She stands with a smile, and a slight tilt to the side as she poses in a black satin bridesmaid dress, her dark hair swept up with babys breath.

That is the last picture Gloria White has of her daughter. 

In the photo, Marty Benthin-Evans is 32 years old, the day of her disappearance.

Now, shed be 56, and a grandmother to three.

Shes missed so much, White recalled.

It was just a few days before Valentines Day, 1990. Evans, the mother of two, had served as a bridesmaid in her best friends wedding in Knappa. She was still wearing the black dress with burgundy lace accents that her mother and sister Joyce Van Osdol had made for the wedding. She also had on her signature cropped black leather jacket. But her black leather purse had been left behind the night Evans went out after the reception.

She was never seen or heard from again. Today marks 24 years. 

White keeps that purse in her bedroom closet.

She had no money, no clothes, no purse, no gas, and really no car because the truck she was in was my brothers, sister Linda Weirup said. She wouldnt have just taken off.

What happened the night Evans disappeared remains a mystery. According to the family there are many possibilities, and each family member has a slightly different theory. Here are the elements:

a boyfriend who told Evans not to come over that night;

an ex-husband and a pending custody case;

an alleged confession on a mans death bed;

a drug dealer and a bust the same night;

a neighbors nephew who would be convicted in a separate murder soon after.

While the family disagrees about what might have happened, they agree on one thing: they want closure.

We all had all kinds of terrible things going through our minds, but we never imagined we would never find her, Evans brother Gustave Don Benthin said. It was a desperate search. We searched as a family.

Still looking

Oregon State Police say it is still an active and open investigation. Tips and information are reviewed and re-examined by investigators, who are looking at all possibilities related to Evans disappearance. Anyone with information regarding her disappearance is asked to contact Oregon State Police Detective Matt Beeson at  503-325-5515 ext. 25.

You always have that little bit of hope, said sister Rhonda Benthin, who later raised Evans son. Without an answer, you always have that tiny bit of hope that shes still out there and its enough to drive you crazy.

The last night

Sally Jo Rudat got married at the Lutheran church in Knappa Feb. 10, 1990. The reception followed at the brides parents house on Bagley Lane. When evening came, Evans went along with the rest of the wedding party for a night on the town. The first stop was The Logger in Knappa. Evans 10-year-old son was in the care of White, his grandmother.

She had a few drinks and everybody was laughing and having a good time, Weirup said of the reception.

The sisters agreed to meet up at the Hong Kong restaurant in Astoria at the end of the night. But when Weirup arrived, her sister was nowhere to be found. Thinking that was strange, but hoping Evans had remained at The Logger, she continued on to Knappa. She discovered Evans had been there, but had left borrowing Don Benthins 1984 brown pick-up truck. OSP said she left at approximately 9 p.m.

Something else was strange that night. While at The Logger, Marty Evans had made two phone calls from a pay phone. Before she left her mothers house, borrowing $5 in gas money, she had used that phone, as well. At both places she had called her boyfriend, a co-worker at the then-new North Coast Fred Meyer. Evans had worked there, but had quit a week and a half prior to her disappearance.

She had called that (boyfriend). … She had been on the phone at The Logger, crying, because she wanted to see him and he didnt want her there, White said. So she was begging.

(The boyfriend and other people whom family members suspect are not being named in this article, because the police have not named any suspects.)

But Rhonda Benthin said Evans also talked to her ex-husband on the phone that night.

Were not really sure which one she really ended up meeting up with, or both, or neither, or what, she said. Because Evans was upset, her sisters tried to convince her to stay. But Evans insisted on going.

She headed toward Astoria, in my brothers truck, and she stopped at the D&D Market, Weirup said.

At the market, the truck wouldnt start. Don Benthin was working graveyard. So Evans called another brother, Mike, to help her. (There are eight children in the Benthin family.)  He gave her a jump start and she went on her way.

And that was the last time she was seen.

One thing about Marty, she never left without saying something to somebody, Don Benthin said. Ever. I just wonder why. And I absolutely hope to still find her. She was a very happy-go-lucky person. … And she was a fighter. If it was something she believed in, she would fight for it.

The next day

The next day, Gloria White found it odd Evans had not called to check on Andrew. She always did. She was a good mother.

Those children were the most important thing in the whole world to her, Joyce Van Osdol said.

But the family still believed shed show up. When the night came around, worry set in. White and her children headed straight for the police Monday morning.

They told us the same thing over and over, Weirup said. They said, Well, shes 32 years old, she can do whatever she wants. Shes a big girl now.

We all called (the boyfriend) but he doesnt even admit to talking to her.

But I know because I saw and I heard her talking to him, White said of the calls from her home. I heard the conversation. Besides the fact, he was at the wedding, he showed up unannounced, and I had never seen him before. But he acted so strange. … And she didnt like him being there. There was something weird going on.

Well never know what it was, Weirup said.

Van Osdol and Rhonda Benthin said they went to his home and peered into the windows without his knowledge, hoping for clues. Today, they question that decision, but they were desperate and obsessed.

We did things that werent OK. But we were looking for that clue, the flowers in her hair that kept falling out, that snap-on bow that wouldnt stay put, Van Osdol said. What we saw was creepy. He was into devil worshiping, it looked like. There were all kinds of odd things in that house.

But Evans may not have gone there that night. She could have met with her ex-husband, with whom she shared a 12-year-old daughter, White and Weirup said. Evans had plans to meet with a local lawyer Monday to discuss custody and visitation with the daughter the couple shared, they said.

Something wrong

But there was something Evans wasnt telling her family the day she disappeared. Something was wrong that day, they said. But she brushed off any questions, and claimed her nervousness was really just excitement for the nuptials of her friends.

She had been drinking that day, and she had something on her mind, Don Benthin said. People could tell something was going on more than what we were seeing. She was disturbed in some form or fashion. What was it?

Van Osdol also noticed how much weight her sister had lost just days before the big day. Van Osdol recalled taking in Evans dress an inch on each side nearly two sizes  in the 10 days leading up to the wedding.

She was a little peculiar at the wedding, she said. She was shook up. She was nervous about something, and we dont know what.

Rhonda Benthin added, Her flowers were shaking the whole time. She was a nervous wreck and thats really not the way Marty was.

Disappointment

Each family member interviewed expressed disappointment in the seeming lack of interest by investigators at that time, especially into what they felt were strong leads.

The strongest lead, Weirup recalled, was an alleged confession. A now-deceased man known to the family and a friend of one of the men on the familys list of suspects, allegedly confessed on his death bed to assisting in burying Evans and the truck near the city of Astorias watershed. That man had a sketchy past, which he had bragged about. The watershed has not been excavated; the lakes have not been scanned.

The police just say theres no proof, Weirup said. And there isnt, because they covered their tracks well.

Oregon State Police Detective Matt Beeson said in a press release this week that the OSP Criminal Investigation Division led the investigation and was assisted by the Clatsop County Sheriffs Office who participated in the initial search efforts. The U.S. Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter and searched along Highway 30, adjacent roads, and the coastline of the Clatsop County beaches. 

Meanwhile, Evans family members received hundreds of calls in the middle of the night, where the caller wouldnt speak, but faint noises in the background sounded like crying. Rhonda Benthin said she thought she heard someone in the background saying, Help me.

Did I hear her or did I want to? Rhonda Benthin asked.

I know for sure (Marty) didnt evaporate, White said. Not knowing is pure torture each and every day. No one knows what you go through unless youve been there. At first, there was hope that someday she would come home. Ive dreamt many nights that she did come home, then wake up only to find out it was only a dream. No, a nightmare.

Drugs

Don Benthin said his sister may have befriended a drug dealer before her disappearance. She was a free spirit, he said. Most of her siblings agreed she had dabbled in drugs.

A drug dealer was later accused of taking down some of the missing person posters, allegedly telling people Shes not missing.

He was seen in the truck with her the night she disappeared, by a gas station attendant, Don Benthin said. All three of the closest people who knew what was going on were not very cooperative at all.

Van Osdol said a gas station attendant named Tony called the number on the poster and spoke to a family member. He described the truck and the girl perfectly, claiming he had put gas in the truck the night she disappeared. He also described the man she was with, and when the sisters dug out an old yearbook containing the mans photo and asked Tony to point him out, he chose the photo of that man out of 50 faces.

But the police said no man named Tony worked at the station near the roundabout.

They said There is no one named Tony. Tony doesnt exist. The gas station said, We never had an employee named Tony, Van Osdol said.

We never talked to him again, Rhonda Benthin said. We know we werent crazy when we went down there and we talked to this guy behind the counter, more than once. We know we might have seemed it, because you become so obsessed with the search that nothing else matters. But we know we talked to him.

The night of the disappearance, Weirup said, a drug bust occurred where some of Evans acquaintances were arrested. If Evans had known something and told anyone about it, someone involved may have gotten to her, her family believes.

Don Benthin said he never confronted the drug dealer because his family was cautioned that Marty Evans was not the only one who could disappear.

We all had young families at the time, he said in a regretful tone.

So much time has gone by. My son will be 23 years old and that means it will be 24 years because he was born on the first anniversary of her disappearance, Don Benthin said. We continued to push and hound, and look at people of interest. It just became heartache after heartache. Something would look promising and then, well, we eventually hired a private investigator. He said he thought he knew where she was.

But the private investigator died and was cremated before an autopsy could be performed, Don Benthin said. They said he had a heart attack, Don Benthin said, with a sound of doubt in his voice. Van Osdol said he died the night he talked to the police.

While the possibility exists that Evans was killed or abducted by a stranger, the family believes the truck would eventually have been recovered. But Evans was trusting, her sisters agree, and she could have stopped to help or have been helped by the wrong person.

There were weirdos. But she liked everybody. She made friends with everybody, Van Osdol said.

They didnt have to earn her trust, Rhonda Benthin said. You had to break it. You were instantly her friend. … She had the biggest, kindest heart.

Another suspect

A neighbors nephew was also in the area at the time of Evans disappearance and Evans had felt sorry for him, Van Osdol said. She picked him up hitchhiking on a few occasions because he didnt have a ride. The family later learned that man was convicted of murder a few years after Evans disappeared.

Detective Beeson said Evans details have been entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. In 2012, DNA was collected from a family member and was submitted to the University of North Texas for Human Identification. A DNA profile was obtained for Evans, which was then entered into the Combined DNA Index System and uploaded into the FBIs National DNA Index System.

Wherever Marty Benthin-Evans is, her family hopes for answers for themselves and for her children.

We just want to know what happened to her, Rhonda Benthin said. Thats it. Plain and simple.