Missing woman mystery continues ...

JOYCE PRESCOTT PERSING, left, Michelle Factor, Mary Jane Oresik and Susan Randall look through the Addison Independent archives from 1971 in search of stories about the mysterious disappearance of Middlebury College student Lynne Schulze. The women, three of whom were childhood friends of Schulze, were in Middlebury last week to look for clues in the unsolved case.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell

By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — Accompanied by an intuitive counselor, family and friends of Middlebury’s longest standing missing person were in town last week looking for more answers in the 1971 disappearance of Lynne Schulze.
“We’re not going to stop until we know what happened,” said Susan Randall, an Idaho resident and one of Schulze’s childhood friends who was among a group of five people in town on a fact-finding visit to local police and the Middlebury College campus on July 27 and 28.
On Dec. 10, 1971, Schulze, then 18, disappeared from Middlebury College, where she had been rounding out her first semester. Schulze, a native of Simsbury, Conn., had been walking to an exam hall when she suddenly told her friends she needed to run back to her dorm room to get a pencil.
That’s when Schulze disappeared into thin air. Authorities found all of Schulze’s possessions — including her wallet — still inside her room. Police throughout the region searched in vain for the young woman, whom the Middlebury Campus newspaper reported on Jan. 28, 1972, as having been seen on Route 7, presumably hitchhiking.
The Addison Independent profiled Schulze’s case — and the ongoing efforts by Middlebury police to solve it — in its June 23, 2005, edition. Schulze’s friends and relatives said last week it was that story that prompted them to unite late last year to resurrect the search for answers into the fate of their loved one.
Anne Rozmovits, one of Lynne Schulze’s four siblings, said she recently re-read the roughly three-dozen letters Lynne had exchanged with her family and friends during her semester at Middlebury.
“There was every indication in her letters that she would have finished the semester at Middlebury,” Rozmovits said. “She was not the kind of person who would run away.”
Two of Lynne’s childhood friends agreed.
Randall and Joyce Prescott Persing had both grown up with Lynne in Simsbury. Randall said she had visited Lynne at Middlebury College.
“She was fun-loving, and loved to be outdoors,” Randall said.
Persing, who now lives in Canton, Conn., acknowledged that Lynne was feeling homesick and was considering withdrawing from school. But she stressed it was not in her friend’s character to suddenly drop out of sight.
“She didn’t have an opportunity to make the adjustment (to life at Middlebury College),” Persing said. “Her parents knew she was unhappy, and were going to talk to her about it.”
The women are convinced that Lynne is deceased, but want some closure that can only come from the discovery of remains and/or evidence of how she met her fate.
To that end, Randall last fall got in touch with Michelle Factor, an “intuitive counselor and healer” based in Haley, Idaho. With most of the investigative leads in the 35-year-old case now very cold, Lynne’s friends and family hoped that Factor could, in some way, channel the young woman’s spirit in an effort to turn up clues.
“I’m the door, the voice,” Factor said.
Last Dec. 29, Factor said she was able to communicate with Lynne. Factor is convinced that Schulze was murdered, but that “she is at peace.”
Persing and Randall said that Factor was able to uncannily describe Lynne, and places she had been.
“I described certain places and people that have all panned out,” Factor said. “Each thing is leading to something else I saw.”
With that in mind, Rozmovits, Factor, Randall, Persing and friend Mary Jane Oresik scheduled a trip to Middlebury. They arrived late last week. It was the first time the Schulze family had visited Middlebury in 10 years, and the first time that Randall had been back since visiting Lynne on campus during October of 1971.
While here, the women looked through archived information at Middlebury College and at the Addison Independent. They also spoke with Middlebury police officer Vegar Boe, who is in charge of the Schulze case.
The women said they wanted to keep details of their police discussion confidential, but were generally upbeat about their visit.
“We met some very wonderful people who have opened their hearts,” Factor said.
“It’s been very emotional,” Persing said. “It’s been really affirming to people.”
The women and other friends of Lynne Schulze held a gathering in her memory in Connecticut on Sunday, July 30. There, they shared reminiscences of their friend and reiterated their resolve to clear up the mystery that has been haunting them for more than three decades.
Recent months have allowed Rozmovits to become spiritually reacquainted with her sister, through letters, memories and testimonials from those who knew her.
“Lynne was a very caring person, who valued her friends and her family tremendously,” Rozmovits said.
She continues to hope that new evidence will surface in the case.
“There is much more to the situation than the myth she ran away,” Rozmovits said.
Anyone with information on the case should call Middlebury police at 388-3191.