Within a week of Beth’s December 22nd disappearance, troopers found yet another pair of witnesses who’d reportedly seen Beth van Zanten on the same day she went missing. It was a bizarre tale, told by strangers. And hard to tell if the witnesses were telling the truth or wishing a truth upon an unsolved murder. They will go unnamed; let it suffice that these two strangers were mother and daughter. The mother did the talking.
“Last Wednesday afternoon we saw Beth van Zanten in the Valu Mart at around 3:30 or 4:00 pm. I went to the bathroom and entered the stall. As I sat down I heard someone say, ‘Get up off the floor, Beth.’ I heard no reply.
“After I got done, I opened the door to the booth and saw Beth van Zanten sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. She had no shoes or stockings and her coat was lying on the floor beside her. Her hair was brownish-blonde and she had a very pale complexion. Her coat was frost green, her hair was wet, she wore dungarees and her feet were purple from cold.
“She was smoking a cigarette, flipping the ashes with her left hand. Hair parted in the middle. I saw no shoes in the area.
“I asked her what the matter was. She said, ‘My feet are cold.’ I said, ‘Where are your shoes?’ She said she didn’t have any. I asked her if she wanted me to call the store manager. She said, ‘No,’ that she had walked a long way. Then she said she had to walk to Bi-Lo and meet someone in the parking lot.
“During the time we were talking, it appeared as though she didn’t want anything to do with my daughter or myself, as she kept looking at the wall, away from us.
“One of the outstanding things about her was that she had a wide mouth with thin lips. Her toenails were unpainted, as were her fingernails, and she had no facial makeup on. She was small framed, about 5’5”, possibly 150 pounds and almost flat-chested.
Both the mother and daughter made a positive ID of a photo of Beth van Zanten.
Given that troopers had already published Beth’s photo, as well as information about the coat she’d been wearing, and her missing boots, it was impossible to credit these two strangers with unique revelations, unknown to anyone but the cops. More perplexing was its eerie resemblance to the Tiki Room story told by Andrea Taggart and Louise Hawkins. Except… Andrea and Louise actually knew Beth van Zanten.
Purchase Butcher, Baker