Could this be the end of one of the Rockford area's most puzzling mysteries?

Now that detectives have found the vehicle at the center of the 1976 disappearance 72-year-old Everett Hawley and 65-year-old Clarence Owens, those who remember the 48-year-old case say it's one few will forget.

"It was frustrating for law enforcement because we didn't have a crime scene," said former Winnebago County Sheriff Dick Meyers, who was a detective with the county in 1976. "The vehicle was missing, and contrary to the usual case, say if it were a homicide, in a lot of ways it didn't fit the patterns that you would expect."

Hawley, a Freeport real estate broker specializing in farm property, and Owens, his business partner, began their day on Thursday Feb. 19, 1976, nonchalantly. Owens picked Hawley up at his Stockton home in his newly painted 1966 Chevrolet Impala and the pair headed to the Pecatonica American Legion for a political rally for gubernatorial candidate James Thompson.

Just before noon, the men walked across the street to Rocky's Cafe for pie and coffee before heading to Clarence's son's house to show him the car's new paint job. His son wasn't home but the men reportedly told Owens' daughter-in-law that they were heading to a farm auction about six miles south of Seward on their way to appraise some property in the town of German Valley.

Witnesses told police Owens and Hawley were at the auction from 2:40 p.m. to 3 p.m., but they never showed up for their appraisal appointment and were reported missing the next day.

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Hundreds of leads

Meyers, who served with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department for 47 years — 17 as sheriff before retiring in 2014, said several law enforcement agencies investigated the case and chased hundreds of leads. There were a pair eyeglasses found alongside the road, a gold car spotted on a flatbed trailer and numerous other tips from citizens. Each proved to be a dead end.

Investigators thought they had a break six years after Hawley and Owens vanished when they arrested a man who was eventually convicted of fatally shooting elderly Pecatonica couple Lloyd and Anna Schrader in June 1976 inside their home.

"We looked at him real hard in reference to Owens and Hawley," Meyers said. "But we found absolutely nothing to tie him to the case — at that time anyway. He ended up killing himself in the penitentiary."

When police learned years later that a Rockford-area man named William Exline, who had several junk cars on his property, was arrested for robbing two people at gunpoint at a Green County, Wisconsin, farm auction in May 1976, Meyers said things started looking up again.

Detectives did flyovers of Exline's property in hopes of spotting the Impala but came up empty. They tried to interview him but hit a wall.

"He was in a nursing home and was totally out of it," Meyers said. "We couldn't get anywhere with him so it ended up the same way — no way to tie him to this one here."

Now that the Impala has been found, Meyers said investigators will attempt to locate anything of note from the car. But because it has been at the bottom of the Pecatonica River for what could be the last 48 years, any evidence inside may have been destroyed.

Vanished into thin air

Kathi Kresol, an author and historian who has delved into the case for the website, Haunted Rockford, and wrote about it in a weekly newspaper column, said there are things about Hawley and Owens that could shed some light on what may have happened to them.

As realtors specializing in farms, Hawley and Owens were known to log long hours on backroads looking for property to buy. As regulars at farm auctions, they were known to carry significant amounts of cash, Kresol said. Because there has never been a crime scene, it is not known whether or how that knowledge fits in the puzzle.

Until there's a connection, the case could continue to be as if the men vanished into thin air.

"This case will continue to intrigue us because we will never fully know what took place on that February day so long ago," Kresol said. "I think it has stayed in people's minds because there weren't any clues about what had happened to these men."

At around 2:30 p.m. Monday, crews used a crane to pull a 1966 Chevrolet Impala sedan from the Pecatonica River near the corner of East First and Washington streets in Pecatonica after fishermen spotted it with a sonar fish finder last week. Officials say it is the vehicle Owens and Hawley were in on Feb. 19, 1976.

The coroner was called to the scene, although no information about whether anything was inside the car has been released.

"This case has had the interest of many law enforcement people working today and retired," Meyers said. "Because it's one of those that you just can't close out."

Jim Hagerty writes about business, growth and development and other general news topics for the Rockford Register Star. Email him at jhagerty@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Missing persons case has had grip on Rockford area for 48 years