Pearsall was last seen at the Lewiston Civic Theater in Lewiston, Idaho on September 14, 1982. He was employed as a janitor there, and asked his friends to drop him off so he could do some work and practice his clarinet. He was carrying a light blue cloth duffel bag at the time of his disappearance. He has never been heard from again.

Pearsall went missing on the same night as stepsisters Kristina Nelson, 21, and Jacqueline A. "Brandy" Miller, 18. The two women were last seen leaving Nelson's apartment to go to a grocery store. They would have passed the theater on their way, and may have gone inside. Nelson and Miller's bodies were found in Kendrick, Idaho almost two years after their disappearances; their homicides remain unsolved.

Investigators believe Pearsall's disappearance and Nelson and Miller's murders are connected to the disappearance of Christina White, who disappeared from the county fair in Asotin County, Idaho in 1979, and the murder of Kristin David, a University of Idaho student who disappeared in 1981 and was found murdered eight days later. Investigators have a person of interest in those cases. He has never been publicly identified, but he's been interviewed many times by police. All of the cases remain unsolved.