Simone Ridinger

On Friday, September 2, 1977, (Labor Day weekend) Simone Ridinger was seen leaving work at the Rainbow Restaurant, on 9 South Main Street, in Natick, Massachusetts. Simone was a waitress and had finished her shift around 3 p.m. She had plans to hitchhike to her family’s home in Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod about 70 miles from the restaurant to spend the last few days of the summer with her family.

Hitchhiking was a pretty normal practice back then for a lot of teenagers and Simone hitchhiked to and from work and back and forth to school so this wasn’t something out of her ordinary routine. When her family realized that she was going to be hitchhiking from Work to Cape Cod, They were a little nervous because it was a much longer distance than she normally hitchhiked.

Simone, whom family and friends describe as free-spirited and independent was typically always on time so when her family arrived on Cape Cod that weekend, and Simone wasn’t there they were a little concerned, but they figured maybe she had stopped along the way to see some friends in Hyannis Port or that, maybe she decided to not come out that weekend at all.

When her family arrived home on September 11 and Simone wasn’t there that’s when panic began to set in. Her family immediately mobilized and started reaching out to all of Simone‘s friends and her coworkers to figure out if she was with them when the last time they saw her was, and if they knew where she had gone. That’s when they realized that nobody had seen her after she left her job at the Rainbow Restaurant on the second of September.

It wouldn’t be until nine years later in 1986 that a man came forward after seeing an article, featuring Simone’s missing case featuring her picture, that he realized that he was pretty sure he had given her a ride that weekend.

He tells investigators that on September 3 he was on his way to Osterville, Massachusetts. When he would be pulled over by a trooper on route 128. This trooper had a teenage girl in his car at the time, and when the trooper discovered that this man was heading in the same direction that the teen girl was going, the trooper asked him if he would take the girl with him. He agreed, and he said that he ended up dropping her off at the Hyannis Airport Rotary Club.

He would also tell investigators that he remembers that the girl he gave her a ride to was wearing a blue blouse, blue jeans, and a grayish-colored duffel bag.

Detective James Godinho took over the case in 2014 and Nou that he needed to get some verification on this well, to employees who used to work with Simone at the Rigo restaurant and were there the day she was leaving and ask them for a description of what she was wearing the day. She left both employees and described that she was wearing a blue-style vest, blue jeans white sneakers, and had a colored duffel bag.

If this man was the one who gave Simone a ride to Hyannis Port then she could’ve easily caught a flight to Cape Cod from there.

With updated information and what they feel is confirmed information as to when Simone was last seen, wearing their hope that will help jog the public memory. Simone would be 63 today and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released an age-progressed photo of what she would most likely look like today.

At the time of Simone’s disappearance, she was 17 with strawberry blonde hair, brown eyes 5’2 to 5’3, 115 lbs, and had a birthmark on her back and a small mole on the upper right side of her forehead

Simone was wearing blue jeans with rips and patches, a blue vest or blouse, white high-top sneakers, and a lot of silver jewelry. Simone was carrying a gray duffel bag with her waitress uniform inside, a dark blue polyester skirt, and vest top.

The Sherborn Police Department is seeking information regarding person(s) who lived with Simone as a housemate in Framingham; those who frequented the Rainbow Restaurant while Simone was employed there, and anyone who may recall seeing a female hitchhiker in the Natick area and dropping her off in Sherborn, Framingham or Cape Cod. For additional information regarding this victim, please refer to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database, case report number MP # 2779.

If you have any information about Simone Ridinger please contact the Sherborn Police Department at 508-653-2424 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. (1-800-843-5678)

Sources and Informative Links:

https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2020/on-teens-60th-birthday-detective-still-holds-out-hope