UID CA1982

A small article

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hp5PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xwUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7047,6221502
http://doenetwork.org/cases/783ufca.html

Missing person case 30 years old Friday

Alexander Shaw

Charlotte's Observer - NC, USA

Missing person case 30 years old Friday

Observer Staff Reports

Posted: Thursday, Mar. 15, 2012

CHADBOURN -- Friday marks 30 years since Scotland County authorities found Edwin Shaw’s car smashed against a tree, a half-mile north of the town of Wagram. Shaw, 23 years old at the time, has never been seen since.

Now surviving family members are increasing the reward for information helping bring closure to the case.

Alexander Edwin Shaw IV was driving a 1972 Buick on U.S. 401 on the night of March 16, 1982, when the vehicle went off the road, flew over a ditch, and hit a pine tree. The N.C. Highway Patrol found the car hours after the crash, with Shaw’s wallet inside the vehicle and the car ignition on. There was no blood in the car -- and no sign of Shaw.

Two women told the Scotland County Sheriff’s Office that they saw Shaw walking the next day on a highway south of Wagram, a town about 100 miles east of Charlotte and midway between Laurinburg and Raeford. There were numerous reported possible sightings of the young man in the years following the crash, but none of those ever were confirmed as being Shaw.

Shaw’s late father, Alexander “Sandy” Shaw III, surmised that his son might have suffered a head injury and had amnesia after the crash. The elder Shaw, who died in 2010, resigned his job as town manager in Chadbourn, a Columbus County town 150 miles east of Charlotte, to help look for his son. (more...)

Coppler's funeral planned for Saturday

Lima Ohio - OH, USA

Coppler's funeral planned for Saturday

March 13, 2012 7:14 PM

LIMA — Forensic anthropologists were unable to determine a cause of death for a teenager whose remains were found last month, Allen County Coroner Gary Beasley said Tuesday.

“The anthropologists checked it over very, very carefully and didn't find anything,” Beasley said.

Investigators were looking for possible clues into how 14-year-old Nicholle Coppler died but an examination of her skeletal remains revealed nothing, Beasley said.

The exam included cleaning the remains and a carefully searching for any signs of trauma, such as broken bones or tool marks, that could shed light on a cause of death, officials said.

Coppler's remains were found buried at 735 S. Elizabeth St., the last place she was known to be alive. The remains were found after the house was demolished and the yard was dug up. The home's former resident, Glen Fryer, was the chief suspect in her death but killed himself in jail in 2002 while awaiting sentencing for the rape of a 12-year-old girl.

Now that the examination of Coppler's remains are complete, her family has scheduled her funeral for 11 a.m. Saturday at Chamberlain-Huckeriede Funeral Home. Visitation is from 2 to 8 p.m. Friday at the funeral home. (more...)

FBI Asks Aussies for Help in TorC Sex Torture Case

Albuquerque Journal - NM, USA

FBI Asks Aussies for Help in TorC Sex Torture Case

By Charlie Moore / City Editoron Mon, Feb 20, 2012

POSTED AT: 2:16 pm


The FBI is asking Australians for their help in identifying another possible victim of David Parker Ray, a TorC man convicted of the kidnapping and torture of two women in the 1990s. Police have long believed Ray had other victims.

The following news release was posted on the website of the Australian federal police:

The FBI is seeking the Australian public’s help in identifying a potential victim in a United States unsolved missing person’s case.

Her name was Connie, and she is believed to have disappeared in New Mexico in about 1995, possibly a victim of David Parker Ray, who later received a 223-year prison term for kidnapping and torturing two other women.

The FBI is seeking the public’s help to identify Connie, whose last name is unknown, by trying to identify and locate an Australian man known only as ‘Mark’.

Mark wrote about meeting Connie and her friend Candy at an unspecified beach in the US in February 1990, and his two-page letter was later found amongst Ray’s belongings at his residence in Elephant Butte, New Mexico after he was arrested.

The FBI, New Mexico State Police and Albuquerque Police Department suspect Ray may have abducted up to 40 women from several US states and may have killed an unknown number of them. No bodies have ever been found and Ray was never charged with murder. (more...)

Family looks to new possible clues on Gill disappearance

Elizabeth Gill

KFVS12 - MO, USA

Family looks to new possible clues on Gill disappearance

Posted: Mar 14, 2012 11:50 PM Updated: Mar 15, 2012 12:47 AM

Holly Brantley

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KFVS) -
By Holly Brantley

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KFVS) - Family members of Elizabeth Gill feel they've found a trail that could lead them to Beth. It's an amazing turn for this family still holding out hope Missouri's oldest missing person's case will be solved. Gill vanished almost 47 years ago.

Amazingly, information they couldn't track at the time in 1965 is possible to research now. They discovered names of four so-called traveling gypsies and their family members who could hold information.

Investigators and family members tracked them down by using modern technology to do old fashioned detective work.


Standing yards from her childhood home on south Lorimier, Martha Gill Hamilton remembers black and white memories of the day that changed their family and this neighborhood forever..


June 13, 1965 is the day her baby sister Elizabeth vanished while playing in the yard.

"To find anything some 45 years after a child disappears it's almost a miracle to me," said Hamilton.

Even in the neighborhood, almost 47 years later, Hamilton meets an old neighbor who vividly remembers the search for Elizabeth.

"Oh it was intense," said Bruce Melvin. "I was a teenager. The whole neighborhood searched. Police were everywhere."

Back then, it seemed the trail went cold quickly, yet facts and interviews gathered that day would eventually give Hamilton and investigators enough material to form a new path.

"To actually locate someone who had a connection that were persons of interest in 1965 that's amazing," said Hamilton.

They turned out to be four members of a traveling clan known as the terrible Williamsons. Authorities say they stayed at this local motel while working a nationwide network of fraud. (more...)

After years, cases remain unsolved

Patricia Dudek

Delmarva Now - DE, USA

After years, cases remain unsolved

Mar. 4, 2012

SALISBURY -- Jennifer Contreras knew something was wrong when she walked into her home after school and her mother wasn't there but her car was parked outside.

She called her on the phone but her mother didn't answer.

"When she wasn't there I felt like she wasn't coming back," Contreras said.

Contreras' mother, Patricia Dudek, was last seen on Jan. 7, 2002, at about 7:30 a.m. inside her Salisbury home.

A decade later, Dudek still has not been found.

In 2010, 1,927,722 individuals were reported missing, according to the most recent Federal Bureau of Investigations statistics. More than 46,000 of the individuals reported missing that year were found.

In Salisbury, 66 individuals were reported missing during an 11 month period in 2011 compared to 72 the previous year, according to Salisbury Police Department data.

Missing persons cases similar to Dudek's, where the individual is not located, are rare, according to Lt. Rob Kemp, a spokesman for the Salisbury Police Department. (more...)

Reconstructed face leads to ID of Portsmouth body

Andre Macklin

Hampton Roads - VA, USA

Reconstructed face leads to ID of Portsmouth body

By Elizabeth Simpson
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 2, 2012
NORFOLK

They say dead men don't talk, but when they share a room with Dr. Leah Bush, they do yield a few details.

Bush, the state's chief medical examiner, announced Thursday that one of more than 200 unidentified bodies the state has in its possession has been identified. A combination of sophisticated DNA testing and an FBI artist's rendering led to the discovery.

In April, Bush presented three busts that are called "facial approximations" to the public to see whether anyone could identify them. Forensic artists from the FBI in Quantico created the busts using computer imaging of skulls from unidentified remains that had been found in Hampton Roads.

Plastic and modeling clay were used to create lifelike faces, which were presented during a news conference in Norfolk.

That presentation sparked an extended family member of Andre Macklin to call the medical examiner's office. Macklin, a Portsmouth high school student, was 19 when his father reported him missing in June 1996.

Two months after the father filed a missing-person report, Portsmouth police discovered the remains of a body in an abandoned cinder-block factory on Randolph Street. Family members wondered at the time whether the body was Macklin's, and provided a photograph of him to see if he could be positively identified. (more...)

Medina faces another murder charge

Kimberly Medina

Alamosa News - CO, USA

Medina faces another murder charge

Posted: Wednesday, Feb 29th, 2012
BY: SYLVIA LOBATO

ARAPAHOE COUNTY — A cold case with deep San Luis Valley ties is reportedly grinding toward resolution.

While it has long been suspected that Michael Jim Medina killed his first wife, 19-year-old Kimberly (Kimmy, Kim) Greene Medina, he had not been charged. An Aurora police detective and the 18th Judicial District Attorney are reportedly set to change that.

A source close to the case said Tuesday morning that murder charges would be filed against Medina, who is serving a 48-year prison sentence for killing his 16-month-old son, Degan, in May 2005.

Medina, now 49, allegedly told his second wife, Becky Garel, that he had beaten Kimberly with a bat and buried her alive in Elbert County, covering her with mud and listening to her gasp for air.

Bad weather and other factors subsequently changed the area and the body was never found.

Some items believed to belong to Kimberly were found in that area, however.

In 1998, authorities focused their investigation on an area of farmland along the Arapahoe and Elbert county lines and interviewed a farmer who claimed to have located a possible gravesite and witnessed a maroon truck driving away from the area. At that time, Medina owned a maroon truck, but reportedly gave it back to the dealer, claiming he couldn’t make the payments with Kim’s wages no longer coming in.

Her family claimed it was very uncharacteristic of her to leave without telling anyone where she was going, especially leaving behind her daughters, then aged 2 and 3.

Publicly, Medina has claimed that Kimmy walked to a gas station for cigarettes, but he also has claimed she went there to make a phone call.

``Why would Mike say that Kimmy walked to the station to make a phone call since she had a phone in the house?’’ asks Kimberly Medina’s father, John Greene.

Since then, she has dropped off the official globe. Her Social Security number hasn’t been used, there is no driver’s license application, no job search, no bank account, no passport application, none of the official records that document a person’s life. (more...)

Author hopes his story will prevent future parental kidnappings

WKTV - NY, USA

Author hopes his story will prevent future parental kidnappings

By WKTV News

Story Created: Mar 12, 2012

WASHINGTON MILLS, N.Y. (WKTV) - Volunteers and riders are gearing up for the Ride for Missing Children. The event, which takes place in May, helps raise awareness for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Monday night, a group of volunteers gathered at Valentino's in Washington Mills for a meeting and to listen to a former missing child tell his story. Scott Berne was living with his father as a child, and on his first unsupervised visit with his mother, she abducted him. Berne was 10 years old. For the next two years he traveled the world with his mom, moving countless times and even changing their names. In 1981, his father put Scott's photo in a missing person ad in Ladies Home Journal, and a babysitter recognized his face and contacted the FBI.

Berne's case was a landmark in 1981-- and was the first tested under the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act. Berne released a book about his experiences in 2008 called "Extraordinary Circumstances." Berne says he has lived with emotional scars from his parental abduction, and hopes sharing his story will prevent future abductions from taking place.

"I'm speaking out now to make a difference to work with The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in regards to prevention, communication, people in school, parents, lawmakers. To show the effects of parental abduction on children and that they last a lifetime."

The Ride for Missing Children takes place on Friday May 18th, 2012.

http://www.wktv.com/news/local/Author-hopes-his-story-will-prevent-future-parental-kidnappings-142416535.html

Medical examiner seeks public's help on IDs

Times Dispatch - VA, USA

Medical examiner seeks public's help on IDs

By: Tammie Smith | Times-Dispatch
Published: March 13, 2012 Updated: March 13, 2012 - 12:00 AM



Do you know these men?

All three were found dead in Richmond under suspicious circumstances over a period of years and have never been identified.

They are among 220 sets of remains that Virginia's chief medical examiner hopes to put names to in an initiative seeking the public's help.

"We have skeletal remains that go back to 1960s still archived in our offices, waiting for somebody to come forward and to be able to identify these folks and return them to their loved ones," said Dr. Leah Bush, the chief medical examiner.

In many cases, Bush said, the problem is that only partial remains were recovered.

"If we're lucky, they might only be missing bones of the hands and feet, which generally don't have much use for identification purposes," Bush said.

The skull, on the other hand, is critical, used to guess a person's race, sex and age.

"Long bones are used to estimate height. So if we are missing critical parts of the skeleton, it's very limited in what we can tell the public."

In the three cases unveiled Monday, skulls were available and were used by the FBI's Forensic Anthropology Program in Quantico to make busts to approximate what the men looked like. Bush said the FBI is not charging them for the busts. (more...)

Death penalty sought for former South Bay man accused of killing his daughter

Alycia Mesiti

Mercury News - CA, USA

Death penalty sought for former South Bay man accused of killing his daughter

By Mark Gomez

Posted: 03/13/2012 09:07:03 AM PDT
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a former South Bay man accused of killing and molesting his 14-year-old daughter in 2006, just months after a Santa Clara County judge awarded him custody.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office said in court Monday it will seek the death penalty against Mark Edward Mesiti, 44, who is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his daughter Alycia from July, 2005 through May, 2006, according to the Modesto Bee.

Prosecutors stated in court documents that they are seeking the death penalty because of the age and vulnerability of the victims, Mesiti's lack of remorse and evidence of his other crimes, according to the Bee. Prosecutors in Stanislaus County have added allegations that Mesiti sexually abused two other girls, one age 8 and the other 16 and 17, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Bee.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office could not immediately be reached for comment.

Alycia Augusta Mesiti-Allen was 14 when she vanished in August 2006, months after a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge granted custody of the girl and her older brother to Mesiti, who at the time had a lengthy criminal history. After winning custody of his children, Mesiti moved to Ceres, a small town located near Modesto in the Central Valley. (more...)

Sheriff's Office looking for help in ID'ing skeletal remains

SCSun - NM, USA

Sheriff's Office looking for help in ID'ing skeletal remains

Christine Steele/Sun-Newsscsun-news.com
Posted: 03/11/2012 08:38:40 PM MDT

SILVER CITY The Grant County Sheriff s Department is seeking help in identifying the human remains found in the Gomez Peak area earlier this year.
On Jan. 19, a hiker found what appeared to be a lower jawbone, on a trail on Gomez Peak. About a week later, a Forest Service employee found another bone near the area where the first bone was found. The second bone was determined to be a femur, the medical investigator said. In early February, the Sheriff's Office, the medical investigator, members of the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Border Patrol conducted a search of the area and discovered additional human remains. A forensic anthropologist then came from the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque to investigate the find.

According to the preliminary analysis, the bones belonged to a human male, approximately six feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. Now, the Sheriff s Department is releasing photos of some jewelry that were found with the remains, that might help to identify the man, along with more details from the forensic anthropologists report.

The bones have been determined to be from a male between the ages of 23 to 59 years old, probably likely in his 30s or 40s or possibly early 50s. Ancestry could not be determined due to a lack of craniofacial bones, the report said. Approximate height between 5 10 and 6 7 . His hair color is brown. He had some kind of injury to his right knee that was surgically repaired. He has a screw in the front of the right shin bone (tibia) and in the back of the right thigh bone (femur). (more...)

Angie Lynn Daley's family still seeks answers in girl's death

Angie Lynn Daley

The Record Herald - PA, USA

Angie Lynn Daley's family still seeks answers in girl's death

Missing Waynesboro teen's remains were found in 2010

By Denise Bonura

The Record Herald

Posted Mar 10, 2012 @ 08:40 AM

Waynesboro, Pa- Next month marks the two-year anniversary of a tragic horror in Waynesboro.

On April 6, 2010, local police found the body of Kristy Dawn Hoke of Hagerstown in a wooded area off of East Ninth Street in Waynesboro. She had been working as a police informant at the time, and was reportedly stabbed to death. She was 29.

Police have charged Jeffrey Eldon Miles Sr., 48, formerly of State Line in her death. He is currently in Franklin County Jail awaiting trial. Miles allegedly confessed to killing Hoke in 2010, but has since pleaded not guilty in the case. He faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
His trial has been scheduled for Feb. 4, 2013.

Missing teen

The day Hoke’s body was found, local police were led to a farm in Waynecastle where the remains of a missing Waynesboro teenager were discovered.

Angie Lynn Daley was 17 when she went missing in August 1995. Her dental records confirmed her identity, and Franklin County Coroner Jeffrey R. Conner previously said Daley died of blunt force head trauma, and at the hands of another person.

No one has been charged in Daley’s death, and police still have not revealed how the two cases are connected. (more...)

Shocking killing still haunts Blanchester

Clarissa Culberson

Cincinnati - OH, USA

Shocking killing still haunts Blanchester

03/11/12 at 10:13am



By Jim Rohrer

Carrie Culberson will not come back.

Vincent Doan will never haunt his old Clinton County village again.

That village, Blanchester, population about 4,300, is forever changed. It remains a sleepy village in farm country along Ohio 28, but one with a memorial that testifies to unimaginable tragedy.

If ever there was a cautionary tale about the evils of domestic violence, the disappearance and assumed death in 1996 of Culberson, then 22, rates among the most harrowing examples.

“It wasn’t until I saw it happen to Carrie,” her mother Debbie said years later, “that I recognized the power of domestic violence. Her father beat me up when the girls were young, and my father used to physically abuse me.”

The athletic, outdoors-loving Carrie disappeared in August 1996 after a volleyball game.

“You could always count on her to cheer you up – either with her silly faces or goofy laugh,” Sandy Flora, a friend, told a memorial service crowd a year after her death. “She showed everyone how to let go and have fun.” (more...)

Cold-case slayings end in arrest 20 years later

Keith Sparrow

LA Times - CA, USA

Cold-case slayings end in arrest 20 years later

March 10, 2012 | 11:33am

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies this week arrested a suspect in the 1991 cold-case killings of one man who was found buried in a desert grave and another whose body was never found.

Octavio Romero, 46, of Riverside was arrested last week, officials said in a news release.

In September 1991, Romero’s roommate Spencer Watts, 26, of Victorville, was found buried in a shallow grave in a rural desert area of Lucerne Valley in San Bernardino County. He had been shot multiple times.

Just days before Watts was killed, Romero arrived at the home of acquaintance Keith Sparrow. Sparrow, 19, and Romero drove away together and Sparrow was never seen again, sheriff’s officials said. They believe he was murdered and that his body may be buried near Adelanto.

Both cases went cold for more than 20 years as detectives continued to investigate. A key breakthrough came in 2011 when DNA from blood spatters tested by the Sheriff’s Crime Lab tied Romero to Watts' death.

Romero was arrested Thursday at his home in Riverside and is being held at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/cold-case-murders-end-in-arrest-21-years-later.html

Festus teen's disappearance still a mystery 25 years later

Diana Braungardt

St Louis Today - MO, USA

Festus teen's disappearance still a mystery 25 years later

BY LEAH THORSEN •

CRYSTAL CITY • Twenty-five years ago today, Diana Braungardt clocked out after her shift as a cashier in the Twin City Mall. She hasn't been seen since.

She was 18 years old, a senior at Festus High School. She told co-workers that she needed to get home to study for a test the next day.

She stood 5-feet-6-inches tall, weighed 108 pounds, and had large, wide-set, almond-shaped hazel eyes. She was excited about attending a modeling class that weekend.

Since that night, investigators have amassed 11 binders and three boxes of paperwork related to her disappearance. They've searched for links to serial killers. They field calls a few times a year from police in other states seeking to identify nameless bodies.

Still, the mystery of what happened to Diana Braungardt on March 11, 1987, remains unsolved. But there seems little doubt that she met with foul play.

"We don't expect Diana to show up at our door," her mother, Jane Braungardt, said last week. "We know something bad happened."

Authorities don't think she made it to her yellow Ford Escort, which was found in the parking lot of the former Venture store where she worked part time. (more...)

125th Anniversary of Unknown Woman Murder Mystery

NJ.com - NJ, USA

125th Anniversary of Unknown Woman Murder Mystery

Published: Saturday, March 10, 2012, 9:30 AM

By Asia J Martin / The Cranford Chronicle

RAHWAY — On March 26, 1887, the frozen corpse of a brutally murdered young woman was found by four brothers on Central Avenue near Jefferson Avenue in Rahway. Her throat was slashed and her body was covered in bruises. To this day her identity remains unknown as does her killer. To commemorate the 125th anniversary of this local unsolved crime, the Merchants and Drovers Tavern Museum Association (MDTMA) will be hosting a tour of Rahway Cemetery where the unfortunate victim is buried under a tombstone marked “Unknown Woman Found Dead March 25, 1887”. The tours will take place on the anniversary, Sunday, March 25 beginning at 12 noon, with the last tour leaving at 4 pm. Reservations are recommended and can be made by call-ing: 732-381-0441.

Visitors will be guided through the cemetery to meet the “ghosts” and hear the real-life stories of both victim and witnesses, as well as theories of investigators and accounts of other spectators of the event, many of them buried in the circa 1724 cemetery.

“The Case of the Unknown Woman”, an internationally famous crime in its day, caught the attention of people all over the nation as well as Europe. A brutal murder such as this would get much attention at any time, especially under these circumstances, however, that no one was ever convicted, nor a motive established makes it even more intriguing. The most bizarre element of this murder is that no one was ever able to give a positive identification of the poor victim.

This strange case focused world-wide attention on Rahway, particularly noteworthy in a time without television or radio. As many as ten thousand people from outside the city came and filed past her coffin. Rewards were offered, photos of the young victim were published in leading newspapers around the country, hearings were held, hundreds of witnesses called, dozens of suspects questioned and both professional and amateur detectives flocked to Rahway to weigh in with their theories. In the years following the murder, new names and theories came forward although none were conclusive enough to close the case. Exactly 125 years later, the case remains cold, but the mystery and the intrigue remain hot. (more...)

Profiler: Killers stupid people

Kearneyhub - NE, USA

Profiler: Killers stupid people

Author: KIM SCHMIDT Hub Staff Writer
Posted: March 9, 2012 at 2:00 pm

KEARNEY — Sometimes even a parrot can solve a case.

That’s what nationally known criminal profiler Pat Brown said of a case she helped solve.

Brown spoke to more than 125 students Thursday at the University of Nebraska at Kearney’s 23rd-annual Criminal Justice Conference.

Brown told students of a case she profiled in which a woman had been strangled. After the woman’s death, a family member took her pet parrot home. For several days, parrot repeated the question, “What are you doing here?”

Irritated by the unusual question, the parrot’s new owner contacted police who relayed the message to Brown. Brown eventually spoke to bird experts who said the particular breed of parrot is known for repeating things they hear their owners say.

The investigation revealed the woman’s ex-husband entered her home and the woman uttered the words “What are you doing here?” before she was strangled.

The case is just one of hundreds Brown has profiled for in the last 25 years and one of several Brown talked of and showed crime scene photos from Thursday.

Brown is not only a criminal profiler, but she’s also a television commentator, author and founder and CEO of the Sexual Homicide Exchange and the Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency. Through the Sexual Homicide Exchange, Brown offers pro bono criminal profiling and training for law enforcement, and she provides profiling consultation to attorneys, families and producers through the Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency. (more...)

Families fear waning attention in search of missing loved ones

Linda Little

News Journal Online - FL, USA

Families fear waning attention in search of missing loved ones

By CHRIS GRAHAM, Staff Writer

March 5, 2012 1:00 AM
Posted in: East Volusia

Lauretta Rogers remembers seeing the news trucks outside her home after a trip to the Port Orange police station.

She had just reported her daughter Laurel Lea Rogers missing and hopes were high of finding her. The media could only help spread the word, she thought.

The story hit the airwaves. Days, weeks passed and nothing turned up.

Now more than two years later, Lauretta Rogers watches as police continue to scour the Central Florida region and the media is still abuzz about Michelle Parker, an Orlando mother with ties to Daytona Beach who went missing Nov. 17, the same day she appeared on the TV show "People's Court."

Lauretta Rogers can't help but feel pain for the Parker family, though she feels like she has been given the cold shoulder.

"My daughter is missing, too," she said through tears. "What (attention) I do get, I appreciate. We have to keep Laurel's name out there."

It's a hardship felt by parents and siblings whose loved ones have disappeared.

For a time, people stop to help search, but eventually life goes on and those left behind struggle to keep the names of the missing alive.

For more than 20 years, Wanda Hinson and her family have searched unsuccessfully for Linda Little, who vanished sometime on Oct. 11, 1991. (more...)

8 years later, Ivory Green still missing



Ivory Green

Utica Observer Dispatch - NY, USA

8 years later, Ivory Green still missing

By ROCCO LaDUCA

Observer-Dispatch

Posted Mar 05, 2012

UTICA — It was eight years ago Tuesday that 17-year-old Ivory Green disappeared while on her way home in Utica, never to be heard from again.

Ivory’s mother, Shirlette Green of Mary Street, Utica, said her heart doesn’t hurt as much now as it did in the early years after her daughter was last seen on March 6, 2004.

“My heart is more at ease and my mind is definitely more at ease, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know exactly what took place,” Shirlette Green said. “It doesn’t mean that I’ll throw it all away and forget about it, like she never existed.”

Ivory would be 25 if she were alive today. Shirlette Green still believes that somebody somewhere knows what happened to Ivory, and she still prays that those people will finally come clean.

“I’m still hoping that somebody will come and tell the truth – and I mean the truth, not just rumors – about what happened and the whereabouts of Ivory’s remains,” Shirlette Green said.

In the meantime, Shirlette Green and Ivory’s 29-year-old brother plan to celebrate Ivory’s memory by releasing some balloons into the sky.

Utica police continue to ask anyone to contact investigators – at 223-3510 – if they have any information about Ivory’s disappearance.

“It’s still very much an active case, and it’s not sitting on a shelf somewhere buried, being forgotten about,” said Utica police Sgt. Steven Hauck. “We do hope that at some point we’re going to have a conclusion to this.”

http://www.uticaod.com/latestnews/x1644232736/8-years-later-Ivory-Green-still-missing

The search for a missing father

Enrique Vega

Queens Chronicle - NY, USA

The search for a missing father

Hamilton Beach man has not been seen since 2004

Posted: Thursday, March 8, 2012 12:00 pm | Updated: 2:52 pm, Thu Mar 8, 2012.

by Anna Gustafson, Senior Editor | 0 comments

For years, all Enrique Vega’s family has wanted are answers.

Where is their brother? Husband? Father? Why has he missed so many holidays and the birth of his grandson?

Vega, who lived in Hamilton Beach with his wife, Maribel, and four daughters, disappeared in 2004 after leaving to do what should have been a routine business transaction.

Instead, Vega, then 39, was never seen after his business partner dropped him off at the corner of 180th Street and Liberty Avenue on Oct. 6.

An auto mechanic, Vega was expected to pick up a vehicle at that spot to bring back to the shop he co-owned, Eastern Collision in Brooklyn. But according to Vega’s sister, he never picked it up, though his partner had told the family he did.

Since then, family members said they’ve been living a never-ending nightmare, traveling from hospitals to morgues and psychiatric wards to look for him. Every day, his siblings check the Internet for anything that could lead her to her brother.

“He’s missed so much of his children’s lives,” said his sister, Carmela Osorio, who lived in Howard Beach at the time of Vega’s disappearance and now resides in Florida. “He’s already a grandfather, and the baby looks just like him.”

Osorio said she has been especially frustrated with the police’s lack of involvement in the case. She said the NYPD would not issue a missing person report because Vega had an outstanding warrant for his arrest from 1988, though Osorio said she does not know why the warrant was issued.

After pleading with the police so often to help her, Osorio said she “finally got a call back from a sergeant from a missing persons unit, and he was able to help me a little.” (more...)

Deputy remains person of interest in Collier disappearances

I find these cases and most of all the fact that this guy isn't behind bars just scary. God knows how many others he killed if he killed Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos. He would have no reason to kill them other than being a serial killer preying on young men. Maybe he is racist too, I have wondered.

Terrance Williams; Felipe Santos

Wink News - FL, USA

Deputy remains person of interest in Collier disappearances

Story Created: Mar 07, 2012

COLLIER COUNTY, Fla.- Two Collier County men have been missing for close to a decade. The detective in charge of their cases pinpoints his former colleague, calling him a person of interest.

Detective Kevin O'Neill with the Collier County Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Unit has been trying to solve the missing persons cases of Felipe Santos and Terrance Williams since 2006.

Santos went missing in October 2003; Williams in January 2004.

Detective O'Neill says he's been all the way to Canada following up on leads over the years, but that the real corroborating evidence leads back to Collier County.

"It still wakes me up in the middle of the night, and my mind is just racing constantly. Thinking, did the sheriff's department do everything they were supposed to do," Marcia Williams said.

Williams hasn't seen her son Terrance in eight years, which also means four children have been growing up without their father.

Although the oldest two are teenagers, they don't speculate about what happened to him. (more...)

Search teams return decade after man disappears

Kent Jacobs

ABC Local - NC, USA

Search teams return decade after man disappears

Friday, March 09, 2012

HOPE MILLS -- Volunteer search teams are combing the rural landscape to try once more to look for the remains of a mentally handicapped man who disappeared a decade ago.

The searchers and dog tracking teams returned to a stretch of U.S. 301 in Cumberland County on Friday to close the case of Kent Jacobs' disappearance. It was one day short of 10 years since the 42-year-old disappeared after leaving his mother's house in Hope Mills.


The Jacobs family is hoping to find answers and closure as search teams return to the area near Interstate 95 that they spent hours combing in 2002.

"I think it's a great idea because we never give up," Jacobs' mother Martha Jacobs said. " I don't care if it's 10 years ... or 15. You never give up hope."

The founder of the dog tracking team, known as the TMC K-9 Search and Rescue Team, said the group has had a phenomenal success rate.

"Three months after I founded this group in October, we helped the (Department of Defense) -- it was a multi-jurisdictional search. We helped with the recovery on Little River." TMC founder Chris Sayre said.

The group, which consists of dogs that have been rescued, fanned out Friday morning near Hulon Street and Brooklyn Circle where Jacobs was last seen.

Two years ago, another team used hi-tech underground search equipment in the same area. A tip said Jacobs was buried in a refrigerator in the area. That search was unsuccessful.

Even though the trail is 10 years old, the TMC team said it plans to search until it finds something to lead them to the missing man. (more...)

Recently I had said I would only post missing persons cases older than ten years old, I think I'm gonna move to older than 7 years old now that I no longer have a backlog of alerts. I have 80 something alerts not to miss articles so if it doesn't take that much time to post I spend a lot too just going through alerts that's why I stopped posting about more recent cases. But yes cases older than 7 years won't add too much work.
Also I think I might post pics slightly bigger too now as I have a new PC and everything seems smaller now lol. I used to have an old model and now flat screen. I hope the fonts aren't too small maybe I should increase them? Tell me still if there is any problem, fonts too small, site looking strange on other resolutions than mine... etc

Of Bones and Skin: Forensic artist Joanna Hughes puts a face on death

TNJN - TN, USA

Of Bones and Skin: Forensic artist Joanna Hughes puts a face on death

By Bethany Braden

published: March 08 2012 05:39 PMupdated:: March 08 2012 05:40 PM

As a child, Joanna Hughes' mother scolded her for the bones she collected in her bedroom closet. As an adult, she spends hours with bones in little more than a closet--a corner of the University of Tennessee's osteology lab deep inside Neyland stadium.

"My dad was a doctor, so I loved looking at his anatomy textbooks and fell in love with bones," she said.

Hughes, a 38-year-old Alabama native, is not the only forensic artist in the world, but she's the first (and maybe the only) person to earn a degree in forensic art. She earned her first undergraduate degree from Florida State University in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in motion picture production. In 2000, she earned a certificate from the Cleveland (Ohio) Institute of Art in facial reconstruction. In 2001, she recieved a second certificate after a class in advanced facial reconstruction from the Scottsdale (Arizona) Artists' School.

It was just sort of mixing the science with art, and I just didn't know what it was called. Joanna Hughes, forensic artist

"I think it's [forensic art] kind of what I wanted to do all along, and when I got a degree in film, going into it, I thought special effects would be it. It was just sort of mixing the science with art, and I just didn't know what it was called," she said.

In a decade of work, she's constructed roughly 20 faces, some of which ended up in museums. Hughes reconstructed the faces of a slave girl and an indentured servant boy for the Smithsonian's "Written in Bone" exhibit at the Natural History Museum in Washington, DC. Bill Bass, founder of the Body Farm, immortalized her in two books he co-authored with Jon Jefferson. Hughes appears in the nonfiction work "Beyond the Body Farm" and the fiction novel "The Bone Yard," the March 2011 installment in the Jefferson-Bass series. (more....)

New leads in missing mom case; Husband has ties to hit man

Cheryl Grose

KIRO TV - WA, USA

Posted: 11:00 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012

New leads in missing mom case; Husband has ties to hit man

SEATTLE — A decades-long mystery involving the disappearance of a Snohomish County woman suddenly becomes a "hot" and "active" police investigation.

Cheryl Grose left five children behind in 1991. Her husband, Tom, says she "ran off" while they were staying at a Tigard, Ore., hotel.

Now, KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers that Tom Grose has connections to a Seattle-based professional hit man and that's raising new questions about his story.

This is a multi-faceted police investigation: One agency digging into the missing persons case of Cheryl Grose, another trying to finally close the high-profile, 2001 murder of Bellevue realtor Mike Emert.

KIRO Team 7 Investigators recently traveled into an isolated desert near Death Valley to see what binds these incidents together. (more...)

Solano Co. Coroner's Office seeks help identifying deceased man

News 10 - CA, USA

Solano Co. Coroner's Office seeks help identifying deceased man

12:51 PM, Mar 7, 2012

Written by
Paul Janes

VALLEJO, CA - The Solano County Coroner's Office is seeking the public's assistance identifying a deceased man whose remains were discovered on August 31, 2010.

Lt. Gary Faulkner of the coroner's office said the man's skeletal remains were originally discovered by a crew cleaning out an abandoned home in the 1800 block of Carolina St. in Vallejo.

Vallejo police were called to the scene and contacted the county coroner's office to investigate the findings, said Faulkner.

Based upon the information gathered at the scene and during an ensuing autopsy, the coroner's office was able to conclude the remains belonged to an African American homeless man, between 30 and 60 years old, approximately 6'0" tall, with a slender build, short, black hair, and no remaining teeth.

The man had been wearing two black, hooded sweatshirts and two pairs of pants, one black and one brown. He was also wearing a Raiders ball cap, and red and white Timberland shoes, size nine and a half.

The coroner's office also discovered a 24-inch silver colored metallic chain necklace during the autopsy, said Faulkner.

Faulkner said it appeared the man had been living at the home and his remains had been in the property for about a year prior to discovery. (more...)

Sketch released in the hopes of identifying skeletal remains found in Lancaster

Daily News - CA, USA

Sketch released in the hopes of identifying skeletal remains found in Lancaster

Daily News Wire Servicesdailynews.com
Posted: 02/29/2012

LANCASTER - Authorities today released a sketch by a forensic artist in hopes of identifying a man whose skeletal remains were found behind a closed Walmart store in Lancaster last summer.

The intact skeleton was discovered July 5 in some bushes near the rear loading dock at the business at 44765 North Valley Central Way, said sheriff's spokeswoman Nicole Nishida.

Detectives have been working to identify the man, and a forensic artist prepared the sketch showing what he might have looked like. He's described as possibly white or Hispanic, 22-52 years old, 5 feet 2 to 5 feet 9 inches tall, with blond or reddish hair.

He had a partially healed injury on the left side of his head, a healed broken nose, and had some dental work done.

Anyone with information on the case was urged to call the sheriff's Homicide Bureau, 323-890-5500; or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_20071696

Lingering mysteries surround case of John Wayne Gacy

Medill Reports - IL, USA

Lingering mysteries surround case of John Wayne Gacy

by David B. Nelson
March 07, 2012

The remains of seven unknown men lie in wait in a vault in the North Texas University Forensic sciences lab. Each of them, at the time of their deaths, were young men with individual and unique stories. Yet, they all share the same ending: they all somehow ended up underneath the home of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.


Late last year, Cook County Sheriff's investigators announced they would renew efforts to identify eight of Gacy’s victims discovered in 1978 in the crawlspace of his Des Plaines home. Since then, only one of the victims who were all sexually assaulted, tortured and asphyxiated, has been positively identified.

“Any time remains are interjected into environmental factors, obtaining a DNA profile is difficult,” said Dixie Peters, a technical leader at University of North Texas Health Center. The forensic and investigative department where Peters works has conducted identification on victims of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime. Now they are working on the Gacy case.

“Most of the time we look at nuclear DNA, which is from the mother and father,” she said. “Or we look at the mitochondrial DNA which passes from mother to the offspring and is better able to survive environmental insults.”

With tissue samples from the exhumed remains, Peters and her team in Texas create a DNA profile of the victim. These profiles have the potential to be matched with the profiles of families who have submitted samples in an effort to locate missing brothers, sons or even fathers who disappeared during Gacy’s time. (more...)

Youngstown police ID woman found dead in trash in 2008

Vindy.com - OH, USA

Youngstown police ID woman found dead in trash in 2008

Published: Thu, March 8, 2012

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Police have identified a woman who was found dead in a trash can in 2008.

Police identified the victim as Anita D. Smith, who was 44 at the time of death. She had been visiting the area from Georgia.

On Aug. 21, 2008, at 6:50 a.m., waste-disposal workers found the remains of a female, now determined to be Smith, after dumping a trash container in the 800 block of Michigan Avenue on the city’s North Side.

The initial investigation by the Youngstown Police Department and Mahoning County Coroner’s office revealed Smith died of an undetermined cause due to the state of decomposition.

Detectives followed multiple leads, interviewing dozens of people while canvassing the area on several occasions, but could not identify the woman at that time.

She was ultimately identified through DNA samples.

Youngstown detectives in 2010 discovered a missing female from Rome, Ga., who had similar physical characteristics of the unidentified remains.

Police learned that this person had traveled to Youngstown and had not been seen by her family in Rome since 2007.

She was not reported to authorities as missing until 2010.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/mar/08/police-id-woman-found-in-/