Self left her baby daughter with her mother on the evening of March 30, 1983 and went out with friends to the Wagon Wheel Bar and Restaurant on Highway 1 in Armistead, Louisiana. Later, she told her friends she was leaving to pick up her infant child, as she had to be at work early the next morning. Self never arrived at her mother's house to collect the child. Her car was found the next day in the parking lot of the restaurant. The doors and the steering column were locked. Self's purse and keys were missing, but her new shoes were in the backseat.

In 2006, the self-proclaimed serial killer Robert Charles Browne confessed to Self's murder. He has already pleaded guilty to two homicides, including the murder of Rocio Sperry, who disappeared from Colorado in 1987 and was never located. A photograph of Browne is posted below this case summary. Browne stated he met Self in the Wagon Wheel on the night of her disappearance and later went to her apartment; he was the maintanence man at her apartment complex at the time. He stated he went to her apartment after seeing her at the bar and found her asleep in the bedroom. He covered her mouth with a chloroform-soaked rag and then went to find some rope to bind her, but when he returned, she was dead. He said he dumped her body off a bridge into the Red River.

Browne also confessed to murdering two other women in the same parish. None of these accounts have been confirmed and Browne has not been charged in connection with Self's disappearance or the other two murders. Investigators are searching for evidence to verify his stories, but have found very little indications. Most of his alleged victims were women, but there were some men also.

Self's family says that although she had a wild streak in 1983, it is uncharacteristic of her to abandon her child. She was declared legally dead five years after her disappearance, but her remains have never been found.

Above: Robert Charles Browne