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George Wright Bugher, age 38, was last seen in Elizabeth, New Jersey on July 8, 1964.
George was the President of Hand Hardware Company in 1964. The business was reportedly struggling financially and George had been attempting to refinance it. On the day of his disappearance, he called his wife and told her that he would be a little late because he had an appointment to discuss refinancing with two men.
George never came home and has never been seen again.
The following morning, the store’s manager, Robert Ferris, arrived at the store and found it in disarray. The key was in the inside lock, and clothing and other possessions were strewn across the floor. The burglar alarm had been turned off. Upon further inspection, Robert noticed that the two safes were open and a cash box containing about $600 in cash was missing.
Additionally, part of George’s wallet containing $17 was found under the safe, along with his drivers license. Robert immediately called police.
A few days later, George’s 1954 Chevy was found at the intersection of Chapel St and Fleming St in the neighboring city of Newark. The missing cash box was found empty inside the car. Four pennies and some old receipts were also found in the car.
Although I’ve seen reports stating that George was last seen at the store, and that the store was located at 335-337 East Jersey St in Elizabeth, this New York Times article states that the strewn about items and the open safes were in George’s office at 157 Jefferson Avenue in Elizabeth. For a minute, I thought there must be two locations involved, where he was last seen at the store but a separate office could be where he was supposed to meet the two men. But then the article goes on to say that the manager, Robert, noticed the open safes when he opened the store.
157 Jefferson Avenue appears to be a Dollar General store now and certainly looks like it could have been a hardware store.
335-337 East Jersey St, coincidentally, is currently for sale.
I guess the exact address isn’t incredibly important in the grand scheme of things, but knowing whether there were two locations involved as opposed to one, is important to trying to determine what might have happened.
It’s really hard to say what happened here. Of course it’s possible that he took the money and left, but I don’t know why he would ransack the store or office. It was his, so unless he planned on filing an insurance claim or something, he wouldn’t necessarily need to make it look like anything it wasn’t.
I think it’s more likely that the people he was supposed to meet with were involved in his disappearance. I’ve also seen suggestions that he could have been a victim of a mob hit, and even that he could have been D.B. Cooper.
George lived in Princeton, New Jersey at the time of his disappearance with his wife and two young children. He was active in civic and church activities in the Princeton area. G
Sources:
Ash Mysteries
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