The time of her disappearance was about 12:10 p.m. March 18, 1965, and to this day, despite massive efforts by state police from the Hollidaysburg Barracks, there has not been one clue as to what happened to the 6-year-old.

Her father, Jim Shea, a supervisor at a nearby paper mill, stated in a 2005 interview that he came home for lunch that day and offered to drive his daughter to the school, which was only two blocks from the Shea home.

“No dad, I like walking in the snow,” she told him.

She was certainly dressed for the cool, late-winter afternoon, by her mother, Mary Alice Shea.

Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski / A plaque honoring Kathy Shea sits outside the Tyrone Elementary School cafeteria. The plaque was created in 2015 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her disappearance.

Kathy, described as bright yet contemplative, left home wearing a dark brown hat, a coat with a fur collar, a red sweater, red tights and very large, bright yellow boots with distinctive black soles — what investigators described as a bumblebee design.

She was returning to school after having her tonsils removed and after experiencing a bout of chickenpox.

Her route from her home on West 14th Street was to North Avenue and then to West 15th Street, where a retired school guard talked to her.

A neighborhood parent also talked to her and twins named Sylvia and Martha saw her at North Avenue and 16th Street.

When they looked again, Kathy was no longer there.

Police brought in bloodhounds, which tracked Kathy to North Avenue and Garfield Street.

Investigators believe at that point, she entered a vehicle but they were never able to obtain a detailed description of a vehicle seen in the area that day (only that it was “worn”) and that there were reports of man who had, a few months before, asked a patrol boy “to point out Kathy Shea.”

A man of similar description was seen in the area the day before Kathy’s disappearance.

When Kathy didn’t show up for class, her teacher, Judy Norris, was not alarmed, noting that Kathy had recently been ill.

But when she didn’t return home late that afternoon, a massive search ensued.

It included young and old alike.

Gov. Bill Scranton activated the National Guard.

The streets were searched. Garbage cans throughout the borough were scanned — although one young searcher complained that she was never given a description of what Kathy was wearing that day, only that authorities were looking for the body of a young girl.

The search extended to neighboring counties.

Many who experienced the devastating emotion and subsequent non-resolution of Kathy Shea’s disappearance are now deceased.

They include: the lead investigator from the state police, Fred Leamer; Altoona Mirror reporter, Vergie Werner, who lived next door to the Shea family and who spent that first night with the family; and Cary Simpson, the widely known and respected owner of radio station WTRN.

In past interviews, Leamer said, “I’ll probably go to my grave wondering what happened. … You never forget.”

Werner remembered how she and Mary Alice “laughed and cried together many times talking about Kathy.”

Simpson said what happened to Kathy “was horrible … I think people after a while just feel sad.”

Still a ‘scar’

But while Kathy Shea’s disappearance occurred two generations ago, her case continues to cry out for resolution, because people want to know what happened.

Freelance writer Lloyd Rogers, who lives in the Tyrone area, said he has written about the case and in a recent note sent to the Altoona Mirror, he stated, “Kathy’s story isn’t just a local mystery; it’s a scar that never healed.”

Tyrone Mayor William Latchford in a recent interview sums up the feelings of local residents, stating, Kathy’s disappearance “was a loss to the community.”

“Back then, we didn’t have to worry about our children. People looked out for each other,” he said.

Then he vowed, “This town is not ready to give up on Kathy Shea yet.”

“We are all still wondering what happened and want closure at some point,” he said.

Latchford went on to explain how impressed he has been with the State Police in Hollidaysburg for their tenaciousness and their “awesome dedication” to bringing resolution to the case.

The present day cold case trooper on the Kathy Shea case is Dana Martini.

She did not want to discuss the ongoing investigation except to say that when leads continue to come in, they are investigated.

She also hesitated to talk about any recent developments, noting she wanted to protect the integrity of the overall investigation.

Many troopers have worked on the case over the years, including Leamer, who at one point was named State Police Officer of the Year; Troopers Thomas Semelsberger, David Aiello and Terry Summers.

Trooper Barry S. Bidelspach, an experienced investigator, promised Leamer that he would continue to pursue the Shea disappearance after Leamer retired.

Bidelspach, even into his own retirement, continued the search for clues that would resolve the case, and just prior to his death in 2019, at age 82, was still pursuing interviews in the case.

Another Tyrone resident who is seeking closure is Judy Norris, Kathy’s kindergarten teacher.

Norris was in her first year of teaching.

She is now retired and is a community leader in Tyrone, but admitted that every year at this time, “It comes back.”

She, like Latchford, is not giving up.

“I do think there is hope,” she said.

But, as for now, she stated, “I can’t add anything to it.”

“It’s not like the police didn’t do their job. They did,” she concluded.

Then she made the point, “If there is progress today, it will be through technology.”

Technology assist

Back in 1965 when Kathy went missing, there was no internet, and the phenomenon unleashed by the use of DNA was still 24 years

in the future, but it is through the development of these technologies that offer a sliver of hope that could provide answers to the mystery of Kathy Shea’s disappearance and could determine if she may still be alive.

Martini indicated that state police are aware of the use of Ancestry DNA in locating people through the DNA of relatives and comparing that to people of similar ethnicity, or “ancestral journeys,” but, she explained, police need something to compare to the DNA characteristics of the Shea family, which they don’t have.

However, the use of ancestry DNA was used this past year in a case that is eerily similar to the Kathy Shea disappearance, to not only locate a man who had been kidnapped in 1951, but who was found alive, living on the East Coast.

According to news reports published last September in the Oakland, Calf., Mercury News and the Los Angeles Times, Luis Armando Albino was 6 years old when he and an older brother were playing in an Oakland park near his family’s home.

A woman came to the park and offered to buy the youngster a piece of candy. She then took him and flew him to the East Coast, where she gave the child to the couple who eventually raised him.

In 2020, a niece, Alida Alequin, knowing the trauma that the youngster’s disappearance had caused the family, just for fun took a DNA test which, according to the news reports, resulted in a 22% match to a man on the East Coast.

She had a feeling that the man could be her long-lost uncle.

She and her own family members began an internet search for the man. The Oakland Police Department and the FBI assisted in the search and the man was eventually located.

Another DNA test indicated he was the lost uncle.

Albino was reunited with his relatives, including the older brother he was with the day of his kidnapping.

He remembered being taken from the park, but did not want to talk to the media.

News reports indicated Albino was a Marine Corps veteran, having served two tours in Vietnam, a retired firefighter, a father and grandfather.

In his 2005 interview, Jim Shea mentioned his hope that Kathy was still alive.

A lot of times, he said, “I get to thinking ‘what did happen to Kathy?'”

He then added that he hoped whoever kidnapped her did not take her life, but instead wanted a child to raise. Maybe, he hoped, Kathy grew up in a good home.