Hester Lee Chandler

• Missing Since 09/12/1974
• Missing From Modesto, California
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 07/21/1914 (111)
• Age 60 years old
• Height and Weight 5'7, 130 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes.

Details of Disappearance

Chandler was last seen in Modesto, California on September 12, 1974. She disappeared just after she withdrew nearly $9,000 from her bank account, and has never been heard from again. Her car was found parked outside of her home, packed with cardboard boxes of Hester's clothing. All of her credit cards and identification, except her driver's license, were left inside the house, and some of the cards had been partially burned. Her house keys were in the ilving room.

Authorities believe she was a victim of James Toliver. James, a forklift operator and cannery worker from Ceres, California, joined the singles group Parents Without Partners and dated several women following Patty's disappearance, using the alias "Jim Joy." He was known as a heavy gambler. A photo of him is posted with this case summary.

On October 8, 1980, James's body was found at the door of his pickup truck on a remote dirt road in Hope Valley, near Lake Tahoe in California. He had died of a heart attack. He was carrying a .38 caliber pistol and a bloodstained pillowcase containing $98,000, all of it in hundred-dollar bills. Nearly a mile away was the body of Florence Evelyn Richina, a 49-year-old former special education teacher; she'd been shot with a .38 caliber pistol. James's footprints led from the crime scene to his truck.

Richina had sold some land and withdrawn $98,000 from her bank account, and that same amount of cash was in the pillowcase with James's body. Some of Richina's personal belongings and jewelry were found hidden in James's home. There were reports that they were going to get married, but authorities could find no marriage license or other evidence to support the stories.

James is a suspected serial killer; authorities believe he killed Richina and may have been involved in the disappearances of Chandler and other women: Jacqueline Cooper, who disappeared in 1976, his wife Patricia Toliver, who disappeared in 1978, and Mary Watkins, who was last seen in 1979.