Second North Valley teen went missing 9 months later

Nine months after Robin Pettinato disappeared from Whitefish, a second North Valley teenage girl was reported missing from Columbia Falls.

She, too, never was found.

Nancy Lynn Kirkpatrick was 16 when she vanished without a trace on April 21, 1976, in Columbia Falls. She was walking home from a baby-sitting job in the neighborhood, but never arrived at her house.

Nancy was 5 feet, 1 inch tall, 96 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Her case file notes she has a scar on her right shoulder and a scar on her right arm between her shoulder and elbow.

“Her loved ones stated she was a normal teenager and a good student in 1976, and embraced the hippie counterculture,” a posting on The Charley Project website notes.

The Charley Project is a database of more than 9,000 “cold cases” of missing people mainly from the United States. The webpage for Nancy shows an age progression to what she would have looked like in 2010 at age 50.

There was early speculation that she had run away, though that theory was never proven.

Detectives speculated a more plausible scenario was that both Robin Pettinato and Nancy Kirkpatrick may have been abducted by a passing motorist. It’s possible the two cases are related, said Pat Walsh, a retired Flathead County Sheriff’s detective.

“There’s too much similarity,” he said.

It’s not known if Nancy still has family living in the Flathead Valley.

A posting at the Whereabouts Still Unknown website offers a few more details about Nancy. She reportedly had a boyfriend and possibly had broken up with him around the time of her disappearance.“Her family does not believe she left on her own,” the website states.

Nancy’s case remains active.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office.