A young mother from Maryland went to stay with her sister in Florida to get away from some drug-using acquaintances. But just weeks later, 20-year-old Dawn Holt called her estranged husband, telling him she was at a hotel in Waldorf and was on her way to see him and their two toddlers.
That was April 1996, and that was the last time anyone heard from Holt.
Holt never made it to her family in St. Mary’s County, said her mother, Phyllis Watters.
“She never showed up,” Watters said. “We don’t know how she got back to Maryland. We don’t know who was supposed to be bringing her.”
Holt was officially reported missing in June 1996, after her family went two months without any sign of her in Maryland or Florida. She had a 3-year-old daughter and a son who was nearly 2, Watters said.
And 15 years later, her disappearance remains a mystery, with few leads coming to light. Police investigated a report of a body in a nearby pond years ago, but nothing was there.
“No one will give us information,” Watters said of people her daughter used to hang out with.
Holt would be 35 years old now. At the time she went missing, she was 5 feet 4 inches tall and 110 pounds, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. She had blond hair and hazel eyes.
According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, Holt had a scar above her left eye and a pierced navel. She had a small tattoo of a bird on her left wrist and a tattoo of a heart on her right shoulder.
Anyone with information can call the Maryland Center for Missing Children at 800-637-5437 or Maryland State Police at 301-392-1200.
