Two Brooklyn teenagers vanished 53 years ago while hitchhiking to the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen on July 27 or 28, 1973. According to Rolling Stone, a joint police task force is now intensifying its search for Bonnie Bickwit, 15, and Mitchel Weiser, 16. The festival they were heading to drew over 600,000 fans and was headlined by the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and The Band.
Bonnie was working at a summer camp that summer. Mitchel was working as a photographer's assistant. They never made it home.
A Rolling Stone investigation in 2023 prompted New York Governor Kathy Hochul to direct state police to assist Sullivan County authorities. Investigators have recently excavated an abandoned power company site in Steuben County, about 17 miles from the festival grounds, and are following a fresh tip from someone claiming to have information about the teens' movements after they began hitchhiking.
The mystery has generated competing theories — accidental drowning, foul play, murder — but no answers have emerged in the decades since their disappearance. In 2024, the families publicly criticized law enforcement for failing to follow through on Hochul's directive, including basic witness interviews that had not been conducted.
The case is now linked permanently to one of rock and roll's most legendary events. The 600,000 fans who attended the festival went home with memories of an iconic show. Bonnie and Mitchel's families went home without their children.
The task force's renewed effort suggests there may be momentum at last. But for a case that has been cold for more than half a century, each excavation and each new lead remains urgent.
