Editor’s note: This story’s been updated to clarify Bud Rogers’ incarceration status.

(NewsNation) — The disappearance of a young, deaf mother from Western Pennsylvania has been unsolved for four decades, and her daughter is fighting to get attention on the case and advocating for a new law that would change things for missing families everywhere.

Lonene Rogers vanished in the middle of the night in 1981 when her daughter was only 5.

NewsNation enlisted a sign language interpreter to help spread Rogers’ story in hopes someone in the deaf community knows something about her disappearance.

Memories of Lonene Rogers

Besides a few seconds of 8mm film, Alison Duiker has only one real memory of her mother, who was 29 when she disappeared.

“I was maybe 3, 4 at the most. She was curling her hair,” Duiker said. “She had this long, beautiful blonde hair, and I was just sitting, and I just remember being in awe of how beautiful she was.”

Marion Jenkins, a relative Duiker grew up calling Aunt Marion, recalls that deafness didn’t slow Rogers down at all.

“She was born deaf, but it didn’t stop her at all,” Jenkins said. “She was real bubbly, a lot of fun, always in a good mood.”

In 1972, Lonnie, as she was known to her family, married Clinton “Bud” Rogers, who was also deaf.

They lived on the second floor of this house outside Erie, Pennsylvania. Old photos show what looks like a happy couple; the family even featured in a local news article about devices for those with a hearing disability.

Troubles in Lonene Rogers’ marriage

But Rogers’ family said by the fall of 1978, the relationship had soured.

“She told us that she found fingerprint marks on her son’s neck, and she said she believed that Bud got upset with him and tried to choke him,” Jenkins said.

Then came a bombshell revelation.

“They found out that Bud had a record and that he had been in jail,” Jenkins said.

Duiker has her father’s criminal record.

“This is the criminal report from my father, things from breaking and entering, stealing cars, staging a robbery in his place of work,” Duiker said.

Rogers kicked her husband out, but in December, she agreed to let him stay for the holidays.

“She allowed him to come back to the apartment and sleep on the couch so that he could be there for Christmas morning with the kids,” Duiker said. “But then, after the holidays, he refused to leave.”

According to the family, Rogers was fed up and planning to leave with the kids.

Lonene Rogers disappears

But on the morning of Jan. 7, 1981, everything changed.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning, my father wakes me up and says, ‘Your mother left for another man, I need you to get up, help me get your brother, and I’m taking you to the babysitter so I can go find her,'” Duiker said.

“We knew it was a lie,” Jenkins said. “She would never do that. She would never leave her kids, and she would never leave her home without her hearing aid or coat or a wallet. I mean, that’s not Lonnie Ray.”

Rogers’ father, a volunteer firefighter, organized a search party.

“They searched the woods, they searched with dogs, they searched with helicopters, but did not come up with anything,” Duiker said.

Over the years, the family turned to flyers, newspaper articles and billboards to try to find Rogers. Duiker even wrote a book about the case.

A single lead in the disappearance of Lonene Rogers

But the only solid lead came just a few years ago, when Duiker heard a thirdhand story about her father making mysterious trips to a wooded area.

“He kept stopping at this one location, and he would make the girlfriend stay in the car, and he would go into the woods and then come back,” Duiker said.

And he allegedly had a chilling warning for the girlfriend.

“One day, she said to him, she must have gotten the guts to somehow say, ‘Is Lonnie in there? Why do you keep going in there?'” Duiker said. “He said, ‘You keep your mouth shut or I’ll put you in there with her.'”

Her father is currently incarcerated for violating a protective order in a domestic violence case with a release date set for October.

Duiker turned to Facebook, sharing the story with thousands of followers, saying police knew about the tip in 2006, but nothing was ever done.

That’s when a stranger offered to bring cadaver dogs.

“The dogs came, we repeated it three times, and they alerted to the same exact spot every time. The owners of the property allowed us to come in and do whatever we needed to do,” Duiker said. “We cut that tree down, and the tree was kind of toppled over, and the roots were exposed, and they alerted to the stump of the tree.”

Duiker believes her mother’s body was there and possibly moved.

“Part of her would still be there and in the root system of that tree,” Duiker said. “So when the tree was taken down and the roots exposed, that is exactly where the dogs indicated.”

Advocating for Lonnie’s Law

Without a body, the case has gone cold.

Duiker says it’s time for the state police to let her see the information they have. But they refuse, saying it’s still an open investigation.

“What if I could connect A and B, and that would get them to C? But they’ll never know, and I’ll never know, because they won’t share it with me,” she said.

Duiker is also pushing for a law named after her mother, which would allow families to access cold case files after 20 years.

“Lonnie’s law would change things, not only for my family but for the thousands, hundreds of thousands of families that are dealing with the same thing,” Duiker said.

A private investigator brings new energy

Meanwhile, a new private investigator is breathing new energy into the case.

“My experience has been that bad people like to get things off their chest,” said private investigator Jeff Walters.

He began working the case in 2024.

Walters and Duiker have been reaching out to the tight-knit deaf community around Erie, Pennsylvania, and they hope this story will reach someone who has information.

“I think by going to them with a video, with the sign language interpreter explaining that, maybe it would be enough to encourage that person or persons to come forward,” Walters said.

He also has a message directly for the person involved.

“I believe whoever is responsible for Lonnie’s disappearance, it’s been weighing on them very heavily,” he said. “My belief is the devil’s coming. The devil’s been poking them in the back, it’s been talking to them. It’s never too late to make things right with your maker. I think time is running out, though.”