In 1971, 19-year-old Myrtle Anne Etheridge vanished from her Plano apartment complex while doing laundry; barefoot, in the cold, and gone within minutes. Days later, her body was found in a remote drainage area, bound and stabbed, left in a place meant to hide her. Her killer has never been identified.

Four years later and a thousand miles away, her cousin, Paula Diane Etheridge, disappeared under eerily similar circumstances. Also last seen doing laundry, Paula was abducted in broad daylight in Okeechobee, Florida. Witnesses later described seeing a violent struggle inside a moving car.

Unlike Anne’s, Paula’s case didn’t stay unsolved.

Investigators quickly focused on David Ross Delap, a local man with a violent past who moved in the same circles as Paula. After hours of questioning and mounting evidence, Delap led authorities to Paula’s body. He was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death not once, but twice.

Two women from the same family and the same generation.

Both taken while doing something routine.

One case solved and one case forgotten by the public.

If you have any information about the murder of Myrtle Anne Etheridge, please contact the Plano Police Department Crimes Against Persons Unit at (972) 941-2148.

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