Unsolved Ohio: Woman missing for nearly four decades after leaving for fake attorney appointment
ZANESVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) – Thirty-nine years ago, Barbara Frame vanished after telling her kids she would be right back and leaving for an appointment with a divorce attorney – a meeting her daughter would later discover never existed.
At the time of her disappearance, Frame was 38 years old and the mother of a 14-year-old daughter, as well as two sons aged 13 and 7.
“She was a very sociable person, girl next door,” Frame's daughter Kathy Huber said. “Talked to everyone, the friendly type.”
Six weeks before she vanished, she got a divorce from her husband of four-and-a-half years. Frame was “trying to get her life on track” and had recently moved into a home with her children on the 1000 block of Alice Street, according to Huber.
On Jan. 30, 1985, Frame was running late for work, which Huber said was unlike her. She did not have time to get her kids ready for school, so they ended up missing their bus and stayed home.
While Frame was at work, a piece of ice fell off the roof of the home next to hers and crashed through a bedroom window, Huber said. Frame arrived home from work around 4:30 p.m., when Huber told her about the broken window. Frame planned to tell her landlord about the window later that evening and began to make dinner when there was a knock at the door.
“She started to make dinner then her ex-husband came over to the house and told her she had to go to a meeting with a lawyer, something about the house is all I know and all she told us,” Huber said.
Frame’s ex-husband told her she needed to go to the meeting right then, according to Huber. At about 5 p.m., she grabbed her coat and her purse and told her children she was going to go sign papers at the lawyer’s office, stop at a store to grab an ingredient for dinner and contact her landlord about the window – then she would be right back. Frame left in her car but did not return that evening.
The next day when Frame did not show up for work, Huber reported her missing. The same day, her car was found abandoned in a parking lot on Linden Avenue across the street from Frame’s place of work. It was later revealed there was never an appointment with the attorney scheduled for that day, nor did the pair go to his office. The landlord was also never contacted by Frame to report the broken window.
Just four days after Frame was reported missing, her mother died of cancer, not knowing what happened to her daughter. Frame did not come to her funeral and no one heard from her in the days surrounding her mother’s passing. Huber lost her grandmother and mother within days, and called living without her mom “one of the hardest things” she has gone through.
“We didn’t have our mother in our life for the rest of our childhood and you know, it was hard because the not knowing is the worst part,” Huber said. “It just brings anxiety like you wouldn’t believe.”
Nearly four decades later, no one has seen or heard from Frame. Twenty-nine years after her disappearance, Huber Googled her mother’s name – nothing came up. In that moment, Huber decided she wanted to bring more attention to Frame’s case and work toward getting answers. She contacted several missing persons organizations online, submitted DNA to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, teamed up with a private investigator, and started a Facebook group dedicated to finding her mom.
“I absolutely believe foul play was involved,” Huber said. “I have since the first day.”
At the time of her disappearance, Barbara Frame was 5 feet 6, 130 pounds and had brown hair and green eyes. She had a cesarean section scar on her stomach. She was last seen wearing long pants, a coat and tennis shoes. As of Thursday, she would be 77 years old.
Anyone with information on the disappearance of Barbara Frame can contact the Zanesville Police Department at 740-455-0700.
If you’re a family member of an individual with an unsolved missing persons or homicide case in Ohio, reach out to aboldizar@wcmh.com.