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February 19, 1998
Olmstead sent 'letters that
sounded like suicide notes'
CLEVELAND - On a cold, icy January night in 1983, Richard Olmstead vanished without a trace. His wife, Eileen Olmstead vividly remembers that day.
The weather was unusually mild as the day began. Rick was to meet his family for dinner at Eileen 's father's home.
Eileen went home, but Rick didn't make it there, either. The weather worsened, turning to sleet, icing up the
streets. After midnight, Eileen and her father hunted roads and ditches, fearing Rick had wrecked. The next
morning, they checked in with state troopers and hospitals, to no avail.
Within a day or two, Eileen says, she received a letter in the mail from Rick, which she took to be a suicide note.
As the days unfolded, she says, she discovered that Rick had not paid the mortgage, utilities and other bills. "At
that time, I was just reeling from one discovery to another," she said. "The note explained that Rick would be leaving
this world. It was then that I feared the worst." Eileen went on to explain that Rick's father and grandfather had both
disappeared in this fashion at about the same age.
Rick's sister, Donna, says she had no clue her brother had been preparing to leave, adding she thought he was
actually turning his life around. Within a couple of weeks, Eileen says, a second letter came from a small town in Massachusetts called
Innsmouth.
In it, she says, Rick implied he was 'dead' if she was reading it.
Donna says she vaguely remembers the two letters her brother sent after his disappearance. "He did send two
letters that sounded like suicide notes, in a weird way,'' she said. ''My memory is that he was trying to say, 'goodbye.'''
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