WINFIELD, Kansas, November 14, 2002 -- Somewhere in an old Viking yearbook lies a casual friendship that began in 1960.
Stan Galbreath was a backup quarterback at Winfield High. Bill Mueller was a lineman on the same team.
"We played football together, we were in track together. Stan played basketball, which I didn't," said Mueller.
It was a friendship that grew into a special bond, but not until one of these men disappeared.
"Well, I remember he was a family man."
Beth Galbreath remembers that morning in 1980. It was like any day her husband Stan left for work.
"Yeah, we discussed the election, going to the movies with a friend that evening, kissed me goodbye and that was it," said Stan's widow, Beth.
Stan got into his truck for Prairieland Processors, bound for Hutchinson. He made scheduled stops in Wichita and at the Valley Center High School. But that would be his last.
Stan Galbreath never made it to Hutchinson.
"The longer time went we were fearful that something may have occurred," said Cowley County Sheriff Bob Odell.
"Everything just added up that something really happened to him," said Beth.
Hours later, Stan's truck finally turned up in Wichita, but the story only got more bizarre.
Witnesses saw the truck sideswiping parked cars. By the next morning, police found the truck in a parking lot. There was no Stan, though, just blood -- Stan's blood.
"Even though you really think something was wrong, it's really a shock when you find out something has happened," said Beth.
And that's where this story returns to Winfield. Twenty years after old friends once played football together, one of them, Bill Mueller, became a special agent for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. His job now is to find out why his former teammate appears to be dead.
"It was very obvious that driver was not Stan Galbreath," said Mueller.
Mueller started with witness descriptions of the man seen sideswiping cars and ditching the meat truck. While they varied, one thing was for sure -- it was not Stan.
Then, Mueller traced Stan's deliveries, learning exactly how much meat should have been inside the truck. What he found was motive.
"250 boxes valued at $20,250 at that time, is what was actually missing," notes Mueller.
Stan Galbreath was robbed, Mueller thought. And there was nothing random about it.
"We feel it took more than one person, not just to get control of him, but also to transfer that meat,"said Odell.
"We think that probably the person that did it was aware of Prairieland Processors," said Mueller.
But investigators were still missing the most important piece of evidence -- a body.
Twenty-two years later, Stan Galbreath has still never been found.
"Well, certainly it was well planned, or they lucked into a spot that worked real well for them. Having known Stan and gone to school with Stan myself, it's one that I really would like to have solved before I retired from the KBI and I didn't get it done," said Mueller.
Stan Galbreath was declared legally dead in 1985. But for loved ones, laying their sorrow to rest will come only when Stan himself is laid to rest, after 22 years.
"Oh, I think about the things the children have missed, not having their father around. And not being able to know his grandchildren, because he loved kids," said Beth.
Even now, authorities believe someone in Wichita knows what happened to Stan Galbreath and can help solve this crime.
If you know anything about the case, call the KBI at 1-800-KS-CRIME.