the 1970's and 1980's. Could Ethel's disappearance be linked to these other cases? For more than four decades, Ethel's family, including her four sons, has been haunted by the questions of who abducted her and why. Eyewitness News investigative reporter Kristin Thorne returns to the woods with her family and tries to uncover clues in this terrifying cold case in the latest episode of "Missing." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices