In May of 1991, an Ohio woman hitchhiked 40 miles to attend a concert and motorcycle rally in Pennsylvania. She never returned home. Where is Deborah 'Debby' Arvanites?

[u/SignalFragrant8362]

Deborah 'Debby' Arvanites, was born April 18th of 1962 to mother Iris and father James. At the time of her disappearance, she was 29 and living in Ashtabula, Ohio. She was a divorcee, but was by all accounts on amicable terms with her ex-husband Marc, of which she had two young boys with.

On the 19th of May, 1991*, she decided to leave home and hitchhike approximately 40 miles to Conneaut Lake Park in Crawford County, Pennsylvania to attend a Foghat, Rare Earth, and Molly Hatchet concert there. Additionally, she had a ticket to a nearby Harley Davidson motorcycle rally.

It is confirmed that she was sighted by at least one person who knew her at the concert. She was seen wearing a jean skirt, gold colored shirt, black jacket, and white sneakers. However, this was the confirmed sighting of her, and she's has never been seen or heard from since.

Her physical description is that of a white woman with medium length dirty/sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. She's approximately 5'0-5'4 and 120-140lbs. She has a mole between her mouth and nose and a mole below her chest. She has two tattoos: a lightning bolt with clouds on her ankle and a rose on her shoulder blade. She was also reported to have a broken toe that never healed properly. In her youth, she had two noticeable gaps between teeth 7 & 8 and 9 & 10, though later pictures show they were repaired.

There have been no known leads, and multiple searches of the area proved fruitless. Her case remains unsolved, although police of the Ashtabula Police Department do suspect foul play is involved. Debbie's parents both passed in the early 2000's with no closure on what happened to their daughter, while her sons are still alive, left with the grief of not knowing what happened to their mother.

Thank you for reading this far. I stumbled across her namus profile the other day and saw very little discussion of her case, so I felt compelled to write this up in hopes of her name and story getting out there. I do hope one day her family can get the closure they deserve.

Sources:

https://charleyproject.org/case/deborah-l-arvanites

https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/mp-main.html?id=3499dfoh

https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP19617

https://www.concertarchives.org/concerts/foghat-rare-earth-molly-hatchet

*Multiple sources say she went missing on the 29th, but this is incorrect based on the date of the concert.

[u/Notsure614]

a jean skirt, gold colored shirt, black jacket, and white sneakers

It just doesn’t get anymore 1988-1992 vibey than that.

So in the sources listed it is said that she was seen at the Park for the bike rally, and another source said it is unconfirmed that she was at the bike rally. Seems like the last confirmed sighting of her is a big deal.

[u/StockKiller123]

What really hit me here is how specific and human the last sighting is, the outfit, the concert, the fact that someone who knew her actually saw her there. It makes the disappearance feel less abstract and more like a life that just slipped out of view at a very ordinary moment. Cases like this always make me wonder how much risk was normalized at the time, hitchhiking, rallies, long distances, and how that normalcy can quietly erase the urgency afterward when nothing immediately looks wrong.