Joanne Elaine Coughlin

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Youngstown Police Department (OH)

Missing From:

Youngstown, Ohio

Summary:

Joanne Elaine Coughlin was a 21-year-old aspiring actress and Youngstown State University student who disappeared on December 27, 1974. She was last seen when she supposedly went to the European Health Spa on Boardman-Canfield Road and had plans to meet her boyfriend at his home later that night, but never arrived. She was declared legally dead in 1985, and her case remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Coughlin's family last saw her on Christmas Day at the family celebration. She worked on December 26 and December 27, and told her coworkers she was going to the European Health Spa that night, as she had just gotten a membership for it. On 12/27/1974, Coughlin signed in at a health spa in Boardman, Ohio. She made plans to meet her boyfriend at his home later that night, but she never arrived and has never been heard from again. Her niece, however, doesn't believe she ever actually went to the spa. She claims the signature on the sign-in sheet doesn't match Coughlin's handwriting and that nobody actually saw her at the facility. Her 1968 Ford also disappeared and has never been recovered.

Additional Details:

The same day she disappeared, Coughlin wrote a check for her latest life insurance premium and mailed it. Nothing was missing from her apartment on Ohio Avenue except a small suitcase, her hair dryer and her bathing suit. Shortly before her disappearance, Coughlin had received a $3,400 settlement from a car accident. Her mother decided to alert her daughter's bank about her disappearance, in case anyone tried to withdraw money from her account. On December 31, four days after Coughlin was last seen, a young woman went to the Mahoning Bank branch located on Midlothian Boulevard in Boardman, Ohio and attempted to withdraw $800 from Coughlin's account at the drive-through window. The teller asked the young woman to come inside and call her mother, and the woman said she would do so after she arrived in Florida. The signature on the withdrawal slips the woman signed at the Struthers bank branch didn't match Coughlin's writing, and when the teller who handled the transaction was shown a photo of Coughlin, she said the woman who tried to withdraw the money wasn't her. In January 1975, police were able to identify and interview the woman who had posed as Coughlin at the bank, and she told them she had gotten the bank book from two men who waited at the nearby Point Market while she tried to withdraw the money. The men she identified, Robert Shughart and Howard Rodriguez, were both known figures in the local drug scene. By 1975, he was already suspected of having some involvement of multiple murders that had happened in the local area. The killings were believed to have been retribution because all of the victims were either police informants or had spoken about local drug activity. Authorities tracked down and questioned Rodriguez and Shughart, but they said they knew nothing about Coughlin's disappearance. Shughart said Rodriguez had stolen Coughlin's belongings from a drug party in Warren, Ohio. The men were released after being questioned. Neither of the men, or the woman, were ever charged in the attempted bank fraud or Coughlin's disappearance. Coughlin lived in 1400 block of Ohio Avenue at the time of her disappearance and was an aspiring actress who performed at the Youngstown Playhouse and took tap dance lessons. Authorities theorize she was robbed and murdered and her car, with the body inside, was disposed of in a quarry near the Pennsylvania border. Witnesses reported seeing a screaming woman being dragged out of a car and into a truck on Villa Marie Road, near the quarries, at 10:00 p.m. on the day Coughlin disappeared, but the woman couldn't be identified as Coughlin and searches of the quarries have turned up nothing. Her story appeared on John Walsh's television show America's Most Wanted as well as may Missing Person websites.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 15, 2026