Susan Marable went missing in Yakima in 1991. Investigators are looking for clues (2024)

Robyn Peery and Jeanette Vargas stood together outside the AM/PM on East Yakima Avenue with missing person flyers in hand on May 9. It was the birthday of Peery's sister,Susan Libby Marable.

Marable would be 68 years old. She has been missing since the evening of April 23, 1991, when she was last seen by a friendin downtown Yakima.Marable had left to walk the short distance from where she was staying to the AM/PM and never returned.

Peery created the two-page flyers printed on heavy paper. She chose the color photos and wrote the summary of her older sister's life. Marable grew up in Aberdeen with many pets and friends and worked as a registered nurse after graduating in 1977. She struggled with heroin addiction after her fiancé was killed in a car crash in 1985.

"My family and I need your help. We are desperate to find our Susan," the flyer reads. "We want her to be returned to us so that we may give her a proper, respectful burial next to our Mother, who passed away in 2012 without ever knowing what became of her sweet daughter."

Marable's missing person case is the focus of the Yakima Police Department's latest Cold Case Files video, which is out this month.It is the first video highlighting a long-term missing person case; previous videos featured cold case homicides.

The department has highlighted a cold casein a video every month since last August. Cold cases are investigations in which possible leads have been exhausted and no new evidence is immediately anticipated or available.

Kevin Cays, a major crimes unit detective focused only on cold cases, is working with a group of volunteers to take a closer look at homicides and missing person cases. They're sharing some on social media to bring renewed attention because authorities believe they could be solved.

Asking for help

Peery has advocated for her beloved sister for years. She drove to Yakima from her Idaho home for a few days to talk to Cays, speak for the video and hand out flyers and rubber bracelets she made to raise awareness. Over timePeery has talked to several Yakima police detectives, has shared her story on social media and in podcasts — a two-part podcast about her sister came out this month —and has talked to traditional media outlets.

As relatives and friends of missing people know, any updates from investigators are crucial but communication often requires persistence on their part. By keeping their loved one's story in the public eye through social media, they can share information with a nearly limitless audience and possibly jog someone's memory.

"If you know something, or know someone who does, please, please speak up about it," Marable's missing person flyer reads. "You may know something that you think is insignificant, but in a cold case those small things are generally the key that unlocks everything."

Marable and Vargas were friends back in 1991, with Marable even giving Vargas her own coat when Vargas needed one. Both were struggling with addiction then and knew others in Yakima's gritty downtown core who were facing the same challenges. Vargas and others knew Marable as "Sue."

Vargas and Peery met in 2019.As they stood outside the AM/PM on Marable's birthday,Peery and Vargas continued to catch up between brief conversations with customers or people just passing through. They first headed inside to give employees a flyer, then handed them out as they could.

The AM/PM is where Marable was headed when she disappeared. She left a friend's van, where she was living on nearby Naches Avenue, at about 9:30 p.m. on April 23, 1991, according to her listing on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (commonly known as NamUs).

Marable told the friend that if she wasn't back in two hours, something was wrong. She was wearing a denim jacket, blue jeans and tan clogs with white soles and one silver earring, a unicorn.

Peery and Vargas wanted to go the AM/PM also because it's in a high foot and vehicle traffic area. Vargas walked across the street to hand flyers to two people temporarily camped in front of a building. She taped one to a utility pole and handed one to a driver who called out her name after pulling into the AM/PM lot.

They also walked to Naches Avenue, passing an older man in a wheelchair who first declined to take a flyer. After Peery explained that it was about her missing sister, he took one, studied it and asked a few questions.

Peery persisted in giving him a flyer because he's older and might know something about Marable, she said, or may have heard something about what could have happened to her.

Making the video

Marable disappeared after testifying in the trial of the man convicted of abducting and raping her. John L. Robinson was convicted in 1990 of kidnapping and raping Marable. She disappeared several weeks after he was sentenced. Robinson threatened her and her family in open court.

Robinson was also convicted of kidnapping and attempting to rape another woman. He died at a Tacoma hospital in February 2020. At the time Robinson was living at the Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island, where the state detains people who are deemed sexually violent predators and have been civilly committed after their jail terms end.

He was among several men who were preying on vulnerable women in the city of Yakima and throughout Yakima County in the 1990s and 1980s. That's where Peery made the video with Yvette Inzunza, spokesperson for the Yakima Police Department, in the parking lot behind the Sports Center.

"I came to town to just bring more awareness to her case, ask anybody if they know anything about her disappearance and if you were around back in the day, and know people she was associated with or heard any rumors, no matter how insignificant you think it night be," Peery said on video. "Those are the things that can break a case open."

Her family has been looking for answers all these years. Peery herself has worked her sister's missing person case for 22 years.

"I'm not giving up. ... I absolutely believe there are people in this community who know things. I know there are. I just need someone to please put aside your own fear. You can leave tips anonymously to say anything that you know," she said. "Maybe you saw something you don't think if relevant; it likely is."

If somebody was willing to come forward with what they know, "that would mean everything," Peery said.

"Both of our parents are gone. Our other siblings are aging. Our family's been shattered by this. So if somebody could just find it within themselves to please, please say something," she said. "You could give us peace and that would be momentous."