Betty Van Patter

Betty Van Patter came to work for the Black Panther Party as an aide to Panther leader Elaine Brown in 1974, after being introduced to the Party by David Horowitz.

Later that year, after a dispute with Brown, she was reported missing, and some weeks later her severely beaten corpse was found on a local beach.

Though the case remains officially unsolved, former Panther David Horowitz has maintained for years that Elaine Brown was directly responsible for the murder.

Brown's 1992 book "A Taste of Power" falsely claimed that Van Patter had a criminal past and had been convicted of drug trafficking. After protestations from the Van Patter family, these false claims were removed from subsequent editions of the book.