Did she just get fed up and take a hike?
Was she scared of someone or something? Did she run?
Did she get sick or ill and die, and then her "friends" got scared and hid her body?
Worse?
Someone asked me recently whether I knew how much life insurance was carried on Beth's life. I don't, but I do remember that life insurance companies I had represented in Illinois and in Colorado were really careful about the amount of "wife insurance" they issued. Actually, they were careful about the amount of life insurance they issued on every person who applied.
There was a factor called Human Life Value. That's what you could insure. Typically, the breadwinner in the family would qualify for the highest amount of life insurance to be issued on a family member. Often that was the man in the family; that's just how it was back in the 1970s.
The wife/mother could qualify for insurance beyond the basic amount to cover funeral, burial and some other minimal costs, based on her economic value to the family. If a family had one dependent child who was, say ten years old, then the mother's economical value, in the typical traditional family, might be her "replacement" value until the child was 18 or, if it was likely that he might go to college, 22. For every month she lived, her economic value to the child's age 18 (or 22) would decline. Decreasing term insurance sometimes was a good type of insurance to fill that need.
Would an insurance company issue a policy for $250,000 or $500,000 or $1,000,000 on a wife/mother? Not likely, unless the family was a high net-worth family. Why not? There was too much chance for an "accident" and an "economic gain", if the wife died prematurely.
Sometimes you hear about a man who purchases a large amount of life insurance on his wife, and then she "just happens" to die fairly soon after the policy was issued. The insurance company will naturally be suspicious and investigate thoroughly before paying the proceeds. The insurance company will also look very closely at the relationship between the selling agent or broker and the family of the insured.
Because large amounts of life insurance can be purchased without a medical examination or with a simplified medical exam completed by a paramedical nurse who will even go to the home of a prospective insured, the insurance company must be certain that the person examined is the person who is insured.
It's not unknown for a "surrogate" to be examined (illegally) for a policy. After all, if the nurse expects Mrs. Jones to answer the door at the Jones' address when she arrives, and a woman answers the door and says she is Mrs. Jones, and if the woman being examined resembles Mrs. Jones generally, the nurse is going believe that she is examining Mrs. Jones. The nurse examines the impostor, the impostor signs Mrs. Jones' name, and the nurse sends the medical exam to the insurance company. And the real Mrs. Jones never even knows that a policy is being purchased on her life.
If the insurance company is really suspicious, it will pay the death proceeds into a reserve fund, independently administered by a fiduciary. The insurance company is willing to show its good faith in being responsible for payment of the death benefit, but they want to be certain they aren't paying it to anyone who might have, somehow, been involved in the early demise of the insured.
But even after 62 weeks, no one knows whether Beth Bentley is alive or dead. In a case like this, if there does happen to be insurance on Beth, somebody had better make sure that every premium is paid when due (or within the grace period).
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