Linda Mae Peugeot

• Missing Since 09/22/1969
• Missing From LaVale, Maryland
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Age 21 years old
• Height and Weight 5'0 - 5'2, 96 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A black and white checked blouse, a light blue sweater and bellbottom slacks with shoulder straps.
• Associated Vehicle(s) Light green two-door 1969 Pontiac GTO with a white top (accounted for)
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Linda's maiden name Stewart.

Details of Disappearance

Linda and her young daughter, Lori, lived in Bel Air, Maryland in 1969. They were staying with relatives there while Linda's husband and Lori's father, Gerald Peugeot, was overseas serving in the United States Navy.

Linda and Lori were last seen shopping at the now-defunct King's Department Store in LaVale, Maryland on September 22, 1969, the day before Lori's birthday. The have never been heard from again. Stanley Barton Hoss Jr. abducted them in the parking lot of the store as they were leaving.

A photograph of Hoss is posted with this case summary. He accosted the Peugeots as they were about to drive away in their two-door 1969 Pontiac GTO, which was light green with a white top. He threatened them with a gun and demanded they drive him to Canada.

Hoss checked into a Franklin, Pennsylvania motel later that same day. He had Lori with him and asked for a crib for her, but the motel owner didn't see Linda. Later Hoss and Lori were seen together in Tiffin, Ohio on September 23 and in Fairbury, Illinois on September 24, but there were no sightings of Linda, and Lori wasn't sighted after September 24.

Hoss was arrested in Iowa two weeks later, alone. He had Linda's car with him; her purse was inside and Lori's car seat was in the back.

Hoss later confessed to authorities that Linda agreed to take him to Canada, but in Pennsylvania she became concerned for Lori's safety, pulled to the side of the road and refused to drive anymore. Hoss stated he shot Linda to death and put her body in the trunk of her vehicle.

According to Hoss, he left Linda's body at a dump with a triangular-shaped gate made of steel pipe. The dump was outside of Akron, Ohio, off Route 224. At the time he abducted the Peugeots, Hoss had already escaped from prison where he was serving 10 to 20 years for rape, killed a police officer and kidnapped and released two other people.

Hoss told authorities he drove Lori as far as Kansas after her mother's murder, then smothered her with either a blanket or his bare hand. He then left her body in a rural area outside Kansas City, on the side of a creek. He covered her remains with an empty beer carton and fired about seven shots into her body.

He was sentenced to life in prison for the officer's murder, but he was never tried for the presumed murders of Linda and Lori, because the courts determined that his constitutional right to a speedy trial in that case had been violated. While in prison, he tortured a guard to death with other inmates and was convicted of manslaughter. In prison in 1978, Hoss died by suicide.

Linda and Lori's bodies have never been located. Linda worked as a waitress at Warner's restaurant at the time of her disappearance.