How a family joined forces with a reporter to find answers in the 50-year-old case of their missing sister (2024)

Editor’s note: This explainer column is the culmination of Vault investigative reporter Trisha Taurinskas ’ yearlong investigation into the disappearance of Belinda Van Lith that resulted in a multi-part series of articles and podcast episodes documenting what is known about Van Lith’s disappearance and decades of police investigations that led to a main suspect — but have yet to result in a conviction.

I didn’t know much about Belinda Van Lith when I reached out to her sister a year ago.

Belinda’s name was among more than a dozen on a story list of cold cases to cover. Her case seemed different, though.

Belinda went missing on June 15, 1974, from a home she was house-sitting on Eagle Lake, just outside of Monticello. She was 17 years old.

Photo provided by the Van Lith family

A quick search of the archives didn’t uncover any press coverage of her 1974 disappearance. Her story didn’t appear anywhere until 2009, when the Pioneer Press uncovered a search warrant application related to her case.

The Wright County Sheriff’s Office, along with the St. Paul Police Department, had executed a search warrant at the home of Timothy Crosby, the last known person to see Belinda. She had gone to his cabin the day before to ask for his sister, Sue. Crosby was staying at the cabin, alone.

The search warrant allowed investigators to collect a DNA sample from Crosby.

The 2009 coverage in the St. Paul newspaper informed the public, for the first time, that Timothy Crosby was a suspect in Belinda’s case — and at least one other unsolved murder.

It was the first time Belinda’s family members learned that, too.

Image courtesy of the Wright County Sheriff's Office

Over the course of 50 years, Belinda’s family members received no substantial updates in the case. They lived most of their lives wondering what happened to her sister — and if Wright County Sheriff’s Office investigators cared about her case at all.

I met with Belinda’s siblings in April of 2023. They were ready to seek answers — and information — related to their sister’s case, so we went to work.

I called the Wright County Sheriff’s Office and said we would be covering this story with or without their cooperation. I gave them a heads-up that if they didn’t provide the family with information, we’d be writing a story about a family who was kept in the dark for 50 years.

Belinda’s siblings called the Wright County Sheriff’s Office, too.

Lt. Mike Lindquist with the Wright County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division responded. The department made a decision to close Belinda’s case, which made the contents of Belinda’s investigative file available to the public — and her family members.

In August, Lindquist knocked on Cindy’s door and handed over a flash drive. Inside were the contents of her sister’s investigative case file.

When Cindy inserted that flash drive into her computer, more than 1,200 pages related to her sister’s case became available to her. A lifetime of mystery was unveiled.

Image courtesy of Belinda Van Lith's family

A few days later, I went to Cindy’s home to retrieve the contents of the file. She told me she and her siblings had no idea about the amount of work that went into their sister’s case.

They wish they had.

The contents of the file provided more than just information — it was proof that Belinda had not been forgotten.

Belinda’s dad, Clifford, died from complications related to a car accident in 1988. Her mother, Beverly, died in 2014. They went to their graves not knowing the truth behind their daughter’s investigation.

Image courtesy of Cindy Ohman.

Each investigative body calls the shots when it comes to cold case transparency. It’s up to the discretion of investigators to choose what they’d like to reveal to the public.

Covering missing persons and cold cases has allowed me to speak with many investigators over the past few years. And it’s true — each detective does things a little differently.

Some are open to answering questions and want to partner with the media to get information out to the public to, potentially, help the case. Others take a closed-off approach, believing any release of information will compromise the integrity of the investigation.

In Belinda’s case, it was the latter.

From 2008 to 2014, Lindquist and his team executed multiple search warrants at Timothy Crosby’s home. They brought in FBI cadaver dogs and dug up the area around the old Crosby cabin. They searched the field where Crosby had gotten stuck the evening of Belinda’s disappearance — and they dug through the ground of a shed on the property Belinda was house-sitting when she went missing.

Belinda’s family had no clue any of this was happening — until they read it in the investigative file.

The file also revealed the Wright County Sheriff’s Office repeated failures in the early days, weeks and months following Belinda’s disappearance.

Photo provided

Six months after Belinda went missing, Crosby kidnapped a young woman in St. Paul and took her to his cabin, where he chained her to a bed and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. She escaped, and gave investigators a detailed account of the horrific experience.

After his arrest, Crosby was questioned regarding Belinda’s disappearance. He denied any involvement, yet he failed a polygraph test.

Investigators then executed a search warrant at his St. Paul home in January of 1975. The only recorded evidence was a journal. The first entry in that journal occurred two weeks after Belinda went missing.

Photo provided

The cold case review into Belinda’s disappearance included an interview with one former officer who was a part of the team that searched Crosby’s home. The officer told investigators in 2008 that items discovered in the Crosby home were not documented, including a manual on ways to hide a body. None of that was documented at the time, though.

After the search warrant was executed, the Wright County Sheriff’s Office dropped their investigation into Timothy Crosby.

At that time, Wright County Sheriff’s Office investigators did not search the field where his car had gotten stuck the night of June 15, 1974. They did not search his cabin or nearby property.

Women’s clothing discovered in Crosby’s vehicle following his arrest was not shown to Belinda’s friends and family members, according to the investigative file. Instead, the clothing was given back to the Crosby family at the request of their attorney.

Crosby was sent to St. Peter Hospital’s treatment program for sexual aggressiveness.

After his release, he went on to kidnap at least two other women.

Photo provided

In 1983, he offered a young woman a ride while she was walking down the street. When she was in the car, he took out a knife and threatened her. She fought back and managed to escape through the passenger side door.

Charges related to that case were dropped, and Crosby was once again sent to St. Peter Hospital’s treatment program for sexual aggressiveness.

In 1987, Crosby held a young woman captive in his St. Paul apartment, where he strangled her unconscious, tied her wrists and ankles, chained her to a bed, and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. She escaped by throwing herself, naked, out of his apartment window.

He was sentenced to 41 months at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater before being transferred to St. Peter Hospital for a brief stay.

In the wake of the 2009 search warrant application uncovered by the St. Paul reporter, another victim came forward. Crosby had paid her to perform sexual acts in his presence. She was 17 years old.

Crosby was arrested and convicted for using a minor in a sexual performance. From that crime, investigators obtained another search warrant that allowed full access to his home and property.

They uncovered a secret, locked room with a bed and an array of cameras. A saw discovered in his locked trunk was taken into evidence for another case.

Photo provided by Wright County Sheriff's Office

Encrypted files on his computer revealed images and information related to violent sexual activity, including a handbook on how to abduct and kill women.

That information was used in the state’s argument to indefinitely commit Crosby as a sexually dangerous person to the Moose Lake Sex Offender Treatment Program facility, where he will likely spend the rest of his days.

I sat down for an interview with Crosby at the secure Moose Lake facility in January. He claimed the police files related to the three victims who escaped included “data errors.” He denied any involvement in Belinda’s disappearance and insinuated that her family might have had something to do with it.

Belinda’s family does not see the main suspect’s detainment as justice for Belinda. They still do not know what happened to their kind and smart sister on June 15, 1974. Her body has never been found.

They are, however, glad he is not able to hurt any more women.

Crosby would not be locked up today, though, if an ambitious reporter didn’t find the 2009 search warrant application.

Investigators throughout the years went to great lengths to keep any information related to Belinda’s disappearance out of the public eye for fear that it would compromise their investigation. That mentality also extended to Belinda’s family members, who were kept in the dark for decades.

It’s an interesting twist in this story. When information about Belinda’s case was made available to the public, it led to his 2009 arrest and investigators’ access to Crosby’s home and property.

Without that newspaper article, Crosby would likely still be a free man today.

To read the whole Belinda Van Lith series, go here. To listen to the full line-up of podcast episodes about this investigation, go here .