14 replies to this topic

[Jenn]

http://www.abc4.com/...jRr5Yp3X1Q.cspx

45 year old Salt Lake City missing person case re-opened

Last Update: 2:26 am



Salt Lake City (ABC 4 News) On October 11, 1964 - a Salt Lake City teenager, disappeared without a trace. 15 year old Reed Jeppson walked outside to feed and water his dogs behind his home near 19th East and 1400 South and vanished.

His sister, Suzanne Tate, explains the last time anyone in the family saw Reed. "He opened the dog food and said I am going out to feed my dogs - and nobody ever saw him again." Just like that - he was gone. His brother, Dr. Taylor Jeppson, still feels the pain of the loss. "Life is a series of losses and he was a big loss."

In 1964 - when he vanished, his parents and 12 brothers and sisters searched and prayed, but they never found him or found answers to what happened. Everyday since then, they have lived with the unknown. Suzanne says they simply "don't know what happened."

Fast Forward 45 years and Reed's siblings are gathered at the Pioneer Precinct of the Salt Lake City Police Department to once again talk about their missing brother. And police are re-opening his case to do several things. First, to bring attention to it and Nataional Missing Person Day. Second, to collect DNA samples from family members so they can create a profile that can then be sent to CODIS, which tries to match DNA with one of the 40,000 unidentified bodies in U.S. morgues and cemeteries. (see slide show pictures) And third, police  showed an aged enhanced picture of Reed - what he may look like if he is alive. (see slide show pictures)

Of course, all of this effort is aimed at helping his siblings find closure - something that has eluded them for 45 years.

If you have any information on this case, please call the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000 and reference "Reed Jeppson" or case #64-46859.

[Jenn]

http://www.ksl.com/?...48&sid=10913051

Police reopen missing persons case from 1964

May 25th, 2010 @ 3:33pm

Reed Taylor Jeppson
DOB: May 28, 1949
Date Missing: Oct. 11, 1964
Missing from: Salt Lake City
Hair: medium blond hair
Eyes: Blue Eyes
Height: 5 feet, 6 inches
Weight: 140 pounds
Clothing: Blue Levi jeans, white cotton knit shirt, gym shoes and a reversible parka (black on one side, blue on the other)

SALT LAKE CITY -- Police in Salt Lake City reopened a 45-year-old missing persons case. They also launched a new website dedicated to missing persons.

That new website, launched Tuesday, profiles missing persons in the Salt Lake area. One of those cases is that of Reed Jeppson.

Reed was 15 years old when he disappeared near his Salt Lake City home. On Oct. 11, 1964, he went outside to walk his two German shorthaired pointer dogs. Jeppson and the two dogs were never seen again.

Reed's brothers and sisters say the past 45 years have been difficult, not knowing what happened to their brother.

"It's one of those sweet sorrows that opens up a lot of pain," said sister Suzanne Jeppson Tate. "We've suffered a great loss as a family from him not being with us."

All they can do is wonder: "Who would he have married? Who would have been his children?" she said.

Suzanne says she was preparing dinner after church that Sunday in October when her little brother Reed went outside. She reminded him about dinner, and never saw him again.

"It would be just as if I'm talking to you, and I turn around and you're gone," she said.

There was a search, a police investigation, and friends and family all got involved.

Suzanne says someone must have taken him, because her brother would never leave his family.

"He was finding success in life," she says of Reed. "He had just made his first touchdown on the East High School football team. He had a paper route where he was earning his own money, and all of his money and his personal belongings were left at home."

Days turned into weeks, months, then years. Police closed the case in 1966.

Now, the Jeppson family is grateful for the second look, even it is years later. They still hope someone can come forward.

"It's exciting to know that he's thought about and that there's an opportunity we may be able to find out what happened to him," said Reed's sister Becky Purdue.

The family doesn't think he's still alive -- they just want to find him.

"We might not know what happened to him, but to know where his remains are, that would bring us great peace," said sister Christine Snyder.

The family says they hope the new missing persons website and new DNA database will all help.

Police are taking DNA samples from all of Reed's siblings. The samples will be entered into two different databases for missing persons.

Salt Lake City police hope someone will remember something from Reed's case to give them a break.

Cody Lougy, the detective assigned to Reed's disappearance, said, "Motives change with time. Friends and acquaintances of Reed or persons involved in his disappearance may be more willing to come forward today than they were 45 years ago, which we're hoping will lead to a break in this case."

This case is one of four profiled on the new website introduced by the Salt Lake City Police Department May 25, which is National Missing Children's Day.

If you have any information on this case, please call the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000 and reference "Reed Jeppson" or case #64-46859.

[Jenn]

                                                                                                                                XX
http://www.sltrib.com/D=g/ci_15160580

Salt Lake City hopes to solve its oldest missing-persons case
Probe » 15-year-old was out walking dogs and never heard from again.

By Jason Bergreen  The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 05/25/2010 11:04:36 PM MDT

Suzanne Tate thought she saw her missing younger brother, Reed Jeppson, in a car three years after the 15-year-old blond boy vanished in 1964.

Tate, then 23, reported to Salt Lake City police the license plate number she saw on Interstate 80 near 2300 South. But it was only someone who resembled her brother, who disappeared without a trace Oct. 11, 1964, from the family's home near Foothill Village.

Tate's mistaken sighting of her brother May 5, 1967, was the last piece of information police investigated.


Read more at link above.

[Jenn]

http://www.deseretne...issing-boy.html

Salt Lake police reopen case of boy missing for 45 years

By Pat Reavy Deseret News Published: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 10:48 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — Taylor Jeppson has been licensed to practice medicine in several cities, including Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City, where he currently has a family practice.

"Every time I go into the emergency room, it flashed through my mind, 'Will I see my brother?' — and it's constant pain," he said Tuesday.

Reed Jeppson was 15 when he was last seen on Oct. 11, 1964. His family had just returned home from church, and Reed was going out to feed and walk his two dogs. That was the last time his family ever saw him.

"Our brother Reed did not run away. He was taken against his will," said his sister, Suzanne Tate.

On Tuesday, surrounded by many of Reed's 11 brothers and sisters, Salt Lake police announced they would be looking again at the case of Reed Jeppson, who has been missing for 45 years.

It is the oldest active missing person case in the department. Despite an initial intense search effort and media coverage, Salt Lake police detective Cody Lougy said investigators had not actively looked at the case since 1966.

"We don't know what happened to him," said Lougy, who noted there was currently no evidence of criminal activity.

Another of Reed's brothers, Dan Jeppson, was 12 when his older brother disappeared. He recalled how Reed loved the outdoors and loved training his dogs. Those dogs, two German shorthair pointers, one of them a puppy, have also never been found.

"We used to wrestle together. He was just a great brother," he said. "He was like my bodyguard, always there to protect me."

Dan Jeppson said he's constantly "haunted" by not knowing what happened to his brother. And every time there is a high-profile missing-person case in Utah, such as those of Elizabeth Smart or Susan Powell, "everything just all comes back to you again."

The Jeppson family recently placed a headstone for Reed at a local cemetery, listing his birth date and the date he went missing. Also inscribed on the headstone are the words, "Families are forever."

Reed lived near Emigration Canyon, near 1400 South and 3000 East. The area where he kept his dogs was about 200 yards from the main house. A friend later reported seeing him walking his dogs near the old St. Mary of the Wasatch building near Wasatch Boulevard. That was the last reported sighting of Reed.

Reed had just scored his first touchdown for the East High School sophomore football team when he disappeared, Suzanne Tate recalled. He left all his personal belongings in his room. It's because of this and other reasons that the Jeppson family does not believe Reed ran away.

"Our family has suffered a terrible loss from 45 years ago," she said. "We're still anxious to find out what happened to him."

[porchlight]

http://www.missingki...earchLang=en_US
REED TAYLOR JEPPSON

 

Age Progression
Case Type: Endangered Missing

Missing Date: Oct 12, 1964 

DOB: May 28, 1949

Sex: Male
Race: White

Height: 5'6" (168 cm)

Weight: 140 lbs (64 kg)

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Blue

Missing City: SALT LAKE CITY 
Missing State : UT 
Missing Country: United States 
Case Number: NCMC1147054

Circumstances: Reed's photo is shown age-progressed to 60 years. He was last seen on October 12, 1964, outside his home with his two dogs. Neither Reed nor his dogs were ever seen again.

[porchlight]

Never give up on cold cases
Deseret News editorial

Published: Friday, May 28, 2010 12:08 a.m. MDT
Thanks to computer technology, the public has a reasonable idea of what Debra Frost and Reed Jeppson might look like today, if they're still alive. That's important, because both have been missing for decades, since they were teenagers.

Two other missing young people, David Jaramillo and Lloyd Reese, also appear on a new Salt Lake website dedicated to old missing persons cases, although no computer-aged photo accompanies their entries.

Salt Lake police are reopening these old cases and asking the public for any information at all that might help solve the mysteries of their disappearances. We applaud this effort. Police departments need to show the community that victims won't be forgotten, no matter how long ago a crime may have been committed.

New methods of investigating crime, including DNA testing, could help police find answers. That would be a blessing for family members who certainly have not forgotten their loved ones.

The truth is many crimes go unsolved nationwide each year. Nationally, that includes about 6,000 murders a year. But good policing can make a huge difference.
A few years ago, Philadelphia replaced its police chief and homicide supervisor and made solving cases a priority. The percentage of solved murders in that city subsequently rose from 56 percent to 75 percent. A dedicated effort by committed detectives could crack cases, even though those cases are 45 years old.

As reported by the Deseret News this week, Jeppson's family constantly thinks about his whereabouts. He walked out of the family home on Oct. 11, 1964, with his two dogs and hasn't been seen since. Frost had planned to hitchhike to Montgomery Street from Mountain Bell Plaza at 250 E. 200 South on July 9, 1984, and that was the last anyone saw of her. Today, their faces would have filled out and been creased with the normal lines of aging. Their hair would be different. But the eyes and basic features would remain the same.

That also could be said for Jaramillo and Reese, who wandered off together during an outing to East Canyon Reservoir on June 3, 1985.

Enough strange abduction cases have emerged in recent years to provide a glimmer of hope that these people may be alive. But just learning what happened and who was responsible would be an enormous relief to their families, and to the community at large.
http://www.deseretne...cold-cases.html

[Kelly]

http://www.deseretne...-ones.html?pg=1

Shattered: After public moves on, families of missing left wondering about what happened to their loved ones

By Lois M. Collins
Deseret News
Published: Sunday, July 11, 2010 1:05 a.m. MDT



When a news report says a body has been found, Suzanne Tate finds herself back 45 years, in the kitchen cooking dinner and watching her teenage brother, Reed, walk outside to feed his dogs.

It was such an ordinary moment in their loving, boisterous family. She would give anything for a do-over.

What would she have done differently had she known it would be the last time she'd see her strapping 15-year-old brother? And where is he? she wonders.

It's a question Wanda Schmitt often asks herself about her brother, Jeff. So do Ed and Mary Sorensen of their daughter, Sheree. And Stephanie Cook has spent a lifetime wondering what happened to her mom.

They are among so many others who, like them, have a person-shaped hole in their family where someone belongs. And they don't know what happened to that person.

Reed Jeppson, Sheree Warren, Jeff Nichols and Bobbi Ann Campbell are all missing, now question marks whose answers have not yet been found.

"We are like the body that cries in the Bible," says family practice physician Taylor Jeppson, who was 24 years old when his little brother, Reed, disappeared. "Can the arm say there's no need for the leg? The ear for the eye?"

The FBI and the National Crime Information Center receive more than 800,000 missing persons reports each year. Some are quickly resolved, but about 105,000 remain missing.

Kelly Jolkowski, founder of Project Jason, a nonprofit that helps families of missing people, believes it's a serious undercount. Because of their lifestyles or associations, some people have been placed in a dismal "throwaway" category that doesn't get much outside attention, though their families still search and long to know.

And most missing person cases don't get advertised, don't have a website, don't hit the news, she says.

"It's not like TV. There are not 20 cops out looking and a resolution in 20 minutes," Jolkowski says. "Because we see a story or two occasionally on the news, we think that a person or two goes missing. No, no. It's many more than that."

Jeff Nichols was just days shy of his 41st birthday when he disappeared in Salt Lake City on June 8, 2004.

Nichols was supposed to meet his ex-wife, with whom he shared custody, and their little boy, Sam. After breakfast, she was going to show him some golf clubs a friend wanted to sell. He loved golf and thought he'd probably buy them, says Nichols' sister, who lives in Madison, Wis.

A police report says he never showed up at the eatery, although his family later learned his vehicle was towed from an area a few miles away more than a month after he disappeared. His bank accounts and credit cards have not been used since.

Virtually everyone asked says Nichols loved his job as an air traffic controller and his life in general — that he was close to his parents, his siblings, his friends. It's inconceivable, they say, that no one has heard a peep from him, if he's alive somewhere.

Mary Sorensen says the chance that her daughter, Sheree Warren, disappeared willingly is zilch as well, because she left behind her son, Adam, who was only 3, and "he was her whole world."

"If she had taken him, it could maybe have been voluntary. I don't think so," Sorensen says. "But she left him here, and there's just no way she'd have done that."

Warren, then 25, worked for a credit union and had gone from their Roy home to Salt Lake City for training to become a branch manager. She walked to the parking lot with another trainee that day in 1985, and they headed to their cars. She vanished. Warren's car was later found in a parking lot in Las Vegas, where it had sat at least long enough for the tires to sink into the asphalt. Her parents, brother and sisters never heard from her again.

Within hours, her dad was sure something awful had happened. But what? A quarter-century later, they're still wondering.

Campbell was 24 when she dropped her toddler, Stephanie, off at a friend's house on Dec. 27, 1994, so she could get her paycheck and go grocery shopping. She didn't shop, didn't get the check, didn't come back.

"I remember everything about her. I can still hear her laugh, her voice. I have her voice, and my grandpa calls me Bobbi sometimes because I look like her," says Stephanie Cook, who is now 21.

The little girl fell asleep by the window, waiting for the mom with whom she did everything, the mom she is certain did not leave her willingly. The next day, her great-grandparents came to get her when Campbell didn't show up. They ended up raising her in their Draper home.

The car was found nearly a year later, abandoned, clothes still in it from the trip to the laundromat early in the morning of the day she disappeared.

"Here we go again," Schmitt wrote when the sixth anniversary of her brother's disappearance recently passed. "It's like a roller-coaster ride filled with emotions, only you just can't seem to get off the ride. We want to find Jeff desperately. We want to know the truth. If Jeff were alive, we'd all be so happy. I want him to be alive. If he is not, I want to bring him home for all of us."

While life levels out for stretches at a time, "it doesn't take much to get the ride going again."

Jolkowski has been on that roller coaster. Her son, Jason, disappeared nine years ago from their driveway in Omaha, Neb. He was 19. His car remained in the repair shop, his bank account was untouched, and he never picked up his paycheck.

Most days, she says, she's doing OK, bolstered by a strong marriage, supportive family and friends and work that matters to her. But "I could shatter into a million pieces tomorrow. I don't think I will. But I could," she says. Various triggers lead her to tears and periods of intense grief, she notes.

But she harnessed her energy and much of that emotion to build her nonprofit group to support the families of the missing as they embark on this unwanted journey. Projectjason.org offers tips, private community boards, access to counseling, even retreats that are not about solving the case, but surviving it mostly intact. It is "about giving you tools to help you live the best life you can, whether this continues for one more day or 10 more years," she says.

What they don't offer is a forum for ill-formed comments or half-baked theories from wannabe sleuths who hardly or never knew the missing person but are sure they've figured out what happened.

That's something families deal with a lot.

Reed Jeppson's family searched for him. His brother, Edward, a pilot, searched from the air. His sister, Sally, came home from BYU to search. The family ranged from sister Patricia, 29 and married with kids of her own, to baby Keith, who was only 7 when Reed disappeared.

Reed's parents, Dr. Edward and Elizabeth Taylor Jeppson, and his brothers and sisters combed the foothills and ravines nearest their home and then beyond, with help from hundreds of volunteers. Nothing.

Then came the veiled accusations, the sly glances, the innuendo. Even friends asked questions like, "What was going on in your family that was so bad he had to run away?" A half-century later, they are still occasionally zinged by thoughtless remarks. Shortly after Salt Lake police said last month that the department will re-examine Reed's cold case, Tate ran into an acquaintance. "Maybe now your brother will decide to come home," the individual said.

That stings. The family has never believed he left on his own, Patricia Menlove says of her brother. Nothing supports the suggestion. He left the money he'd been earning with a paper route. And it defies belief that in the 45 years he's been gone he wouldn't have contacted at least one of his 10 remaining siblings, says another sister, Sally Mace.

"It's awful what people say. We were always a close-knit family," Mace says. "We're still that way."

"It's very harmful," Jolkowski says bluntly of such talk. "My thought is the investigation needs to be done by professionals, and if it isn't going to help find Johnny, it doesn't need to be said. What is needed is to encourage the family and do the best we can for them. If you really think you know what happened, tell the police. Leave the family alone when it comes to your theories."

That advice also applies to people who believe they have psychic insight into a case.

Jolkowski and volunteer Denise Harrison know hundreds of people with missing loved ones. And they're still stunned at the things people say and do.

Among the "don'ts" Harrison has posted at projectjason.org: Don't tell someone who's pining that "he's probably in Mexico having margaritas with his friends," or that "she'll be found when she wants to be found."

Other real-life examples of bad things to say: "It's time to get on with your life." "At least you have other kids." And "everything happens for a reason."

Silence is brutal, too.

"There were people in my life I thought were my friends," Jolkowski says. "When it happened, I did not hear a word from them. Those searching for someone who is missing need to know their friends and family support them."

It's fairly easy, particularly in Utah, to get volunteers to turn up for a search. And physically finding someone is a first and important goal. But attention spans wane and resources are limited. The public moves on, and the families of the missing often find themselves abandoned emotionally, Jolkowski says.

"It's easy for people in these situations to feel hopeless and that nobody cares," she says. "And it's hard to get others to understand and know how to help."

There is a vocabulary unique to the missing, and it's very unlike that used when comforting those who have lost someone to death, says Duane Bowers, who is a national expert on families where someone has vanished.

You speak in terms of "grief" and "loss" at your peril, says the trauma loss expert. The families of the missing will reject you. It's "missing" and "separated." Hope may be all they have. They don't want "closure," although they pine for "resolution."

Individuals decide when, if ever, they believe the person is dead. That's a big and painful transition. Until then, they must plan a two-pronged future: "At Christmas, we'll do this if he isn't back. And this if he is." It's not good from a traditional mental health point of view, "but you have to understand, this is the only way one can move forward" when someone is missing, he says.

Interestingly, adds Bowers, the police are often pegged by the families of the missing as the bad guys — at least until a real "bad guy" is found.

They have no one else in particular to blame. And the police, doing their jobs, routinely focus first on family members. Often enough, that turns out to be the right approach. But if you're innocent and hurting, desperate to find your loved one, it's infuriating that they're wasting time on you, Bowers says. Ditto when you give them what you think is a hot lead and they don't jump on it.

Some families fall apart when someone remains missing. Separation and divorce are not uncommon. Perhaps against the odds, Ed and Mary Sorensen, Wanda Schmitt and her husband, Tim, and Jeppson's many brothers and sisters have all become stronger and more committed in their loss.

"You never really accept it," Mary Sorensen says. "But I think it's brought us closer together."

"Very often parents will say while one child was missing, they know they abandoned their other children. They were so focused on finding the missing child," Bowers says.

Extended family must step in for the children. Bowers notes that animal shows on TV repeatedly document the natural instinct of mammal parents to search for the missing child. The rest of the animal family instinctively crowds around the others to care for and nurture them. People should do that, too.

Absent that, a number of studies document self-destructive behaviors — drugs, alcohol, petty crime — in adults who as children had siblings who were missing, found or not. They also find those adults, not surprisingly, tend to overprotect their own children.

If there's no resolution, those who love the missing person eventually begin to believe different things, often out of synch, creating rifts, Bowers says. If dad believes Arnie is dead, but mom always responds, "How dare you say that?" it drives a wedge.

That's one reason families shatter after a disappearance. When children aren't allowed to explore what they think happened, they tend to hang out with other families. They have to find ways, Bowers says, of letting each other speak, in spite of differing views.

Schmitt says her family fell into a depression that has been hard to shake. Their stepfather, who adopted and raised them, spearheaded search efforts. Jeff's natural dad has not golfed since his son disappeared.

Schmitt is on an endless search. She can lose herself online looking for leads and realize that hours have passed. It's hard not to let the sorrow and the search detract from the joy of her children, her husband, her life that does go on.

Each of Reed Jeppson's siblings and Jeff Nichols' siblings and parents have provided blood samples that can be used to help identify his remains, should he be found. It's a donation both grim and promising, and it's often asked of those left behind. With word that a body has been found, hope and dread battle.

"My hope is skewed because I want remains to be Reed, but I don't want him to have been harmed," Tate says. "I don't want him to have experienced a living nightmare, yet I want to know every detail of what happened."

Americans have rituals of acceptance. When there's a body, we hold funerals or memorials. We mark spots where someone died with flowers or crosses or, for children, teddy bears and toys. For a long time, typically, the only spot for a missing person is that hole in a family's heart.

Eventually, Ed and Mary Sorensen bought a headstone for their daughter near where theirs will be in a South Ogden cemetery. Reed Jeppson's siblings placed a headstone by that of his parents. This week Cook and her great-grandparents placed a marker for Bobbi Ann Campbell in the Larkin cemetery in Sandy.

On Memorial Day, eight of Reed's remaining siblings and their spouses, children and grandchildren gathered at the Sunset Larkin Cemetery in Salt Lake City. Although it is one place where they know his remains do not rest, his sisters fuss over the stone, clearing away the grass that has encroached.

Some say they've seen him in dreams, while others have daydreamed about who he might have become.

Over the years, they have searched for him, longed for him, mourned him. On this day, they are celebrating him, laughing and telling stories as the grandkids run among the gravestones.

"We mustn't be so filled with our own grief that we can't share the sunshine and joy and goodness all around us," Tate says.

He is missing. But never unloved.

[Lori Davis]

https://www.findthem...g/cases/7089/0/
NamUs profile for Reed Jeppson - Case 7089

[porchlight]

video at link

--
http://fox13now.com/...-disappearance/

Police unsuccessful in new search for clues in 1964 disappearance

Posted on: 4:46 pm, September 29, 2012, by Brittany Green-Miner, updated on: 10:11pm, September 29, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY – Police searched an eastside Salt Lake City gully on Saturday for clues that could help solve the case of a teenage boy who went missing 48 years ago.

Then-15-year-old Reed Jeppson was last seen on Oct. 12, 1964, outside his home near at 1951 Browning Avenue in Salt Lake City. He went outside to feed his two dogs just after 12:30 p.m., and disappeared; Jeppson and his dogs were never found.

Police have never closed the case, which received new media attention back in 2010. They say a tip in the case led them to a gully near Clayton Middle School at 1900 East and 1450 South and they began searching in an area where police dogs showed interest.

“I can’t get into specifics as to why this location but I can tell you it was a tip and it was a tip that was enough we brought in cadaver dogs to look around,” said Salt Lake City Police Officer Josh Ashdown.

Jeppson’s family stood nearby as police dug with a backhoe and searched the area, but that search yielded nothing. His family says they’re disappointed but are holding out hope that they will eventually find out what happened to Reed Jeppson.

“Someone knows and we’re just hoping they have the fortitude and courage to come forth and say something, just tell us where he is,” said Suzanne Tate, Reed Jeppson’s sister. “We’re going to keep searching until we find him.”

Salt Lake City Police are asking anyone with information about Reed Jeppson’s disappearance to contact them at 801-799-3000.

[porchlight]

http://www.sltrib.co...e-reed.html.csp

Search of Salt Lake City gully yields no sign of teen missing since 1964
Mystery » Acting on tip, SLC police search gully but find no sign of teen missing since 1964.

By Michael McFall
| The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Sep 29 2012 02:16 pm • Last Updated Sep 29 2012 10:55 pm

Salt Lake City police searched an east-side gully with shovels and a backhoe Saturday while family members waited nearby to see if they would find answers to 48 years of questions.

The gully, near 1900 East and 1400 South, was cordoned off as police searched for remains of Reed Jeppson, who disappeared in 1964 at the age of 15 from his home, located a half-block away.

But after hours of searching, nothing turned up.

According to a description on the police department’s cold case website, Jeppson and his family returned from church to their house at 1951 Browning Ave. on Sunday, Oct. 11, 1964. Jeppson left the house shortly after to feed his two German shorthaired pointers, but neither Jeppson nor the dogs were ever seen again.

He is described as 5-foot-6 inches, 140 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes. He also had dental braces.

Salt Lake City police Detective Josh Ashdown said police received new information that led them to conduct Saturday’s search, but he declined to give specifics about the tip.

Searchers focused on a particular area of the gully, which is near Clayton Middle School, after cadaver dogs showed some interest in that area.

After digging 8 feet down, the dogs stopped indicating there was anything to dig for, Ashdown said. At that point, police said they were giving up on searching the area.

Suzanne Tate, who is Reed Jeppson’s older sister, told news reporters she remains hopeful and wonders what her little brother went through.

"We’ll keep searching until we find him. You don’t find someone if you stop looking," Tate said, on the verge of tears.

Someone knows what happened to her brother, Tate said, and she implored whoever that is to "just tell us."

Corey Thurgood lives in the neighborhood and went to junior high school with one of Jeppson’s relatives, and he remembers the case. Thurgood was standing outside the police tape Saturday morning, recalling how children have played in and around the gully for decades. "This isn’t some remote spot," Thurgood said.

Ashdown said the police do not intend to return. Still, they are always hoping someone in the neighborhood might remember a detail and call.

"Our department never gives up on a case," Ashdown added.

The police reopened Jeppson’s case two years ago on National Missing Children’s Day. The teen is one of their three oldest unsolved missing-child cases.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.abc4.com/...e7g0lGOylg.cspx

Search in missing teen cold case turns up nothing

Updated: 3:45 pm | Published: 3:43 pm
Reported by: Kim Johnson

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Utah's oldest cold case is back in the spotlight. A tip prompted police to start digging for Reed Jeppson-- a 15 year-old who disappeared 48 years ago.

“Just tell us where he is,” Reed’s sister, Suzanne Tate, pleaded to reporters. Tate has been making this plea to the public since October 11th 1964. That was the day her Reed and his two German Sheppards vanished without a trace.

“He was a student at East High School, he was a sophomore he had just made the sophomore high school football team and he just made his first touchdown,” she said. “He was happy.”

New hope of finding the happy teen came Saturday when police say they got a tip to search a gully near Sugar House. “We lived not far from here, we lived a half a block from here,” said Tate.

Police won't say where the tip came from. “Because of nature of the case, I can't get into that specifically,” said Officer Josh Ashdown, alt Lake PD. “But enough of a tip that it was worth coming out here with some cadaver dogs and digging.”

Reed's case went cold with no tips for years. But two years ago Salt Lake City Police chose to re-open the case as part of National Missing Persons Week.

“This is hard for us because we also see the family with their hopes get up, but it doesn't matter how old the case is we will always exhaust every lead no matter how old,” said Ashdown.

“Anytime I hear there are remains found I'm on the phone,” said Tate.

After 48 years with no answers, Reed's sister hasn't given up hope.

“Somebody out there knows,” she said. “I know he wants to be found, it's just time.”

Saturday’s search turned up nothing.

[Lori Davis]

Reed has now been missing over 48 years.  Many thoughts and prayers for his family and loved ones.

[Shannon]

http://www.sltrib.co...arrett.html.csp

13 Utah children still missing in cases dating to 1964

By Michael McFall

First Published Jan 14 2013 01:01 am
Last Updated Jan 14 2013 01:28 pm

The disappearance of 13-year-old Brooklyn Gittins sparked a massive search in Herriman that ended after two days when she was found alive and well. But more than a dozen Utah boys and girls are still missing.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists 13 Utah children; six are considered missing and endangered, five are endangered runaways, and two were abducted by a nonfamily member. Most would be adults by now — the oldest case dates to 1964.

While the search for the missing 13 never ends, a missing child today has a much better chance of being found because strategies and technologies continue to improve.

"A case never closes until the child is found," said Bob Hoever, director of the center’s missing children division.

The oldest Utah case is that of Reed Jeppson, who was 15 in 1964 when he took his dogs for a walk through his Salt Lake City neighborhood. He and the pets never came back.

A lot has changed since then, said Paul Murphy, Utah Amber Alert coordinator. Law officers are better trained to handle such cases, including what to look for and how to implement an immediate search, with tasks delegated as soon as officers arrive on the scene.

Search efforts are planned in advance, with jurisdictions dissected into grids assigned to searchers. And some of those searchers come from local, specialized teams — such as the Community Emergency Response Team and Child Abduction Response Team.

In the 1980s, a missing child had about a 60 percent chance of being found; the recovery rate today is 97.5 percent, according to Hoever.

Another factor: Now, more than ever, the public is getting involved.

In 2002, Utah adopted the Amber Alert to enlist citizens in child abductions. Since it was first used in the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart in 2002, the Amber Alert has helped recover 17 lost children in Utah, Murphy said.

Utah instituted a missing endangered advisory in 2005 for people like Brooklyn who are missing and thought to be in danger but who aren’t known to have been abducted. The advisory is like an Amber Alert except that it does not appear on electronic roadway signs or cut into broadcast programming. In the 103 times it’s been used, the advisory directly led to the safe recovery of 81 people, Murphy said.

In Herriman, the advisory helped attract more than 1,000 people to look for Brooklyn.

"When a child’s abducted, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. When you’re trying to find that child, the more people you have looking, the smaller that haystack gets," Hoever said.

But sometimes, information dries up, leads go nowhere and the trail goes cold, said Lt. Matt Johnson, spokesman for the Spanish Fork Police Department. In 1995, 15-year-old Kiplyn Davis disappeared after her lunch break at Spanish Fork High School. After an initial investigation, the case stalled.

Her disappearance occupied the city’s collective mind for more than a decade. Merchants displayed Kiplyn’s missing-person poster in their windows for years, replacing them after they weathered.


At a glance
Utah’s missing children

Reed Jeppson » 15 years old when he disappeared in 1964. He was last seen walking his two German shorthaired pointers in the east bench area of Salt Lake City.

[Lori Davis]

Charley Project profile for Reed Jeppson

http://www.charleypr...ppson_reed.html

 

Doe Network profile for Reed Jeppson

http://doenetwork.or...s/4254dmut.html

[Lori Davis]

http://www.good4utah...ns-day-is-52515

 

National Missing Children's Day is 5.25.15

 

Published 05/24 2015 04:44PMUpdated 05/24 2015 05:40PM

 

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 UTAH) - People from all over are getting together for Memorial Day, but the day has another significance. It is also National Missing Children's Day.

 

To date there are 20 missing children right here in Utah. Some have been missing more than 30-years, like Reed Jeppson, who went missing outside his home along with his two dogs.

 

Children who have gone missing in the last two years include: Annika Peck, Daisy Durborow, Peggy Hernandez-Soto.

 

Kids like Colby Rees, Brian Solis, Danielle and Syndey Wolferts, all maybe wondering the same question as Elizabeth Smart, when she was abducted at just 14-years-old:"Will I ever make it home again? Will I ever see my family again?”

 

“I mean, it's the worst thing in the world you could experience," said Smart.

 

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children estimates in the United States nearly 467,000 children went missing in 2014.

 

The organization is asking people to post pictures of missing children like Maria Salazar, Lucero Jimenez and Michael Marsh on your social media page.

Using the hashtags #Missing and #MissingChildrensDay.

 

"This small act can help bring a missing child home and bring awareness to our important cause," says NCMEC spokesperson, Angeline Hartmann.

It is a cause that could bring home Carlos Reyes, Teara Smith and Colby Rees.

 

"I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy”, said Smart. "I do know what it's like and I have been there."

 

Police say time is a factor in finding these children and posting our missing Utahns on social media could go a long way in finding them.

 

The NCMEC has prepared a list if your child ever goes missing:

 

1. Immediately call your local law enforcement agency.

 

2. After you have reported your child missing to law enforcement, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST(1-800-843-5678).

 

3. If your child is missing from home, search through:

        - Closets.

        - Piles of laundry.

        - In and under beds.

        - Inside large appliances.

        - Vehicles – including trunks.

        - Anywhere else that a child may crawl or hide.

 

4. Notify the store manager or security office if your child cannot be found when in a store. Then immediately call your local law enforcement agency. Many stores have a Code Adam plan of action in place.

 

When you call law enforcement:

 

· Provide law enforcement with your child’s name, date of birth, height, weight and descriptions of any other unique identifiers such as eyeglasses and braces. Tell them when you noticed your child was missing and what clothing he or she was wearing.

 

· Request law enforcement authorities immediately enter your child’s name and identifying information into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center Missing Person File.