A joint police task force is ramping up efforts to solve the oldest missing teens case in America – Brooklyn’s 15-year-old Bonnie Bickwit and her boyfriend Mitchel Weiser, 16, who vanished 53 years ago next week on their way to a historic rock concert in upstate New York.
The task force, created as a result of a Rolling Stone investigation and led by the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office and the New York State Police, recently conducted an excavation at an abandoned power company site in upstate Steuben County searching for remains of the teens.
Investigators are also pursuing a new tip from a person claiming to have information about Bonnie and Mitchel’s travels after they started hitchhiking to the Summer Jam rock concert 150 miles away on the morning of July 27, 1973. Details are not being released so as to not compromise the investigation.
In the summer of 1973, Bonnie had been working in child care at Camp Wel-Met, a popular summer camp for New York-area teens located in Sullivan County in New York’s Catskills region, while Mitchel was a photographer’s assistant in Brooklyn. They disappeared on July 27 or 28.
The excavation on June 19 was conducted at an undeveloped, wooded field owned by the New York State Power & Gas company located in Wayne, NY, a small, rural town in the Finger Lakes region. It sits about 17 miles from the Watkins Glen International Racetrack – site of the historic 1973 Summer Jam, featuring rock legends the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and The Band. The concert attracted more than 600,000 fans – making it the biggest music concert of its time.
Only two people never returned home from Summer Jam: Mitchel and Bonnie, who were students at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn.
In response to Rolling Stone‘s 2023 investigation, New York Governor Kathy Hochul directed the New York State Police and relevant law enforcement agencies to assist the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office to “uncover new leads or overlooked information that will help solve this case and give their families and friends the answers they deserve.” (In 2024, the duo’s loved ones blasted law-enforcement officials for failing to carry out Hochul’s directive, including not conducting basic interviews with potential persons of interest and witnesses.)
Friends and family of the teens along with authorities who have been tracking the case have offered multiple theories about what happened to the teens, including an accidental drowning while hitchhiking back from the concert and the victims of a murder.
The excavation was prompted by at least two tips. The first came from a woman who has claimed that her father abducted and murdered the teens in July 1973. A previous dig at the site came up empty. Then last summer, a psychic long involved in the case traveled from his Las Vegas home to the property and pinpointed a specific location between two large oak trees, where he claimed one of the teens was buried.
Police found the information credible and did preliminary tests last September using ground-penetrating radar. Two anomalies were found underground, and experts recommended a dig in the spring.
Brian Starkweather, Superintendent of the Wayne Highway Department, said the team used a backhoe to dig about six feet down. The excavation found the anomalies to be two large stones. “Despite an extensive search of the area, the operation yielded negative results,” state police said. The task force emphasized that the unsuccessful excavation does not mark the end of the investigation saying they remain committed to pursuing leads.
“The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office and the New York State Police remain dedicated to pursuing any available leads regarding this investigation and urge any members of the public with information … to contact either agency.”
While disappointed, friends and relatives of the teens expressed appreciation and hope that the new task force will continue following up on leads.
“We commend the investigators and are heartened to know that this new team effort is doing the hard work to try and solve this tragic mystery,” said Stuart Karten, who was Mitchel’s best friend and represents Bonnie’s family with the task force.
Karten, who created the site mitchelandbonnie.com, said there are several avenues of investigation to pursue, including searching for 1973 death certificates of John and Jane Does in relevant nearby counties in New York and Pennsylvania, which has never been done.
“We continue to urge anyone in the public who may have seen Mitchel and Bonnie hitchhiking to or from the concert to come forward and contact police,” said Karten, noting that anonymous donors are offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the resolution of the case.
Michele Festa, Bonnie’s best friend and a classmate at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, said she is grateful the investigation is intensifying. “As a close friend of both Bonnie and Mitchel, we continue to hope and pray that one day they will finally have the answers and closure they have so long deserved.”
