The Day Denise Disappeared
On March 28, 1986, Denise Pflum left her family’s home in Connersville, Indiana, expecting to make a simple trip.
The previous evening, she had attended a party at a rural property and believed she had accidentally left her purse there. Before leaving, Denise asked several friends and her sister if anyone could go with her to retrieve it. No one was available, so she decided to make the trip alone.
It was a decision that would leave her family waiting for answers for decades.
According to the tenant of the property where the party had taken place, Denise never arrived there. But a friend reportedly saw her earlier that afternoon, around 2 p.m., at a Fashion Bug store on 30th Street.
After that, there were no confirmed sightings.
Denise never came home.
Her Car Was Found Miles Away
The next day, authorities learned that Denise’s cream-colored 1981 Buick Regal had been found abandoned along Tower Road, a quiet gravel road near Glenwood, Indiana.
The car had reportedly been sitting there since sometime between 12:30 and 1:15 p.m. on the day Denise disappeared.
What made the discovery even more puzzling was the location.
Tower Road was across the county from Denise’s home and roughly three miles from the property where she had planned to retrieve her purse. Her family could not understand why she would have ended up there.
The Buick was locked, and investigators found no obvious signs of a struggle around the vehicle.
Inside the mystery were other details that seemed out of place. Denise had left home without identification, and she had not taken the carrying case or cleaning solution she needed for her contact lenses.
It did not appear that she had prepared to be gone for long.
Yet she was never seen again.
A Confession That Changed the Case
For years, one person connected to Denise’s disappearance remained part of the story: her former boyfriend, Shawn M. McClung.
McClung had previously maintained that Denise was still alive.
Then, in July 2020, more than 34 years after Denise vanished, he spent approximately three hours being interviewed by authorities. During that interview, McClung reportedly confessed to killing Denise.
The confession seemed as though it might finally provide the breakthrough investigators had been waiting for.
But there was a major problem.
McClung refused to tell authorities where Denise’s body could be found.
His statement had been made in connection with an agreement that could have provided immunity and resulted in the dismissal of unrelated charges against him. However, that agreement required him to provide the information authorities needed. Because he would not reveal the location of Denise’s remains, he did not receive the promised immunity.
He was subsequently charged with voluntary manslaughter in connection with Denise’s presumed death.
But the story did not end there.
His Final Words Raised More Questions
At the time of his confession, McClung was suffering from a terminal illness.
He died in September 2020 at the age of 56, only months after being charged in Denise’s case.
Five days before his death, while in the hospital, McClung reportedly told his attorney that he did not actually know what had happened to Denise. According to the attorney’s account, McClung said he had confessed because he wanted to get out of jail.
That left investigators and Denise’s family with an impossible question.
Was the original confession the truth?
Or had McClung knowingly confessed to something he did not do?
With McClung dead and Denise’s body never recovered, there has been no opportunity to resolve that contradiction in court.
His confession remains an important part of the case, but it does not establish what ultimately happened to Denise.
The Future She Never Got
When Denise disappeared, she was a senior at Connersville High School.
She was involved in volleyball, basketball, softball, and track, and she was a member of the National Honor Society. She had already been accepted to Miami University in Ohio, where she planned to study microbiology.
She also hoped to earn a track scholarship.
Denise had plans for the years ahead.
Instead, those plans stopped on March 28, 1986.
More than four decades later, her bod