Missing: Sandra Ross

I first read about this case years ago when I used to binge-read The Charley Project website on cold, rainy winter days when I lived in Willowdaile. North Carolina cases were always creepy to me, especially ones from around Durham County—but Sandra Ross' case is particularly odd because it happened in mild Apex, North Carolina. In the 42 years since she has been missing, very little has been written about this case or published by the Wake County Sheriff's Office. Partially because of this lack of information or any clues whatsoever, it has remained cold. What is known is that several weeks before I was born on Saturday, January 7, 1984, Sandra Ross, a supervisor at the blood bank at Rex Hospital, held a party at her home on Orchard Knoll Drive in Apex, North Carolina, for her friends and colleagues, which lasted until midnight. Her husband Robert watched their then 16-month-old baby Jennifer during this event. The next morning around noon, Robert reported, Sandra left the residence driving her light blue 1976 Chevrolet Malibu to buy groceries and diaper rash cream for her daughter. After an hour and a half had passed without word or her return, her husband began to worry. After searching the Big Star parking lot, he later found her car abandoned in the nearby city of Cary at the Cary Village Mall, parked by Treasury Drug with her belongings still inside.

Police staked out the car all night; after nothing happened, it was taken to a local garage. Her husband later stated that he felt she did not leave on her own, despite no blood or signs of a struggle being found in the car. Although police never stated they suspected foul play, her disappearance was seen as "suspicious." Witnesses do not report ever seeing Sandra park her car or leave her vehicle. According to a televised WRAL news report, a search of the area "yielded nothing" despite the presence of missing person's posters, a posted reward of $10,000, and interviews with mall staff and customers. It has been reported that store employees had no record of Sandra purchasing anything that day, and it is believed that she never made it to the intended stores.

Captain Max Pickett of the Wake County Sheriff's Department stated he had his "feelings" about the case but it was "something he had to keep to himself"—rumors and leads as far away as Oregon were checked out, but led to nothing. According to the Charley Project, Sandra Ross' mother also claimed "something [was] amiss in [Sandra's] life...but [she] refused to divulge any information she may have known." Sandra Ross was last seen wearing a burgundy sweater, tan corduroy pants, and a wine-colored purse.

Several theories have crossed my mind over the years regarding this case—I have no proof that any of these happened; they are just possibilities: 1) Sandra Ross was abducted and murdered by a stranger who came across her during her shopping trip. 2) Sandra Ross was murdered by someone she knew, and her car was staged in this parking lot. 3) Sandra Ross left of her own volition. If she had been abducted and murdered by a stranger, robbery probably wasn't the motive, as her purse was left behind in the car. If she had met with foul play in the parking lot, it seems likely that someone would have seen something. Cary was a fairly small city in the 1980s, and the crime rate is miniscule in comparison to my home city of Durham. Could a person be randomly abducted and murdered in a mall parking lot in Cary, North Carolina on a Sunday afternoon? Yes, but I find this unlikely. If she was picked by a killer at random, what would the motive be? And why was she in particular chosen?

It is also possible that Sandra Ross was murdered by someone she knew. Did she get into an argument with someone at the party the night before, perhaps fueled by alcohol? Did she get into a disagreement with someone at work? Did she argue with her husband either that night or perhaps that morning? Was there a financial motive for her murder? The mall could have been used as a staging point for her vehicle to establish that she had "left to go shopping" and simply never returned. But any financial or relational motives for her murder have never publicly been established.

That leaves the final theory: perhaps Sandra Ross left of her own volition. I find it hard to believe that she would have left her daughter, however—this doesn't strike me as something a mother would do, especially a mother who supposedly left to buy the daughter she loved medicine on the morning of her disappearance. And if she did leave, the police have never stated that she took anything with her that she would have needed. Has her social security number been used since then? Did she have a secret passport that she kept in some lockbox and hopped on a plane at nearby Raleigh-Durham International Airport, never to be seen again? It's hard to say what leads have been investigated by police, but I'm assuming that none of these possibilities have panned out. Would a mother really leave her entire family and never attempt to contact them again? And for what reason?

So where is Sandra Ross? I think about this case a lot, especially on my drive home from work, near where several unsolved murders and disappearances have taken place in the decades since Sandra Ross' disappearance. Off Alston Avenue alone, the main road I take to get to and from work, there have been probably close to a dozen missing persons' cases and unsolved murders. But then again, this is Durham. Cary has a significantly lower national crime rate in both property and violent crimes. I think the most likely explanation is that Sandra was murdered by someone she knew. But where is her body? With the population explosion of this area in the 1990s and beyond, construction would have likely disturbed her remains. Or was she buried out in the country? (I can't help but think of the case of Cindy Zarzycki, who went missing from Eastpointe, Michigan, in April 1986. If I remember correctly from the Dateline episode, her body was later found buried nearly twenty years later with her walkman, wearing the same clothes she had been seen in back on the day she disappeared. Is Sandra Ross buried out somewhere in Wake County, still in the tattered, decaying remains of her sweater and corduroy pants? The thought is so chilling). There are so many questions left unanswered about the case.

If she were alive today, Sandra Kay Ross would be 74 years old. She is 5'4" tall and weighed approximately 120 lbs at the time of her disappearance. As I stated before, she was last seen wearing a burgundy sweater, tan corduroy pants, and a wine-colored purse. She has brown hair and brown eyes and a mole on her lower left cheek. If you have any information about Sandra Kay Ross, please contact the Wake County Sheriff's Office at 919-856-6800.

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Sources

Alice. (n.d.). Sandra Kay Ross (Feb 6, 1952 – missing Jan 8, 1984). Defrosting Cold Cases. https://defrostingcoldcases.com/sandra-kay-ross-feb-6-1952-missing-jan-8-1984/

Missing person / NAMUS #MP2482 | NAMUS. (n.d.). NamUs. https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP2482

Sandra Kay Randall Ross – The Charley Project. (n.d.). https://charleyproject.org/case/sandra-kay-randall-ross

Strack, M. (2020, August 25). The Disappearance of Sandra Kay Ross. Medium. Retrieved August 31, 2026, from https://medium.com/crimebeat/the-disappearance-of-sandra-kay-randall-ross-9cf9cd6d07ff

Unsolved case. (n.d.). Wake County Government. https://www.wake.gov/unsolved-case

WRAL. (2024, December 13). ARCHIVE: A year after Sandra Ross was first reported missing [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ftHuu9vuGo

WRAL. (2024b, December 13). ARCHIVE: The day Sandra Ross went missing outside Cary Village Mall [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUdMWy236ZQ