Margaret R. Dash

• Missing Since 06/14/1974
• Missing From Clearwater, Florida
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Black
• Date of Birth 12/13/1935 (89)
• Age 38 years old
• Height and Weight 5'6, 142 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A black and white checkered pantsuit, white sandals, and a white gold ring set with one large diamond surrounded by several smaller diamonds.
• Associated Vehicle(s) White two-door 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass with the Florida license plate number 4W50436 and a missing left front hubcap (accounted for)
• Distinguishing Characteristics African-American female. Black hair, brown eyes. Some agencies give Dash's first name as "Sharon." Sharon is, in fact, her daughter's name, and Dash never used that name herself.

Details of Disappearance

Dash was last seen on June 14, 1974, when she left her residence in the 1100 block of Wildwood Street in Clearwater, Florida to buy medicine for a sick relative. She has never been heard from again. Her husband reported her missing the next day. He passed a polygraph in connection with her case and was ruled out as a suspect.

Dash had borrowed her teenage daughter's car when she left home. The vehicle, a white two-door 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass with the Florida license plate number 4W50436 and a missing left front hubcap, was found abandoned in a parking lot in St. Petersburg, Florida a month after she was last seen. She left $8,000 behind in her checking account.

Authorities believe Dash's case may be related to the disappearances of Donyelle Johnson and Retha Hiers. All three women had been dating Cleveland Hill Jr., a married asphalt contractor and a former minister at the Dash family's church, when they disappeared.

Hill had told Dash's husband about the affair and apologized, but the relationship continued for months afterwards. Dash eventually decided to end it, but she told her husband that when she tried to tell Hill their relationship was over, he threatened to kill her.

Hill shot his wife and mother-in-law in 1968. Four days after his wife left him and returned to her parents, he went to his in-laws' home and shot both victims multiple times. They survived and Hill was sentenced to five years of probation for assault, but then went to prison for a year for probation violation.

He was paroled in 1971, and his wife whom he had shot re-married him two weeks later because her Pentecostal church did not believe in divorce and church leaders urged Hill's wife to give him another chance. His wife is still alive and still has a bullet in her neck. She later said she asked Hill about the missing women and he told her, "If you keep messing with me, I will tell you what happened to those women. I can make people disappear."

In 1992, Hill was convicted of drug trafficking. He was released from prison in 2008 and died of of cancer in Virginia in 2018. He was never charged in connection with any of the missing women's cases and he maintained his innocence for all his life. A photo of him is posted with this case summary.

The missing women did not know each other and authorities have found no connection between them other than their association with Hill. Foul play is suspected in all three cases, which remain unsolved.