The Unsettling Disappearance of Scott Hilbert
A college student vanishes and his car is later found 1,700 miles away
Missing College Student
“I went to see a friend at Ohio State University,” said Scott Hilbert in a note to his parents. “I’ll be back later. Love ya, Scott.”
That would be the last time that anyone ever heard from the 18-year-old.
Scott left his parents’ home in Milford (a suburb of Cincinnati), Ohio, on March 13th, 1988. Yet his movements after this are a mystery. His friends said that he never made it to the campus.
Then, in an unsettling development, the black 1984 Ford Tempo that he had been driving was found abandoned in an Arizona desert—1,700 miles away—on April 1st. However, there was no trace of Scott himself.
Some of his belongings were scattered nearby, but his suitcase was also missing. Additionally, unidentified fingerprints were discovered inside the vehicle–a detail with potentially chilling implications.
What happened to Scott Hilbert?
Scott Allen Hilbert
Scott Allen Hilbert was born on March 21st, 1969, to his mother and father Lawrence. Unfortunately, there is very little information available about him, including his mother’s name.
Scott was a freshman at Morehead State University in Kentucky, where he was studying percussion. In March 1988, he was on spring break and staying at his parents’ home in Milford, Ohio.
On March 13th, he left a note on the refrigerator for his parents, which explained that he intended to visit a friend at the Ohio State University campus in Columbus (approximately 90 minutes away).
He assured them that he’d be back, but didn’t specify when he planned on coming home. His parents assumed that he’d return before the 21st, though, when classes were set to begin again.
Scott had packed and then driven off in the family vehicle, a black 1984 Ford Tempo.
Scott is Reported Missing
Scott was still gone by the 21st and they learned that he hadn't shown up for classes, which concerned his parents. It wasn’t like him to skip class, so they started to suspect that something was wrong. They reported him missing that day and the search for the missing college student began in earnest.
What had happened during those 8 days between the start of his trip and the filing of his missing persons report?
Initially, no evidence as to his whereabouts turned up. His Ohio State friends confirmed that he’d never arrived at the campus and that they had no idea where he might be.
Weeks later, in the most significant development of the case, the Ford Tempo was found in the Beaver Dam Mountains Wilderness area in Arizona—close to the Utah border—on April 1st. The front and rear license plates had been removed and, to this day, have never been located.
It appeared as if “someone had tried to push the car off the cliff, but the car got caught on a tree,” according to the Ohio Attorney General’s website.
Some items belonging to Scott—a lug wrench, shampoo, the key to his dorm room, and a kitchen knife from the Hilbert home—were discovered on the ground nearby. The presence of the knife has never been explained. Missing from the scene, in addition to Scott himself, was his suitcase.
Notably, investigators came across a California phone book and a book of matches from a Denver restaurant inside the car. No one knew how these items had shown up and it’s believed that they didn’t belong to Scott.
His fingerprints were on the passenger side of the Ford Tempo, while other—unidentified—prints were found in another part of the vehicle (though it’s not specified where) and have never been identified. There was no blood or signs of a struggle.
Though the car had turned up 1,700 miles away from the Hilbert residence, the odometer showed that it had been driven over 3,800 miles since he’d left—over 2,000 miles of which have never been accounted for.
Beyond these disturbing clues, no other evidence was ever found.
“We hope we could find him alive,” said Detective David McIntosh, “but there are no guarantees at this point.”
Additional Details
“It has torn us apart,” said Lawrence Hilbert, who was actively involved in his son’s case. “Life deals some hard blows at times, but this is the toughest any of us have ever been through. If Scott were alive, we would have heard from him … We do not expect to find our son alive. The most difficult thing is not knowing.”
Interestingly, Lawrence also shared the revelation that an abandoned blue van had been discovered in the same area four years prior to Scott’s disappearance and that the owner of that vehicle, too, had vanished. However, he didn’t reveal the missing person’s name and it’s unclear which case he was referring to.
The FBI assisted in the investigation.
Detective Daniel Wilfert had this to say:
“Somebody knows something. Nobody has spoken to him or seen him since. We are leaning towards foul play, based on the vehicle was located down a ravine in the middle of the desert. They located some other items near the vehicle, like a key and some other little things, but nothing that would point to where Scott might be.”
There was no further activity on Scott’s Social Security number (SSN).
Investigator Karen Rebori, who was still haunted by this case years later, spoke of the vastly different avenues of investigation they went down in their quest for persons of interest or viable leads.
“At the time, it ranged from a serial killer to narcotic dealers to foreign exchange students, and anyone in between.”
Yet no solid leads ever materialized and the case went cold. No suspect has ever been named.
Sadly, Scott’s disappearance has received little media coverage over the years.
His case is sometimes compared to that of Greg Tilley, a 22-year-old who vanished during a road trip in 1992. In an eerily similar twist, Greg’s car—a 1986 Chevrolet Nova—was later found abandoned in a Nevada desert and he has never been located. However, there is no known connection between the two cases.
The strange disappearance of Scott Hilbert, a college freshman who vanished without a trace, remains unsolved.