Account
Dec 11, 2013
Jul 19, 2023
Esther
Gesler
86
37
66 inches
68 inches
150 lbs
160 lbs
White / Caucasian
Female
In the spring of 1976, a 37-year-old woman named Esther Mae Gesler vanished from the area of Kent, Washington, leaving behind a life that included a husband and children. On the morning of March 13th, she informed her family that she needed to find a quiet place to concentrate on her studies for an upcoming final exam for a night class she was taking to become a paralegal secretary. She planned to rent a hotel room to ensure she could study without interruption and mentioned she would be back the following day. Esther, described as a white female with brown hair and green eyes, was approximately 5'6" to 5'8" tall and weighed between 150 and 160 pounds. On the day she disappeared, she was wearing a red t-shirt with "Athlete's Foot" printed in white on the front, red and white checkered pants, and a long black leather coat with a fur collar. She was driving a metallic blue 1973 Mercury station wagon when she left her home. Esther did make it to a scheduled hairdresser's appointment in the nearby city of Auburn, Washington, that day, which was the last confirmed sighting of her. After that appointment, she seemingly disappeared without a trace. The next day, when she failed to return home as she had promised, her family grew deeply concerned. The station wagon she had been driving, which belonged to her ex-husband, was later discovered abandoned in a municipal parking lot in Auburn. The discovery of the vehicle without any sign of Esther intensified the mystery surrounding her sudden disappearance. Despite investigations by the Kent Police Department, no clear indication of her whereabouts or what might have happened to her could be found in the initial stages of the inquiry. Over time, suspicion in Esther's disappearance began to focus on her ex-husband, Glenn Allan Bagley. Investigators learned that he had been in contact with her just days before she went missing, and it was his car she was driving. Bagley was also considered a person of interest in the 1973 disappearances of another woman, Althea Blankinship, and her young son, who had been living in a rental unit within Bagley's home. Shortly after Esther vanished, Bagley moved to the Philippines, where he resided for many years, making it difficult for law enforcement in Washington to pursue their investigation. In a significant development years later, a former girlfriend of Bagley's, who had initially provided him with an alibi for the day Esther disappeared, recanted her statement in 2004. She informed police that Bagley had threatened her, allegedly telling her she would "end up in the same culvert in Quilcene as Esther" if she ever revealed what he had told her. Despite these suspicions and the testimony, Bagley, who passed away in 2016, was never charged in connection with Esther's disappearance and always maintained his innocence. The case officially remains unsolved, and foul play is suspected. The disappearance of Esther Mae Gesler is a long-standing cold case that has left her family with unanswered questions for decades, a painful void where a mother and loved one should be.
Mar 14, 1976
Kent
Washington
King County
98032
No
14641
Kent Police Department
Kent
Washington
King County
98032
Jon Thompson
Detective
220 4th Avenue South, Washington
2538565800
Local
Law Enforcement
76-705
1976-03-14
Kent Police Department
Brown
Green
Green
06/18/2026
