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Back in 1986, a Tennessee college student named Alice Mae Sullivan left her young son at a babysitter’s residence, never to be seen again. Her sudden disappearance left a lingering mystery that haunted her family and community for decades.
Fast forward to nearly 40 years later, and we are finally seeing some breakthroughs in this cold case. On October 13, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department revealed a significant development: forensic scientists from the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification have confirmed that a skull found years ago belongs to Alice Mae Sullivan.
This crucial piece of evidence was initially unearthed on February 20, 2004, by a contractor who was building houses on Stokers Lane in North Nashville. Although the skull showed no signs of trauma, its discovery prompted a comprehensive search of the surrounding area by the police. Unfortunately, their efforts did not yield any additional remains at the time, leaving the case unresolved.
It took more than two decades for forensic advancements to connect the skull to Alice, offering a glimmer of closure to a mystery that has lingered for far too long. The identification marks a pivotal moment in the investigation, shedding light on a case that had remained in the shadows for nearly four decades.
It would take more than 20 years before the skull was linked to Alice.
When Did Alice Mae Sullivan Disappear?
Alice was a 20-year-old college student at Tennessee State University when she vanished on Aug. 28, 1986.
That morning, according to police, she dropped off her 3-year-old son at a babysitter’s house before heading to class. She was last seen walking campus near the Gentry Center, according to WTVF. However, she never made it to her 1 p.m. class, and when she didn’t make her usual nightly call home, her parents reported her missing.
“It’s strange when she don’t call me,” her mom Lilly Sullivan told the news outlet in 2022. “She would call me at night, sometimes twice.”
At the time of her disappearance, Alice lived at the Town Terrace apartments near campus with her boyfriend. According to Lilly, her daughter told her that she wanted to move out and move back to her hometown in Gallatin, but she never explained why.
After Alice disappeared, Lilly told WTVF she called the apartment and spoke to her daughter’s boyfriend, who told her that Alice never came home that night and he was watching her son.
Years later, Lilly is still tormented by not knowing what happened to her daughter.
“The pain don’t go away,” she told WTVF. “It still hurts. It hurts like it happened yesterday.”
Metro Police Detective Matthew Filter told WTVF in 2022 that investigators suspect that Alice’s death was likely the result of foul play.
Police said Oct. 13 that the investigation into Alice’s disappearance is “continuing.”
