Juanita Marie Oxenrider

• Missing Since 11/14/1976
• Missing From Pasadena, Maryland
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Age 29 years old
• Height and Weight 4'11, 92 pounds
• Medical Conditions Juanita was four months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes.

Details of Disappearance

Juanita was last seen in Pasadena, Maryland on November 14, 1976. She and her husband, 29-year-old Donald Oxenrider, decided to take their 28-foot cabin cruiser out on the Patapsco River for its last ride of the season. They boarded the boat at the White Rocks Marina with a friend, Thomas Maynard.

The vessel was off Bodkin Point when the boat exploded, burned down to the water line and sank in fifteen feet of water shortly after 10:30 a.m. Marine police were at the scene within minutes but didn't see any sign of anyone on board or in the water.

Authorities raised the boat two days later and towed it to shore, but couldn't find any bodies or any sign that anyone had been on board when it exploded. They also couldn't determine what caused the explosion and fire; the boat's fuel tanks were intact.

Maynard had been charged with smuggling a gun across the Canadian border and breaking into a Pikesville, Maryland home, and was free on bail when he disappeared. Less than two weeks after the fire, federal and state investigators raided his home and seized thousands of dollars worth of gold and silver bullion, silverware, watches and jewelry. He had apparently told them about a $300,000 bullion-fencing operation.

Authorities at the time speculated none of the three had actually drowned and that Maynard staged his own death to escape prosecution, but they were unsure what had actually happened.

Donald's remains were found in the Patapsco River, about a mile from the site of the boat's sinking, in May 1977. His body was too badly decomposed to determine a cause of death. There was no sign of Juanita. In 1986, Maynard resurfaced alive and turned himself in to the police in Baltimore County, Maryland to face charges in connection with the 1976 Pikesville robbery. He had traveled to Canada after his disappearance.

Juanita was declared legally dead sometime before Maynard was located. The circumstances of her disappearance are unusual and it's unclear whether she or not is presumed to have died on the Patapsco River.