Carol Jean Fillion Aungst Clark Pierce

• Missing Since 09/08/1975
• Missing From Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 12/04/1939 (85)
• Age 35 years old
• Height and Weight 5'5, 115 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue/hazel eyes. Carol has a small scar on her upper lip. She has a surgical pin implanted in her right femur.

Details of Disappearance

Carol was last seen at her residence in the vicinity of west Elm Street and north Hudson Avenue Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin at 8:00 a.m. on September 8, 1975. Her husband, Richard Gale Pierce, stated he had had coffee with her that morning, then left for work. When he returned home between 4:00 and 4:30 p.m., she was gone, and so was their savings.

Carol left behind her purse, pet cat, makeup and other belongings at her home. She and Richard had only one vehicle between them, and he had it when she disappeared. Only weeks prior to going missing, she had paid a year's worth of insurance premiums in advance.

Carol was a housewife at the time of her disappearance and did not work outside the home. Her marriage to Richard was her third, and his second. Carol's loved ones described her as a homebody who enjoyed gardening in 1975. Richard was a crewman on the United States Coast Guard cutter Mesquite.

Prior to Carol's going missing, the Pierces had had plans to move to Cheboygan, Michigan, where they owned some property, upon Richard's upcoming retirement. It wasn't until his retirement party weeks later that Carol's mother realized she was missing; she made Richard file a missing persons report. The report was filed on September 15, 82 days after Carol was last seen.

Richard did retire and move to Michigan with his new girlfriend. He obtained a divorce from Carol in 1977 and remarried a short time later.

Carol and Richard's relationship was troubled and they'd been in marriage counseling. Just prior to her disappearance, Carol signed over to Richard her interest in titles to their truck and the mobile home. He said she did this after she threatened to leave him, but Carol's friends and family stated she had no plans to leave Richard. She was saving money to buy him a Coast Guard ring as a surprise gift for his retirement.

Police didn't begin to thoroughly investigate her disappearance until the 1980s. A grand jury investigated Carol's case in 1988, but didn't issue any indictments. In 2008, police searched Richard's farm near Cheboygan, looking for Carol's body, but the search didn't uncover any evidence.

In October 2018, Richard, by then 82 years old, was charged with Carol's murder. Authorities noted he had "motive and opportunity to end her life, and benefitted from her demise in numerous ways" and also that he had given inconsistent statements about her disappearance for decades. A photo of Richard is posted with this case summary. He had been the prime suspect in her disappearance for years.

He maintained his innocence and suggested Carol had simply run away and wasn't dead. At his trial in 2022, his defense called no witnesses and simply argued that without a murder weapon, a witness or a body, the prosection hadn't met their burden of proof. Friends of both Carol and Richard testified; one friend said Carol had said she was afraid of Richard and that she thought he would kill her someday.

After ten hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Richard of first-degree murder and disinterment of the dead. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder and three years for the disinterment charge. This charge stems from the prosecution theory that Richard killed his wife in Wisconsin and then moved her body to Michigan and kept it in the crawl space of his home for years before moving it elsewhere. Six times, a cadaver-sniffing dog indicated the presence of human remains in the crawl space.

Carol's passport and Social Security number have not been used since 1975. Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.