Kenneth Edward Tank, a 28-year-old Fargo, North Dakota resident and former insurance adjuster, disappeared on the night of December 2, 1971. Tank, who was not a regular patron but visited occasionally to socialize with his brother-in-law, was last seen leaving Ralph's Corner Bar at the corner of Main Avenue and 4th Street in downtown Moorhead, Minnesota, at approximately 11:00 p.m. His presumed destination was his home in Fargo, roughly a thirteen-minute drive away. Overnight temperatures were around 17 degrees Fahrenheit with winds gusting to 20 mph; no taxi drivers interviewed afterward recalled picking him up, and he never arrived home. He was last seen wearing a dark green/gray suit, a white shirt, a thin tie, brown shoes, and a three-quarter-length brown car coat with a black fur collar. Tank's wife reported him missing on December 6, 1971, and told investigators the couple had no marital problems and had not argued in years. He had recently quit his job as an insurance adjuster; his wife said this was because he disliked denying customers' claims, while a family member has said Tank feared for his and his family's safety after receiving threatening phone calls in the weeks before he vanished, and that the calls stopped once he disappeared.
The Fargo Police Department is the investigating agency. In the years following Tank's disappearance, several unconfirmed tips placed him in various locations, including reportedly leaving a local hotel, but none were substantiated. Human remains found in a North Dakota hay field in 1977 and additional remains found in 1997 were both determined not to belong to Tank; human bones found near Ayr, North Dakota, in late 2004 and early 2005 were also compared against a DNA sample from a Tank relative and excluded as a match. Tank was later declared legally dead by a court. His case remains open and he is still classified as missing by the Fargo Police Department. Case identifiers: NamUs #MP23462; Doe Network #5725DMND. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fargo Police Department at 701-235-4493. Case Number 13-8511.
