Erin Marie Gilbert

Erin Marie Gilbert was born May 4, 1971, in Everett, Washington. After studying English at a community college in Baltimore and working as a model in San Francisco, she moved to Alaska in 1994, where she lived with her sister Stephanie on Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage and worked as a nanny. Family members described the 24-year-old, who stood nearly six feet tall, as kind, confident and outgoing, with plans to attend beauty school.

In late June 1995, Gilbert met David Combs at Chilkoot Charlie's, an Anchorage bar, and the two arranged to attend the Girdwood Forest Fair, an annual festival roughly an hour south of Anchorage. Combs picked her up around 4:00 p.m. on July 1, 1995, and witnesses later told Alaska State Troopers the pair was seen at the fair's beer garden before leaving around 6:00 p.m. She was wearing a black leather jacket, a black-and-white striped shirt, black jeans and brown mountain boots. According to the account Combs gave authorities, his car would not start because the headlights had been left on, and he told Gilbert he would walk to a nearby friend's house for help. He said he walked for about two hours without finding the house, and when he returned to the car Gilbert was gone. He told authorities the ignition then worked, and that he searched the fairgrounds for her until about 1:00 a.m. before calling her family's home at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Combs was questioned by investigators and, according to the Charley Project, has not been named a suspect in her disappearance.

Gilbert's sister and family searched the fairgrounds and surrounding woods beginning July 2, and Alaska State Troopers mounted an extensive search using helicopters and dogs, assisted by Alaska Mountain Rescue and the Nordic Ski Patrol. No physical evidence, witnesses to an abduction, or remains were ever found. Lt. Randy McPherron, then the troopers' cold case investigator, told the Anchorage Daily News in 2017 that the case was unusual: Gilbert was last seen in a public place surrounded by people, and there was no crime scene, no witnesses and no remains. Without a body, he noted, investigators could not even establish whether she met with foul play, though her family believes she did and that she is deceased.

Gilbert's family moved back to Everett, Washington, in September 1996, but her sister, Stephanie Juarez, has continued returning to Alaska to search and to publicize the case. In August 2017 the family posted a $35,000 reward for information leading to Gilbert's whereabouts or to the person responsible for her disappearance. The case has been profiled by Dateline NBC's Missing in America series, the 2019 podcast Alaska Unsolved and The Vanished podcast in 2020. As of the 28th anniversary in 2023, the case remained open in the Alaska State Troopers' cold case division, and Gilbert has never been found. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Alaska State Troopers or the state's Missing Persons Clearinghouse.