Colleen Kay (Carpenter) Burgess, Missing Since About 1974 From Englewood, Colorado

Update on August 18, 2023:  I am just revisiting this case today.  At the time I wrote this article (in 2017), there was not information available on her disappearance, and I had dug for whatever I found, which I had posted in the original news article.  Upon checking NamUs, I see Colleen’s case has since been added into their database.   NamUs has her disappearance date listed as August 31, 1974; however, these retrospective dates are sometimes educated guesses or estimates given after memories of the event may have faded. 

UNDERGROUND MYSTERIES — October 26, 2017; updated on August 18, 2023 and September 20, 2023

Colleen Kay Burgess, nee Carpenter, went missing in Englewood, Arapahoe County, Colorado in 1974. She was 25 years old at the time of her disappearance. The circumstances behind her disappearance are mysterious.  She left behind four children in a trailer park, who were later adopted around 1976.

Some records list Colleen as having disappeared on August 31, 1974.  I am not sure if this is a retrospective educated guess or if this is a concrete date.  I have spoken with one of her family members who stated the exact missing date is unknown. 
 

At the time of Colleen’s disappearance, she was married to a man named Carl Edward Burgess. He too had reportedly abandoned their children. It is unclear if he left before or after Colleen, though. Carl passed away in 1997, years after abandoning his children.
 

Colleen was born in Indiana on March 28, 1949.  Carl was born in Oklahoma in about 1930. They got married on November 21, 1966 in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana.
 

When Colleen went missing, she was not reported missing. (This is an unreported missing person’s case.) Her case is not found in NamUs at the time I am writing this article. (EDIT: She has now been officially reported missing and added to the NamUs database.  You can view her case file here.) I am hoping to shed light to this underrepresented case, so we can hopefully find her family to have someone submit DNA to be compared to unidentified remains.
 

About a week after she vanished, she sent a letter to her family stating she was terminally ill and that she did not want anyone to see her suffer. I was not able to locate any death records on Colleen.
 

At the time she went missing, she may have been driving a green 1967 Chevrolet Nova.
 

Colleen is a Caucasian female with auburn or reddish brown hair and hazel eyes.  Her height is reported at about 5’6″. 
 

Please send a message through the contact tab of this website, or comment below, if you would like to add to this post or if you are looking for extra info. You could also try calling your local police station. There is no active investigation team on this case, and there is no official case to reference.  As aforementioned in one of my edits, there is now a police report on this case.  If you have any information on her disappearance, please contact Detective Brian Taylor at the Englewood Police Department at 303-761-7410, and mention case number 1980-8835.

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