The Sightseer

[gentle music] Shortly after 5:00 PM on Thursday, April 10th, 1997, a man named Jeff Smith walked into his hotel room at the DoubleTree in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, expecting to see his wife, Judy, waiting for him, but she wasn't there.

He'd been busy all day attending a pharmaceutical conference, which he was a panel moderator for, and though I'm not sure exactly what his initial reaction was when he realized his wife wasn't in their room, I have to imagine he was surprised, same as I would be if I came back from a work function and didn't see my spouse where I assumed they'd be.

According to coverage by The Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer, the Smiths had made plans with some good friends of theirs who were in town from New Jersey to meet up for drinks later that night.

But after waiting for Judy until about 6:30 or so, Jeff began to grow worried that something wasn't right.

He realized he probably needed to report his wife missing to law enforcement, but before he went that route, it seems he wanted to do a bit of digging on his own.

[car horn honking] So he jumped into a cab and cruised the city searching for Judy, looking specifically in streets he thought she might be on.

You see, Jeff knew that his wife had made plans earlier that day to sightsee Philadelphia via a tour bus, and it just so happened that those attractions followed a certain route.

So while in his taxi, Jeff navigated the streets the bus would have taken and tried to trace all the spots he believed his wife would have toured.

He told Unsolved Mysteries that while doing this, he was torn between this nagging fear that something really bad had happened to his wife, but also holding out hope that by doing his own search, he would just find her and everything would be okay.

However, the more time passed, the more confused and perplexed Jeff became.

He called a few hospitals in the city to see if maybe Judy was at one of those facilities, but no one reported seeing her come in.

So that night, after getting nowhere on his own, Jeff finally called the Philadelphia Police Department and reported Judy missing.

But he claimed the officer who took his request initially brushed him off and told him that it was too soon to file a report for his missing wife.

Instead, the officer suggested he wait a little while or come back the following morning, when the department would be able to take an official report.

So that's basically what ended up happening.

On Friday morning, April 11th, Philly PD finally got on the ball and took the report, but it seems that only came after some firm nudging from a state representative and the city's mayor, who coincidentally had both been speakers at the same conference Jeff was participating in.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer's coverage on this case, those men used their influence and sway over the police department's deputy commissioner to whip the central detective division into shape and get them to open a full-blown missing persons investigation.

And in addition to Jeff and police personnel searching for Judy on that Friday, the Smiths' friends from New Jersey, who they were supposed to get drinks with the night she vanished, also helped out.

Judy's two adult children, who lived in Massachusetts, also came to Philly to participate in the search.

Investigators did all the usual canvassing.

They visited morgues, churches, transportation stations, markets, and shelters for homeless people, but Judy wasn't at any of those places.

This particular trip had been her first time in the city, but by all accounts, she'd had a solid plan for what she wanted to do on Thursday and where she wanted to go while she and Jeff were apart When they'd last spoken, Judy told him that she'd wanted to go view the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall, which for those of you who aren't familiar with American history, the Liberty Bell is an actual physical bell that formerly hung in Pennsylvania State House during the 1700s and 1800s.

It would be rung to summon lawmakers or notify citizens of important news.

It's an iconic symbol in US history, and Independence Hall, by the way, is a national historic park operated by the National Park Service.

Now, when Judy said goodbye to Jeff, she was dressed in jeans, a dark coat, and white sneakers.