Even after the passing of 60 years, Tyrone’s Kathy Shea abduction mystery continues to baffle virtually all who hear details of it.

How, they ask, can a child, in a populated and well-traveled area just across the street from her school, simply vanish without anyone noticing that something was amiss, and why there was no scream or cry from Kathy loud enough to attract attention.

“There’s no such thing as a perfect crime” — so the theory goes. But March 18, 1965, debunked that belief, and it’s not the only time that theory has been proven incorrect in Pennsylvania’s Southern Alleghenies region.

Some other examples:

— Dec. 15, 1974, Barbara Ann Mangus, 21, of Johnstown. Mangus was reported missing after she attended a Christmas party at a Frankstown Road establishment. After an alleged disagreement with her husband while both were at the party, Barbara decided to walk the couple of miles to her home, via downtown Johnstown and the city’s West End, but disappeared before arriving home. Her body was found by a hunter on Dec. 31, but seemingly any chance of a quick resolution regarding the crime was lost, first, by sloppy police work at the crime scene involving tire tracks and, later, by the disappearance of DNA evidence, the kind of evidence that increasingly is being used to solve “cold” cases.

— November 1979, Dennis P. Hileman, 29, of Altoona. Hileman’s body was found by a hunter partially submerged in the Tipton Reservoir. It is believed he was marked for death as a mob informant related to the area’s drug scene, but his killer never was identified.

— July 1948, Donnie Collier, 23 months old, of Rural Ridge, Allegheny County. Donnie never was found after he was reported missing near Bakersville, Somerset County. He had been left alone in his parents’ car for, reportedly, just a few minutes, and when his mother returned to the vehicle, he was gone. A kidnapping theory was discounted initially, perhaps prematurely.

— July 1976, Star Joy Dodson, 21, of Gallitzin, formerly of Duncansville. Dodson was the friend of a St. Michael man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, which was parked in a heavily wooded area off Old Portage Road in Cresson Township. A black Labrador retriever allegedly owned by Dodson was found near the auto at the abandoned mine site. Women’s clothing was found in the car, but a search of the area failed to locate Dodson, and that case status remains unchanged.

— July 1975, Miles H. Lingle, 62, of Sankertown. Lingle was shot with a high-powered rifle while at work at the water-pumping station of the former Cresson State School. A now-deceased former area municipal police chief, a year or so after the killing, said he believed he knew the identity of the killer but could not prove his suspicion.

— November 2001, Dana Gates, 31, of Claysburg. Gates was found naked and bloody, and nearly dead, outside her home in Queen. She died enroute to a hospital. Police eventually made an arrest but the charges were dropped and the case went cold — and it remains that way to this day.

In cold cases such as those above, including the Kathy Shea disappearance, police hoped for one vital piece of evidence that could have produced an arrest or case conclusion, but that information never came.

What a shame. How tragic.