New England’s Unsolved: Disappearance of Molly Bish, 25 years later

Real cases, real people. New England's Unsolved with Bob Ward. 25 years ago, teenage lifeguard Molly Bish disappeared from the town of Warren. The Bish case is one of the biggest investigations in the state's history. And I've covered her disappearance from the very beginning. In this New England's Unsolved, we look at how even a quarter of a century later, no one is forgetting Molly. In Warren, Massachusetts, the seasons might change, but not much else really does. It is a small New England town where most people prefer to quietly live their lives, far from the big city concerns of places like Boston or Worcester. But it is here that the unsolved murder of Molly Bish still grips the community. We're just sad. You know, we've come to this point. It's been 25 years. Heather Bish is Molly Bish's sister. We miss Molly just as much as we did that first 25 minutes. Molly Bish disappeared from Commons Pond where she was a lifeguard on the morning of June 27th, 2000. Molly vanished only minutes after her mother, Maggie Bish, dropped her off. Heather Bish tells me before Maggie and Molly got to Comet's Pond, they stopped by her house where Heather was recovering from a stomach virus. I never knew that. 15 to 20 minutes before your sister disappeared, you saw her for the last time. We always hugged and kissed each other and I didn't want her to get my stomach bug. So, I didn't kiss her. I told her I loved her. I I have that, you know, but I didn't get to kiss her goodbye until we found her remains 3 years later. The summer of 2000 consumed the town of Warren. Hundreds of volunteers looked for Molly. A sketch of a possible suspect, an unidentified man that Maggie Bish saw at Cumins Pond the day before Molly vanished was distributed everywhere. But Molly Bish was gone. Almost exactly three years later, June 9th, 2003, Molly's remains were found in the woods of Palmer, Massachusetts, 5 miles away from Commons Pond. We only found 26 of her 206 bones. They were spread because of the animal activity. Was there any reason that Molly would be in those woods by herself? Oh, absolutely not. I think the only reason Molly was there was because someone put her there. and they probably put her there because they knew that people wouldn't really look for her and she wouldn't really be found. In 2009, Rodney Stanger, a Southbridge man who abruptly moved to Florida after Molly's disappearance and who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, emerged as a potential suspect. More recently, DA Joe Early said another man, Frank Sumner, a sex offender who died in 2016, is a person of interest. Naming Frank Summer a person of interest was a big step forward in this case and we wouldn't I wouldn't have done it without information that came in that showed that he was someone that we should be looking at. We actually called him a suspect. After 25 years, the Molly Bish case still solvable. Absolutely. The passion still there, Bob. All the people working on this case want to help this family. They want to solve this. The unsolved case of Molly Bish forever changed her town and her family. Heather Bish has emerged as a powerful voice for victim's rights even as she continues to search for justice for her sister. Do you think your sister's case is still solvable? Absolutely. I believe that DNA technology will bring us these answers. It will never be okay to me that somebody took my sister from her place of employment at 16 years old and then left her on the side of a mountain to be eaten by a bobcat. That will never be okay to me. So, I will scream from every mountaintop I can for help and for resolution and for justice. If you have any information on the abduction and murder of Molly Bish, contact the Worcester County DA's office at 508-4537575. For New England's Unsolved, I'm Bob Ward.