Horrific principle on how lady, 17, died after speeding house after college to gather cookies for live performance

Seven years after a 17-year-old girl died when she rushed home to collect home-baked cookies for a concert, the FBI is continuing to press for answers.

It is now even offering a whopping $75,000 for anyone with information about Maggie Long’s murder at her parents’ house in Bailey, Colorado on December 1, 2017, according to the Denver Post.

‘She told her friends she’ll be right back, and she was never seen again,’ Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw said at a news conference to mark the seventh anniversary of Long’s passing.

‘We believe someone knows something that could help solve the case and bring a measure of justice to Maggie’s family and the Bailey community.’

Police have said Long, a senior at Platte Canyon High School, returned to her parents’ sprawling ranch after classes that afternoon to pick up cookies for a concert by a local Denver rock band that she helped organize.

But Maggie never showed up, and as the band started to play, her sister became nervous.

‘I had a weird feeling,’ Connie Long told CNN. ‘I knew something was very wrong.

‘Maggie was responsible, dependable. She had helped organize this concert. There was no reason for her to be late or not show up.’

It turned out that as the teenager went to collect her baked goods, a fire broke out at her family’s house – and firefighters later discovered her remains among the charred ruins.

By the time Connie arrived at the home, she said she found a fleet of police cars and firetrucks outside, along with Maggie’s silver Cadillac.

‘I could still smell the smoke – they had just extinguished the fire,’ she recounted. ‘And I was asking, “Where’s my sister? What happened?”‘ 

An ensuing investigation determined Maggie walked in on at least three intruders trying to rob her parents’ home, and a physical altercation began between the high school senior and the would-be robbers.

Worried neighbors even reported hearing an argument coming from the Longs’ home, and a tenant renting a guest suite inside the home had called 911 to report hearing loud banging noises.

At some point during the altercation, the robbers set the home ablaze, with McGraw previously saying that Maggie was ‘purposely set on fire and burned alive.’

A coroner also ruled Maggie’s death a homicide. 

But the intruders were able to make it out alive, taking with them a Beretta handgun, an AK-47-style rifle, 2,000 rounds of ammunition, a green safe and jade figurines.

Composite sketches of three of the suspects were released, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said it has since received about 415 tips related to the case – but no one has ever been brought to justice over the killing. 

A motive also remains unclear – though the FBI announced in 2021 they were probing whether the robbery and murder may have been the result of a hate crime. 

The Longs, Chinese immigrants who were forced out of Vietnam during the war, had lived at the sprawling 6,000-square-feet property for nearly 20 years.

They had immigrated to Colorado in the late 1980s, after living as refugees for years in Hong Kong, with Connie saying they had hoped to build ‘a safe and secure life for their family.’

‘They were so resilient and went through all of that to come to America – just to face even more trauma.’

Once in Colorado,  San – the girls’ father – started working as a chef in a Chinese restaurant.

The owner eventually sold him the business after he retired, and San went on to own four restaurants in the Denver area, as he and his wife, Hy, raised a boy and three girls in the small community of Bailey.

Long´s sisters, Lynna and Connie Long, said they never noticed any overt Asian discrimination when they lived there.

‘Not only was it a small community, our house was behind trees and our driveway was like a mile long,’ Connie explained to CNN.

‘We were nowhere near the main country road, so there wasn’t a lot of concern about anything sketchy happening.’

Lynna also said she believes the case was classified as a hate crime based on the belief that Chinese immigrants rarely use banks, and there may be money stored at the home. 

Members of the FBI, CBI, Sheriff’s Office, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are continuing to meet regularly to discuss the cold case.

But as the investigation dragged on, the Longs sold one of their restaurants and moved to the Denver suburb of Broomfield, where they now live with their son.

‘My parents were already in the process of retiring from the restaurant business,’ Lynna explained. ‘This just expedited their plans to leave the area.

‘It was difficult for them to be here.’

At their new home, though, the Longs have set up a room in Maggie’s honor, complete with her personal belongings and photos of her on the walls.

Among the many items is a journal in which Maggie wrote about the death of a friend and classmate one year before her murder.

‘I think the only real cure to cope with loss is to continue to be good people. Be kind. Be caring. Be passionate. Be thoughtful,’ the teenager wrote at the time.

‘Share love and consider everyone around you, from strangers to acquaintances to peers to friends.

‘Enough people have experienced pain to understand that life is far more measurable in joy and good memories than to be scorched with cruelty and loss.’

Maggie’s family says they now strive to live by those words.