She Vanished After Getting A Phone Call One Night, And Her Car Was Later Found Abandoned At An Airport
In 1984, Helen Ann Morgan was a 26-year-old mother of one. She lived four miles west of Barnesville, Georgia, with her 5-year-old daughter and her own mom.
Yet, she vanished without a trace on Mother’s Day that year, and her disappearance is one of Lamar County’s only two cold cases.
That day, May 13, 1984, Helen was home when she got a phone call at around 7:00 p.m. According to her mother, Helen remained on the phone for four to six minutes, and the conversation was about Helen’s job. She’d worked in Fayetteville, Georgia, at the computer center of the National Cash Register.
A couple of hours later, Helen received a second call at about 10:00 p.m. Afterward, she told her mom that she needed to solve a computer issue at work.
Helen reportedly changed her clothing, left their residence, and stopped at a grocery store on the way to her job. However, she never made it home and has remained missing ever since.
“Once the two phone calls came in, she was never seen again by her mother. She had a small little girl, 5 years old. There was no reason for her to leave on her own,” said Lamar County investigator Shannon Williamson.
The next day, May 14, 1984, her mother reported her missing, and two days later, Helen’s car, a gold-colored 1980 Chevrolet Citation, was found abandoned at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport.
The vehicle had been left in the south terminal parking lot, with the ignition key underneath the floor mat. Additionally, all fingerprints inside the car had been wiped away, and there were no signs of Helen.
Her case rocked the Lamar County community, and two months later, a woman named Donna Johnson was also murdered in the county. Donna had left to take her trash out to a dumpster on July 16, 1984, and didn’t return after two hours.
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At that point, the police were contacted, and authorities found Donna’s body near the dumpster. She’d died of blunt force trauma to the head, according to the medical examiner, but her killer is still at large.
Investigator Shannon Williamson began looking into both Helen and Donna’s cases in 2017. Despite decades passing by, he is committed to finding answers for their families.
“Each investigator who has been involved in this case has the same attitude that I have. They never wanted to give up; they just ran out of time,” Williamson explained.
“The victims themselves, they need the justice, and so do the families. Basically, in this small community, we need that closure; everyone needs that closure.”
In Helen’s case, there has supposedly always been a suspect, and no one has been ruled out. As of 2019, Williamson also shared how there have been “new developments” in the investigation.
“In the past two years, there have been new developments. We have had people come forward and tell us new information that we have never had in the past,” he detailed.
Leading up to Helen’s disappearance, she and her ex-husband had gotten divorced in early 1984. She also reportedly told her mother that she thought she was being followed amidst the divorce proceedings.
It’s unclear whether Helen’s ex-husband is a suspect, and the new developments in her case have not been publicized.
Helen was five foot seven, weighed 114 pounds, and had brown hair and hazel eyes at the time she vanished. She would be 67 years old today.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the Lamar County Sheriff’s Office at (770) 358-5159.
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