cold case

Cold Case of the Month - Marsha Wilson

by: Michelle Blauman

We’ve teamed up with our partners at the Cold Case Foundation and Cold Case Live to shine more light on cases that need more attention. This month we’ll be covering Marsha Wilson’s unsolved murder.

Forty-two years ago, 20-year-old Marsha Wilson’s body was found on the side of an Arizona highway by a curious driver. To this day, her case remains cold.

Marsha had recently moved from Southern California to Phoenix to take care of her 77-year-old grandmother. Reports say that she had only been living in the area for about a week when she went missing.

On July 28th, 1979, Marsha told her grandmother that she met someone from the area at the park near their home. She made plans to meet the person the following day at the Verde River off State Route 87, outside Fountain Hill. It’s unclear how or if Marsha had made it to the Verde River. 

On the following day, July 29th, a neighbor picked Marsha up and drove her to the Thomas Mall. After this, police aren’t really sure what happened in between being dropped off and when her body was found the next day.

Marsha Wilson’s body was found on July 30th near the guardrail at the side of Beeline Highway, just 7 miles south of Payson, Arizona. She was only wearing a bathing suit and had numerous injuries indicative of being strangled and assaulted. The medical examiner found the cause of death to be strangulation and noted that semen was found on the body.

One week after Marsha’s body was discovered, an anonymous letter was sent to the Gila County Sheriff’s Office. This wasn’t a letter from someone claiming they were the killer or that that they knew who the killer was. The anonymous letter was from a potential witness. They stated that they saw Marsha being picked up on the highway by an unknown man. Apparently, the potential witness had tried to offer her a lift which she declined.

I think it’s important to state how common hitchhiking was in the 1960’s and 70’s. Today, it seems crazy that someone would willingly get into a car with a stranger, but times were much different back then. There was a whole generation of young people who wanted to get out of their small towns and an easy way to do it was bumming a ride. With some hindsight, we can obviously see how this was incredibly dangerous. Hitchhiking is how many famous serial killers of the time chose their victims.

At one point in the case, investigators had two suspects on their radar. However, neither of these leads panned out and no arrests have been made. Marsha’s case has been re-opened twice, briefly in 1988 and again in 2016, but still remains unsolved. If you have any information on Marsha’s death, please submit a tip to the Cold Case Foundation at the link below.

The Cold Case Foundation is dedicated to stopping the deadly compounding effect of cold cases and providing hope and resources to families affected by violent crime. The Foundation is devoted to raising public awareness and creating partnerships to assist and provide law enforcement whatever resources are needed to bring about closure. Get involved by either donating directly or joining Cold Case Live Membership which provides access to podcasts, articles, blogs, web series, premium content, and their brand-new Cold Case Academy.

Hunt A Killer is a proud to partner the Cold Case Foundation. A portion of our proceeds from every episode we deliver is donated directly to the foundation.