Search continues for two Jacksonville sisters who disappeared 45 years ago

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It's been 45 years since two sisters disappeared from Jacksonville. Six-year-old Mylette Anderson and her 11-year-old sister, Annette Anderson, disappeared from their Northside Jacksonville home in 1974.

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Officials with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, along with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, are asking for the public's help in bringing them home.

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Mylette Anderson and Annette Anderson vanished Aug. 1, 1974. Both girls would now be in their 50s.

Aug. 1, 1974, is a day Jay Howell remembers vividly.

"I haven't heard much information about this case in a long time. We didn't even have a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children until 10 years later in '84," Howell said.

That's when Howell served as the director of the National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children.

"In '81 when we started looking at this, we found that only 1 in 9 missing kids were actually entered into that system in the '80's. Law enforcement was just not entering the data that was available," Howell said.

Howell says this case is disturbing.

"The children were there by themselves at the time because mom had gone over to help a sick relative.

She checked back on them and called them and talked to them, but something happened in that short period of time," said Howell.

Howell says a nightmare became reality when their father got home from a boating trip and the sisters were not there.

For many years, it seemed like everyone in the Oceanway neighborhood was a suspect.

The happy girls were students at Louis S. Sheffield Elementary School.

"We remain hopeful because we have found missing kids 20, 30, 40 years after they disappeared," said Howell.

If you have any information, you are asked to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office at 904-630-0500.

Cox Media Group