Kathy Marie Molton was a teenager when she disappeared walking home from downtown Portland in 1971.

Her disappearance is the longest standing missing person's case in Maine's history and one of the oldest in the country.

The Molten family still doesn't know where their daughter is, despite what the particularly dedicated

investigators have uncovered in the decades since she vanished from that Portland sidewalk.

This is the case of Kathy Marie Molton, part one.

I'm Kylie Lowe and this is Dark Down East. The At 115 in the afternoon on Friday, on September 24th, 1971,

Lyman Roy Moulton bowed to his oldest daughter's request

for a ride into town to do some shopping.

It was a quick drive from their home in Dearing Center only about two miles, a straight shot down forest.

Before walking out the door, Claire Moulton asked her daughter to pick up two tubes of toothpaste and handed over some change for that and her bus fare home.

Lyman dropped Kathy Marie off on the corner of Cumberland and Forest Avenue and watched her walk up the gentle incline towards Congress Street, carrying her favorite

hand-tooled leather handbag she picked out as her 16th birthday gift that summer.

Kathy loved swing dancing and there was a dance at the

YMCA that night. Her panty hose had a run in them so she needed to pick up a new

pair before the dance. Between 115 PM and 530 PM,

it's assumed Kathy was shopping in downtown Portland.

It's not publicly reported what exactly she was doing during that four-hour window besides

making a purchase at Portchis Mitchell and Braun. We don't know if she was

spotted with anyone or met up with friends on her shopping trip.

There aren't any reports on if she actually picked up that toothpaste her mother asked for

in the pantyhose she needed before the dance.

But it's assumed she bought something because by

...