NH SHIRLEY ANN MCBRIDE: Missing from Concord, NH - 13 Jul 1984 - Age 15

[Romulus]

311DFNH - Shirley Ann McBride

Name: Shirley Ann McBride
Case Classification: Endangered Missing
Missing Since: July 13, 1984
Location Last Seen: Concord, Merrimack County, New Hampshire

Physical Description
Date of Birth: April 5, 1969
Age: 15 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 115 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Blue
Nickname/Alias: Tippy
Distinguishing Marks/Features: One of her feet turns slightly inward while she is walking.

Identifiers
Dentals: Available (inner edges of front teeth chipped)
Fingerprints: Not Available
DNA: Samples submitted; tests not complete

Clothing & Personal Items
Clothing: Lightweight summer clothes.
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown

Circumstances of Disappearance
McBride was last seen leaving her leaving her sister's apartment in Concord, New Hampshire on July 13, 1984. She left behind money, clothing, and other personal effects. Although this case has not been ruled a homicide, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance would suggest foul play was involved.

Investigating Agency(s)
Agency Name: Concord Police Department
Agency Contact Person: Investigator Todd M. Flanagan
Agency Phone Number: 603-225-8600
Agency E-Mail: N/A
Agency Case Number: 84-014758

NCIC Case Number: M208880043
NamUs Case Number: 2052

Information Source(s)
NamUs
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

311DFNH - Shirley Ann McBride

edited by staff to add media link

SHIRLEY ANN MCBRIDE: Missing from Concord, NH since 13 Jul 1984 - Age 15

McBride was last seen leaving her sister's apartment in Concord, New Hampshire on July 13, 1984. She left behind money, clothing, and other personal effects. Although this case has not been ruled a homicide, the circumstances surrounding her...

www.crimewatchers.net

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[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

No New Info In Tippy McBride Case, Missing From Concord For 38 Years

Shirley Ann McBride was 15 on July 13, 1984, when she disappeared somewhere between Union Street and Terrill Park, never to be seen again.

patch.com

No New Info In Tippy McBride Case, Missing From Concord For 38 Years​

Posted Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 10:15 am ET|Updated Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 8:14 pm ET

Around 9:30 p.m. on a Friday, July 13, 1984, Shirley Ann “Tippy” McBride left her half-sister’s apartment on Union Street to collect babysitting money and visit her boyfriend, who was working for a company on Old Turnpike Road, and was never seen again.

That was 38 years ago. Tippy was 15 at the time. On April 5, she would have been 53.

Police initially suspected she ran away — something she had done previously, a perception that would stick during the initial part of the missing person investigation.

When she disappeared, she left behind money, clothing, and other personal belongings. And in the past when she ran away, she always returned.

Tippy, who acquired the nickname because she had feet that tipped inward when she walked, was going through a disruptive time in her life — a young woman trapped in a child’s body, as family members described. Her will and desire to do what she wanted to do could not be controlled or stopped, her father, Jack McBride, told the press decades ago.


Many months before she disappeared, the McBrides moved from the West Side of Manchester to Pittsfield and were out of sorts. Tippy skipped school, smoked marijuana, and would often hitchhike into Concord to be with her half-sister, Donna Whitcomb Reil.

Tippy insisted on moving in with Reil and her parents agreed, despite their concerns.

After moving into the Union Street apartment, Tippy got a job babysitting and enjoyed being a bit freer than before, according to family members. She began a relationship with a man who was six years older than she was — making him a statutory rape suspect had anyone pressed the matter. There were rumored problems with her boyfriend, too, including a possible breakup around the time she vanished. There was also suspicion she was not actually going to meet him that night but was, instead, planning on pouring sugar into the gas tank of his motorcycle after he dumped her, according to the family.

After her disappearance, there were many suspects in the case, including her boyfriend, as well as ex-cons, bikers, and others who were interviewed. One man, who was part of the circle of friends connected to Reil, was accused of rape but acquitted later.

Reil, not wanting to get too deeply into the details of her past life, admitted a few years ago Tippy was a bit too much like her.

Tippy’s father, Jack McBride, who died in October 2015, followed the boyfriend around, spying on him, including at a bar on Loudon Road where bikers hung out called Chugger's, which is now known as the Pit Road Lounge. Jack McBride, at one point, would be arrested on a stalking charge for harassing the boyfriend. The boyfriend would be involved in a string of criminal incidents and court cases himself, dating back to the early 1990s, according to records (he has refused requests from Patch to speak about the case).

A year after she disappeared, a suspect emerged: Walter Davis II, 26, of Merrimack, who worked in Concord and would sometimes crash at a manufactured home park on Manchester Street.

Davis, who was 26, admitted to raping a girl in Concord and throwing her in a river, according to Stacie Murray Coburn, a professor from Nashua who grew up with the Davis family in Merrimack and was friends with his half-sister. Davis told his half-sister about the crime and had clothes that matched what Tippy was wearing when she vanished — denim bib overalls and a cotton shirt.

According to Coburn, relating the story years later, Davis attempted to burn the clothes but ended up giving them to his half-sister.

The McBride family met with Concord police, looked at the clothes, and believed they were Tippy’s.

After that, the family does not know what happened.

Davis was never arrested and the evidence somehow made it back into the hands of the Merrimack Police Department. Robin McBride, Tippy’s older sister, and her parents wondered for years why the Davis angle “didn’t pan out, for some reason,” she said last year.


Years passed. A reward was increased to $5,000 via the Concord Regional Crimeline. And in 2008, Fox 25 TV in Boston featured the case on its “New England’s Most Wanted,” giving the case more coverage.

Police also approached the family requesting DNA samples — something they declined to do given their ill will toward the department and its past handling of the case.

Where The Case Officially Stands​

The McBride case remains on the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit file, one of more than 130 missing persons or unsolved homicide cases.

Susan Morrell, a senior assistant attorney general, who is the cold case unit chief, said she could assure the public the case was still being examined.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “We have other cases that we have solved in the last several years (from the 1960s). So, it’s not too late. It all depends upon information that comes from the public. The more information, the more opportunity for somebody to come forward.”


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[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Missing teenager last seen in Concord nearly 40 years ago

Shirley Ann "Tippy" McBride was last seen on this day nearly 40 years ago.

www.wmur.com

Missing teenager Shirley Ann 'Tippy' McBride last seen in Concord nearly 40 years ago​

The disappearance of 15-year-old Shirley Ann McBride remains unsolved nearly 40 years later.

Known to her friends as "Tippy," officials said the teen was last seen in Concord leaving her sister's apartment on Union Street on July 13, 1984.

No one has reported seeing or hearing from McBride since the day of her disappearance.

Even though the case has not been ruled a homicide, officials said the circumstances surrounding McBride's disappearance could suggest foul play was involved.

After Nearly 40 Years, Concord Missing Girl Case Gains Attention Of True Crime Enthusiasts

The mysterious disappearance of Shirley Ann "Tippy" McBride on July 13, 1984, is still unsolved. But the case is gaining national attention.

patch.com

Concord Missing Girl Case Gains Attention Of Podcasters After 39 Years​

Thirty-nine years ago today, Shirley Ann "Tippy" McBride, 15, vanished, never to be seen again.

The case, officially a missing persons case according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice’s Cold Case Unit, is one of the most extensively investigated incidents in the state’s capital city during the past four decades. The official release of information about the case has also been limited, giving her disappearance a shroud of mystery.

While originally pegged as a runaway, the family never believed that scenario. McBride, nicknamed Tippy for her odd walk because of one foot turning inward a bit, had run away before but always returned. The family frantically searched for the girl but could not find her and was dismayed by the lack of progress with the case.

Concord police, a year into the investigation, had a suspect — Walter Davis II, a man from Merrimack whose father lived and worked in the capital region. Davis was found with what was believed to be Tippy’s clothing. Investigators thought he killed the girl but could not prove it without a body.

The family had Tippy declared legally dead in 1990. Davis died in 2003.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Missing New Hampshire Girl Case Turns 40 With No New Leads, Requests For Info Rejected

The case of Shirley Ann "Tippy" McBride, who went missing in Concord on July 13, 1984, remains unresolved, with few talking about the case.

patch.com

Missing New Hampshire Girl Case Turns 40 With No New Leads, Requests For Info Rejected​

A few weeks ago, the Shirley Ann “Tippy” McBride missing person case, said to be one of the most investigated cases in the city, turned 40.

Around 9:30 p.m. on Friday, July 13, 1984, McBride left her half-sister’s apartment on Union Street to pick up babysitting money and then meet her boyfriend at his job at Concord Litho on Old Turnpike Road. After she left the apartment, she vanished and was never seen or heard from again.

Despite leaving many personal belongings, McBride was immediately accused of being a runaway due to her past behavior. At 15, though, she was not living at home and had much more freedom than most 15-year-olds, at the time.

Family members were incensed — and are, to this day, by Concord police's lack of seriousness and diligence in the ensuing weeks of her disappearance. The local newspaper, the Concord Monitor, which had much more staffing than it does today, did not publish a story about the case for weeks, despite family members leafleting the city with missing person posters.

Investigators have received many leads over the decades, including dead women who were the same age and description as McBride reported around the country, and those cases have been thoroughly investigated. Rewards led to tips, but no breaks in the case. Some former Concord police staffers have said privately it was a mistake for the department to have ignored the case in its early inception. The family had McBride declared legally dead in 1990.



According to Robin McBride, no family member has heard from police or the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office for close to 10 years, even for a non-update update. She spent Tippy’s 40th anniversary of being gone and presumed dead on a vacation with other family members. They do not think the case will ever be solved despite all the potential leads and prior comments made by witnesses who never were thoroughly investigated — witnesses who are also beginning to die off, just like members of her family and the cops who worked the case, taking all their secrets and information to their graves.

In early July, Patch requested documents connected to the case that had either already been released publicly in the 1980s, which should be accessible, or were connected to people who have died since McBride’s disappearance. A request was also made for generic information about the case — including how many people were investigated as potential suspects and how many official sightings of McBride were reported to police in the early part of the investigation but were ruled out. Coburn also requested the opportunity to listen to her interview with Merrimack police and an update about any DNA information from the clothes she helped investigators obtain. Both requests were denied.

Michael Garrity, the department’s director of communications and legislative affairs, said Concord police and the state’s Cold Case Unit were still working to seek answers about McBride’s disappearance and that making the case file public would compromise the integrity of their investigation. He said the department believed McBride “vanished, under circumstances that strongly indicate foul play,” and her whereabouts and the case “remain a mystery.” Garrity said it was rare for a case like McBride’s to remain unsolved after so long.
“The trauma, grief, and sadness for Ms. McBride’s loved ones are unimaginable,” Garrity said. “We continue to actively work to seek answers for them.”

Garrity said detectives and prosecutors were “always seeking new leads from the public” and, in this case, “investigators truly need the public’s help.” He added, “Detectives need people from the community to come forward with information to help us solve it. If you know what happened or have any information, come forward. Even the smallest observation could provide a piece of the puzzle necessary to resolve this case.”