92 replies to this topic

[Denise]

http://www.thenewstr...ory/178805.html

When a loved one goes missing

STACEY MULICK; The News Tribune Published: October 14th, 2007 01:00 AM

The case of Tanya Rider, the Maple Valley woman found in her crashed car seven days after she vanished, raised questions about searches for missing people.
Since she was found Sept. 27, concerns have surfaced about how quickly cell phone records can be obtained, how her husbands initial 911 calls were handled and why she wasnt found sooner.

The News Tribune asked Tacoma police and Pierce County sheriffs officials how their departments handle missing persons cases.

After saying each case is handled individually, the officials said officers follow the information they receive from those reporting the missing friend or loved one.

The information determines when search-and-rescue units are launched, when a team of detectives is deployed and when investigators access the missing persons bank records, cell phone accounts and other personal information.

You want to start from a good nucleus of information, said Tacoma police detective Ron Lewis, who investigates missing persons cases. We have to figure out what direction we are going to chose to put our resources. We do need a starting point.

The response is ramped up when the report concerns a young child or an adult with serious health concerns, or when the circumstances surrounding the disappearance are troubling, life-or-death, or out of the ordinary.

A majority of cases are filed, then resolved within 24 hours, said sheriffs spokesman Ed Troyer.

Most missing persons, officials said, are suicidal or depressed, suffer from Alz-heimers or dementia, or are domestic violence victims who dont want to be found by their abuser. Many dont come home for a couple of days for one reason or another, are reported missing after leaving an adult care facility, or intentionally go missing.

The circumstances surrounding Riders missing persons case that she got into a car accident no one saw, went over an embankment and was unable to get help are rare and not the best to judge how most missing persons cases are handled, officials said.

It was a fluke deal, Lewis said.

The Pierce County Sheriffs Department investigated 206 missing adult cases in 2006. On average, the department resolves 98.5 percent of the missing person reports each year.

The Tacoma Police Department handles about 3,000 adult missing person and juvenile runaway cases a year. The department could not provide figures on how many missing persons cases it solves.

Here are the law enforcement officials answers to frequently asked questions concerning missing persons:

In the Rider case, the King County Sheriffs Office was criticized for not taking her husband seriously. He repeatedly called 911 and was told he didnt meet the criteria for reporting a missing person. What are the criteria for reporting a missing person in Pierce County?

Theres no one set of criteria, officials said, but investigators do need to know some things to decide how to respond.

(One thing to remember at the outset: There is no minimum waiting period for reporting a missing person. People who hear you need to wait 24 hours before reporting someone missing are watching too much TV, Troyer said. Thats a myth.)

Dispatchers and their supervisors look at several criteria as they evaluate what steps should be taken by law enforcement, including:

Where was the person last seen and/or where was the person going?

How long has it been since the person has been seen, and when was he or she expected back?

Did the person take his or her personal items (including clothing and money)?

Do the terrain, weather or other environmental conditions come into play?

When should I report someone missing?

As soon as you realize the person is missing and you cant figure out where he or she is. Police officials especially want to hear about a missing person quickly if a crime might have been committed or if the persons life could be in danger.

If there is something strange, we dont want to be behind 24 hours, Troyer said. We want to know right away.

What happens when I call 911?

A communications officer takes down information such as where the person was last seen or where the person was going, how long the person has been gone and whether this is unusual behavior. The officer also will get a description of the missing person and whether the person took any personal items, such as clothing, money or a cell phone.

The more information provided to the 911 operators, the better. Detailed information can help direct the search for the missing person.

A supervisor checks the information, then decides what action will be taken. The communications officer writes a report and enters the missing persons description and other important details into a computer so area law enforcement officers receive it and can keep an eye out for the person.

Dispatchers notify the appropriate law enforcement agency. Tacoma police and the Sheriffs Department send an officer to get information for a more detailed report and search the immediate area and talk with neighbors. The officer and supervisors decide whether additional officers, a search team, a police dog or detectives are needed.

What steps are taken after a report is filed?

The missing persons information including a physical description and vehicle and license plate information is entered into regional databases.

Bulletins are sent out to area law enforcement agencies. Tacoma-Pierce County Crime Stoppers also sends out information to the media when investigators suspect a crime has occurred.

Missing persons cases are forwarded to detectives the next business day.

When are search teams dispatched?


Officials say they need a specific geographic area to search before they call for search-and-rescue personnel for example, if a dementia patient has walked away from his home or a small child runs off in the neighborhood.

Weve got to have somewhere to search, Troyer said. If we have a specific area to be searched, we will.

What do detectives do when they receive missing persons cases?

Detectives will interview family members, friends and co-workers. They will check the missing persons bank accounts and look on social networking Web sites such as MySpace. Theyll contact the Social Security Administration if the person receives Social Security or other types of payment.

Lewis said if the person has a history of running away or going missing, hell check the computer to see where he or she had been found before.

Investigators also will collect dental records and DNA profiles.

How quickly can law enforcement agencies get access to a missing persons cell phone records?

It depends on how urgent the situation seems to be. If there are urgent circumstances, such as when a sex offender kidnaps a girl or someone has been taken hostage, investigators can get cell phone records within two hours, Troyer said.

Outside of those urgent situations, officers need a subpoena or a court order to get cell phone records. Troyer said the Sheriffs Department has ways to rush those through to get them in a matter of hours.

The information is still hard to get, he said. Its still a process and procedure.

[Denise]

http://www.kotv.com/...tory/?id=138208

Police Take New Approach To Missing Persons Cases

KOTV - 10/18/2007 5:50 PM - Updated 10/18/2007 5:58 PM

Murder cases are devastating to families and a top priority for detectives. There are families who say not knowing what happened to their loved one is just as agonizing. They are the families of people who are missing. These cases often have often taken a backseat to more immediate cases for investigators, but not anymore. News On 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright reports Tulsa detectives are revamping their approach to missing person cases, in order to get the answers families so desperately need.

Edward Roden still can't talk about his niece without crying. Kimberly Mullens was 33 and the mother of four children when she disappeared in 1998. She'd given birth to her youngest, just a few weeks before.

"Left her purse behind. Her kids behind. I'm telling you that girl wouldn't have left her kids behind, especially the new born baby, said her uncle Edward Roden.

Kim Mullens was in an abusive marriage, and family members say they were told she'd run off with another man. They became suspicious and reported her disappearance to police. That was nearly ten years ago. Her family fears the worst.

"If something has happened to her, justice needs to be served over it. Her whole family loves her. She has a right to a decent burial, said her uncle Edward Roden.

Tulsa's homicide squad room houses notebooks filled with about three dozen missing persons cases that detectives fear are the victims of foul play.

"When you start talking about looking for a needle in a haystack, that's what we do. There are methods we go through to establish they are not in existence," said Tulsa Police Sgt. Mike Huff.

The first step to making these cases a higher priority is to put them on the police department's website so citizens can see pictures, read the stories and send in tips.

Detectives also created a better screening system so they'll know faster which cases are suspicious. Plus, they'll be working with national groups like the DNA Project at the University of North Texas. They collect DNA from unidentified remains and compare it to missing people.

"It is a very hard thing for families to work with. There is no closure here and they know their family member is out there somewhere missing, said Tulsa Police Sgt. Mike Huff.

Police say 99% of the missing people resurface after a day or two or want to be gone. It's not a crime to be missing. And, people leave for lots of reasons sometimes family or mental health. But, there is still that 1% that is agony for families. For them, any answer is better than not knowing.

[Denise]

http://www.suntimes....ssing22.article

'They kept trying to convince us maybe she'd gone off'

October 22, 2007
BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA Staff Reporter/mihejirika@suntimes.com

Nancie was Anderson's oldest. She was the one who bought Anderson a home down South to escape Chicago's cold; the one who declared at age 8 that she was going to become an entrepreneur -- and indeed ended up a successful businesswoman.

Now, one of Nancie's sisters was calling to say Nancie was missing. She hadn't been seen in days.

The Chicago Police Department's files are packed with reports of missing people, mostly kids, but a growing number of adults. Despite the uptick, critics say police don't take missing-adult cases seriously enough. The Sun-Times examines the case of Nancie Walker, who went missing in 2003 and turned up murdered.

Anderson slumped into her chair. It was Jan. 31, 2003. The year was starting badly for her clan.

Even more heartache was to come for Anderson.

More adults tallied here, nationally
It's a sad fact that it's not that unusual for someone to vanish in Chicago. Chicago Police Department files are packed with missing-person cases -- kids, mostly, but also a growing number of adults.

Of the 20,000-plus people reported missing in Chicago last year, about 8,000 were 17 or older -- 40 percent of the total, up from 35 percent in 2000.

The figures are inching upward nationally, too. Last year, 169,447 adult missing-person cases were logged nationwide, up from 144,209 a decade ago.

Whether the actual number of missing adults is rising isn't clear. The increase might be due in part to better reporting and federal efforts that have spurred more police departments to take a report when anyone says a person they know is missing.

But when it comes to missing adults, law enforcement is severely lacking, critics say, with police opting to put their resources into the very young, very old, and those deemed "endangered."

There's logic to that thinking, the police figure: Adults have a right to disappear; most of the time when they're missing, it's of their own accord, and they almost always turn up fine. Indeed, 98 percent of such cases in Chicago end up "cleared" by police.

But often the authorities here are dismissive at first of what turn out to be legitimate cases of missing adults, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation found, potentially jeopardizing the safe return of victims and adding to the pain their families feel.

Nancie Walker's family says they had to beg the police to take her case seriously.

"They wouldn't take the report at first," recalled one of her five sisters. "They kept trying to convince us maybe she'd gone off. They kept asking, 'Does she drink? Does she do drugs?'

"The attitude was like they considered everyone on that end a drunk or a drug addict. We're like, 'Absolutely not!' Then, it was: 'Maybe she has a boyfriend. Maybe she went somewhere and didn't tell you.' Finally, we got irritated and demanded they take a report," her sister Vanessa Lankford said.

That's a common experience, according to the National Center for Missing Adults.

"There's an absolute lack of standardized procedures in first, whether police departments take the report, and second, how they respond to and investigate it," the center's Kym Pasqualini said.

In response to such complaints, Illinois lawmakers, with little notice, passed a bill this year -- which Gov. Blagojevich signed into law in August and which immediately went into effect -- that requires police to take a report on missing adults if anyone goes to a police station to notify them.

The new law also bars police from telling people: Come back later; we won't take a report until someone has been missing for 24 hours.

That's a huge step, advocates say, because the first 48 hours after someone goes missing are considered the most critical for their safe return.

'I sat, and I waited and waited'
On the day Nancie Walker went missing, the Morgan Park resident was supposed to have lunch with the sister to whom she was closest.

The pair talked on the phone around 10 a.m. that Tuesday as Nancie left her condo at 115th and Western and headed off to check on a 17-unit apartment building at 44th and Indiana -- one of the buildings her real estate company owned.

"We'd talked twice that morning, and she called me back, in one of her silly moods, just silly-happy that morning," Myrna Walker recalled. "I said, 'Girl, quit calling me!' She gave that laugh of hers.

"The last thing she said to me was, 'Girl, I just want to tell you what a difference a day makes.' "

She said her sister, a Buddhist, believed every day was an opportunity to create a new life.

At 2:30 p.m., Myrna ducked into a downtown Wendy's where the two always met. It was rainy, cold.

"I sat by the window, to watch for her," Myrna said. "I sat, and I waited and waited."

Nancie never showed up.

Myrna left phone messages that night, and Wednesday, too.

Then a friend told her that Nancie had missed rehearsal for the dance group she'd founded at Soka Gakai International. It was Nancie's way of sharing her lifelong passion for dance with kids. She'd never missed it before.

Something was really wrong, Myrna told Lankford.

On Thursday morning, three of Nancie's sisters went to her Bronzeville apartment building, where a longtime tenant relayed a strange story about seeing Nancie get into a black van that had tinted windows and two men inside. He said the driver honked, she got in, and it sped off.

"That didn't sound good," said Myrna.

Cops doubt it was foul play, family told
At Area 1 headquarters, Nancie officially became a missing person at 11:10 a.m. on Jan. 30, 2003.

The next day -- after police initially were reluctant to take a report, her sisters said -- the family was contacted by Special Victims Unit detectives. Myrna called Anderson, who hurried to town.

When interviewed, Nancie's tenant told police that Nancie had mentioned she was going away. Her family didn't believe it. As the owner of six properties, a beauty salon and a cross-country trucking service, Nancie would never just leave without telling her close-knit family, they said.

Police also learned that she had recently cashed a check for $1,600. Her sisters said it was to be wired to a brother-in-law in Mississippi who worked for her company -- Nancie's Trucks.

Within days, police told the family their suspicion: They didn't think Nancie was a victim of foul play. They would tell reporters the same thing.

Number of missing blacks soars
Local newspapers and TV had picked up on Nancie's story after the family turned to her friend, Delmarie Cobb, a publicist, for help.

"When they came to me that Friday, I said, 'We need to hold a press conference,' " Cobb recalled. "Myrna went and checked with the detective assigned to the case. He told her to give it till Monday. I told her, 'That's crazy. She's been missing since Tuesday.' We'd already lost too much time."

They held a news conference that Saturday.

Weeks passed. The family plastered the South Side with Nancie's picture, and tried but failed to interest the national media, which was consumed at the time with the case of Laci Peterson, a missing pregnant, white woman from Modesto, Calif.

"The Laci girl was getting all this national coverage, but we quickly learned it wasn't going to happen for Nancie," Myrna Walker said.

Cobb and her family suspect race played a role in the inattention, as she was black.

About five years later, however, another missing black woman got enormous attention -- pharmaceutical sales rep Nailah Franklin, whose body was found last month.

Regardless, a Sun-Times analysis of FBI data found that blacks account for a disproportionate number of the missing -- 32 percent last year, compared with a 12.8 percent representation in the U.S. population. A decade ago, they were at 24 percent, the newspaper's analysis shows.

Unsolved despite reward
On March 19, 2003, Lankford got a call. Her sister's body had been found by a road-cleaning crew at 108th and Stony Island -- dismembered and stuffed into two big plastic bags.

An autopsy found Nancie had been beaten, strangled and decapitated.

Only her head, arms and lower legs were found.

Despite her family's $50,000 reward, her murder remains unsolved -- a cold case, no suspects.

Nancie's mother wishes the police had reacted.

"They got stuck on: She walked away," she said.

Police won't comment on specifics of the case.

"Why someone would say they did not believe her a victim of foul play, I couldn't even comment on that," said Chicago Police Cmdr. Robert Hargesheimer. "But it's not unusual for families to say we want more done. And while we understand the frustrations of families, there's also 650 investigations going at one time on missing persons."

Anderson says that's not good enough.

"My Nancie was so timid. To think about how someone took her someplace and did that to her, sometimes I just can't sleep," her mother said.

"I just want police to stop saying an adult has the right to walk away. If the people who know them best -- a mother -- tells you something is just not right, you can believe them."

[Kelly]

http://www.suntimes....ssing25.article

'We can go look under rocks, look in alleys and kick over cans'

October 25, 2007
STORIES BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA | Staff Reporter

Calls can come from the city's 25 police districts, other agencies and the public.

The information is jotted on an index card and filed in a small thin box packed with other cards. When someone is found, his or her card is moved to an adjacent box.

The boxes represent the universe of missing persons cases in Chicago. But newly arrived cases are computerized as well, typed into city and federal databases, and faxed to Special Victims detectives for follow-up.

Before this particular September day is over, Missing Persons workers will field 75 reports.

This is the unit that fielded calls about Jesse Ross, a still-missing Missouri college student; Nancie Walker, a 55-year-old businesswoman who turned up murdered in 2003; Diamond and Tionda Bradley, children who vanished in 2001 after leaving a note that they were going to the park; and Lamar Randle, whose family reported him missing last July, not knowing he was laid up in a hospital, unable to tell anyone his name.

They were highlighted over the past week in the Chicago Sun-Times series "Missing in Chicago."

Today, the final day of the project, the focus shifts to how police handle missing persons cases -- which are not all investigated equally.

In Chicago, kids under 10, the elderly and those deemed "endangered" get priority -- something officials argue is necessary because of limited resources.

"Those are high-risk cases right on their face, and we ratchet up our resources accordingly," said Chicago Police Cmdr. Robert Hagersheimer, who oversees the Missing Persons Unit. "Beyond that, the level of follow-up is based on the circumstances surrounding the individual's absence."

While the level of urgency can certainly differ by case, the Sun-Times found that getting cops in Chicago and other jurisdictions to take a report -- particularly for adults -- can be an exercise in frustration, and sometimes there's only a cursory investigation.

One veteran detective who handles missing persons cases in Chicago rationalizes it this way: "If the citizens of Chicago want us to spend more time on missing persons, we can. Chicago's a big city. We can go look under rocks, look in alleys and kick over cans."

"But with a lot of my adults, someone left and didn't want someone else to know where they are, and most of the juveniles are teenagers who went off to do their thing, and they'll come home when they're ready. Sometimes you basically just have to give missings time, and ultimately, almost all of them just show up on their own."

Statistics bear him out.

In Chicago, 20,000 people are reported missing each year. The vast majority of cases -- 98 percent -- are solved, largely because missing individuals often want to be gone, and eventually return home.

But missing persons advocates complain that police are too often dismissive of what turn out to be legitimate cases of missing adults, potentially jeopardizing safe returns.

In Nancie Walker's case, police had to be arm-twisted to take a report, and then hemmed and hawed about following up, relatives said.

In Lamar Randle's case, investigators somehow missed the fact that he was in a hospital. He was reunited with his family not because of Chicago Police, but because a Sun-Times reporter put two and two together.

In some suburbs, police do little more than punch details into a database and hand out fliers to officers to be on the lookout.

"If there's not going to be a change of federal mandate, we must make changes on the local level, so that your missing person case is not handled one way in one jurisdiction, and another way just across the county line," said Kym Pasqualini of the National Center for Missing Adults.

There are hopeful signs of change.

The federal government is launching a new database that will, for the first time, allow coroners, police and others to simultaneously search records of missing persons and unidentified remains.

And spurred by a federal task force, Illinois recently passed a law forcing police to take reports on missing adults if complainants come to the station. Cops also must inform families about outside resources, such as Pasqualini's group.

According to state Rep. Dan Brady, Chicago Police initially balked at the law, telling him, "It's great that the Justice Department wanted to do this, but do you have any idea how many missing person reports we get?"

hicago Police Officer Mike Williams is manning the "Hot Desk," a gateway for the 20,000-plus missing person reports that flood the department each year. "Male? Which race? Age? Date of birth?" Williams asks. "What is his height and weight? Hair color and eye color? Date and time he was last seen? Complainant's name and address? Any physical or mental disabilities?" It's around 11 a.m., and calls are just trickling in to the Missing Persons Unit, based at 35th and Michigan.

[Denise]

http://seattletimes....34_loss210.html

How do families mourn loved ones they're not sure are really gone?

By Rebecca Morris

Beverly Burr's daughter Ann disappeared from the family's Tacoma home in 1961, when Ann was 8. She's never been found. Burr still thinks of her daughter every day.

IT STORMED THAT NIGHT, hiding any sounds that might be heard in a big house.

Sometime late on Aug. 31, 1961, 8-year-old Ann Burr brought her younger sister to their parents' bedroom. Mary was crying because she had gotten sand under the cast on her broken arm, and it itched. Beverly and Donald Burr reassured her and sent the girls back to bed.

The next morning, Beverly went to check on the children. Mary was asleep in her bed, but across the hall, Ann's room was empty. Beverly found a living-room window ajar and the front door, usually locked from the inside with a deadbolt, standing open. A bench had been pulled up outside the window. Someone had climbed in, then left through the front door with Ann. The abduction of the blond girl with bangs and a ready smile was Tacoma's biggest story of 1961. But months, then years, then decades passed. Beverly and Donald Burr had no body to bury, no cemetery to visit and no end to this devastating and complex grief. They suffered what psychotherapist and author Pauline Boss calls "ambiguous loss."

"Ambiguous loss is any kind of loss with no clear information on the status of a missing person," Boss explains. "People are denied the symbolic rituals that ordinarily help us cope with a loss, such as a funeral."

Ambiguous loss is not new wars are especially cruel in creating it but the study of it is. Boss calls it a grief that defies closure. It's a grief shared by many of the families of the missing that capture our attention: six men still trapped deep inside a Utah mine; Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who vanished on a solo flight; Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba.

Keeping hope alive

Families of the missing are members of a unique brotherhood. Many are afraid to move in case their child, now grown, tries to find them. They keep phone numbers unchanged for decades. They preserve their child's bedroom just as it was. They live as if their loved one might knock on the door any day.

That's the way it has been for the family of Air Force Col. John Robertson, a father of four from Edmonds who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966.

"He was always kept alive in the family," says his daughter, Shelby Quast, who was 4 when her father disappeared. Her mother, Barbara Robertson, still celebrates her wedding anniversary. She kept money set aside so she could buy her husband a new wardrobe and a Mercedes when he returned.

She encouraged her daughters to travel to Cambodia and Vietnam, investigating sightings of him in work camps.

After all these years, Quast, an attorney in Virginia, says if there were news of her father, she would pursue it, "But in a different way. I'd say, 'Prove it to me.' You can't say, 'Enough, I give up.' I would never say that. We always thought he was alive."

"I hate that closure thing"

"When I first saw that window open, I knew I would never see her again," Beverly Burr says. "I knew I would never know what happened."

In the faded newspaper clippings about Ann's disappearance, Beverly is a pretty blonde of 33, mother of four photogenic children. Burr is 79 now, and her hair is gray, but her memories of that period remain sharp.

Near the television where she watches "Dancing With the Stars" are albums filled with faded newspaper clippings. There are the first stories about Ann's disappearance, a missing-persons poster, stories about sightings of Ann in California, even the obituaries of the two lead detectives who had vowed to find Ann.

And there are more personal items: Ann's second-grade report card with a note from a teacher about how well she expects the girl to do in third grade; a newspaper story about Beverly and Donald adopting a baby girl, Laura, two years after Ann disappeared; and a photo of an azalea sent by author Ann Rule, who mentioned the Burrs in her book about Ted Bundy. There is even a page of photos of the Puyallup woman who showed up in 1994 claiming to be Ann. DNA tests showed she wasn't.

As time passed, the Burrs' friends or acquaintances would suggest that it might be time to move on, time to not think about Ann so much. "I don't pay any attention to that," Beverly says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I hate that closure thing."

Criminal folklore has it that a 14-year-old named Ted Bundy was the Burrs' paperboy; he wasn't. But his uncle lived nearby, Ted visited and Ann passed the house on her way to and from piano lessons. Beverly doesn't know if Ann and Ted knew each other.

In the 1980s, when Bundy was on death row, he admitted to 35 murders but hinted there were far more. Beverly Burr wrote to Bundy, and they began a correspondence. In one letter, Bundy wrote: "Again, and finally, I did not abduct your daughter. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. If there is still something you wish to ask me about this, please don't hesitate to write again. God bless you and be with you. Peace, Ted."

Building resilience

Learning to live with the loss is the key to moving forward, even if that means keeping hope alive for decades.

"The only way to survive is to keep two opposing thoughts, to straddle between hope and hopelessness," according to Boss, psychotherapist and professor emeritus of the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota.

The author of two books on ambiguous loss, she has researched and worked with 4,000 families around the world including families who lost a loved one on Sept. 11, wives of pilots missing in Vietnam and of husbands lost at sea, and families in Kosovo where thousands of people have been missing since ethnic cleansing in the 1990s. She has expanded the focus of her research to work with families coping with the psychological absence of a loved one; for example, the families of patients with Alzheimer's.

If the ambiguous loss can't be resolved and often, it can't then the goal is to increase the resilience of those left behind. That happens by forming new attachments, and finding a new identity and new things to hope for. Those who don't, or can't, risk serious depression and broken relationships. Boss is convinced that unresolved grief is responsible for many personal problems.

Boss says it was a Minnesota couple, Elizabeth and Kenny Klein, who showed her how people with ambiguous grief go on.

In November 1951, three of the Kleins' four young sons, ages 4, 6 and 8, disappeared while playing by the Mississippi River. Although two of their caps were found in the river, the family is convinced the boys didn't drown, but were abducted. For a while the couple placed an ad in the newspaper "Lost: Three Boys" hoping one of the boys would see it and contact them.

Today, 56 years later, Elizabeth (Betty to her friends) continues to believe that one, or maybe all three, will someday walk through her door. Kenny Klein believed it too, to the day he died in 2005. "Course, they wouldn't know me now," Betty laughs, alluding to her age, 82. "And they would be in their 60s."

To many, such a declaration 56 years later might seem unbearably sad. But Boss says what makes the Kleins good teachers is that they exhibit hope tempered with reality. "They found a way to balance hanging on with letting go."

The power of a gesture

When there is no body to bury, symbolic gestures are important. After the search for the trapped miners in Utah was called off, families and friends stood on a hill and released a golden eagle into the sky. Boss has worked with families who have buried a favorite guitar in a coffin, or a husband's bowling ball. After Sept. 11, families were offered a vial of dirt from Ground Zero, which many found helpful and meaningful. The Burrs finally held a memorial for Ann in 1999.

Beverly says that after Ann vanished, what sustained her were the other children, all younger than Ann. "They needed me very much, and I had to remember that." Also helpful during a long police investigation: gardening and her Catholic faith. She made sure to add "And bless our little Ann" to any prayer.

During the 1999 memorial service, Ann's younger sister Julie who along with her brother Greg, slept soundly that night in 1961 thanked her parents. "You probably wanted to crawl into bed and bury your head as each day and year passed with no answer," she told them. "But instead you gathered strength and provided us with a wonderful childhood."

Julie was right about her parents wanting to hide, Beverly says.

"I think the hardest thing is that it was in our minds every minute, but school was starting. We, Donald and I, couldn't have cared less, but we had to pretend for the sake of the children. They were so young and they were terrified and would ask, 'Will he come and get us, too?' "

Donald Burr died four years ago. Since then Beverly has moved to a small, bright-blue house. Her son lives on Fox Island, and her daughters live in Bellingham; Seattle; and Albany, Ore.

Beverly thinks of Ann first thing, every day. But except for the albums, Ann has no more prominence in the house than Julie, Laura, Mary or Greg. Now there are pictures of grandchildren about Ann's age then on Beverly's refrigerator. In her den are photos of all the children. Ann, whether in her Blue Bird uniform, or with Santa Claus, or with her dog Barney, remains 8 years old.

There is only one other thing frozen in time. Beverly Burr's phone number is the same one the family had in 1961. She has never changed it, just in case.

[Kelly]

http://www.suburbanc...SING_S2.article

How do police find the missing?

November 2, 2007
By BRIAN STANLEY Staff Writer


Police investigate all missing person reports, but the officers initial assessment of the case often determines how they are handled.

"The patrol officers judgement is very important, because hes the first one to talk to the complainant and get a feeling of the situation," said Will County sheriffs spokesman Pat Barry.

Barry said the sheriffs departments procedures are similar to other area departments.

Missing people are typically reported to the local police department. Contrary to popular belief, there is no 24-hour waiting period before a report can be made. The Missing Persons Identification Act, passed by the state legislature in August, requires police to accept any missing person reports.

"If your mother is home every day by 4 p.m. and its 8 p.m. and shes not there and not picking up her phone, thats not a normal situation and you know about it," Barry said.

Barry said the first thing police will ask: "Is foul play suspected?" Theyll also ask about medical conditions, enter information into a national network of law enforcement agencies and ask where the person may have gone. "There is a different (approach) if its a teenager whos fighting (with relatives) especially those who have run away before," he said.

Police will have parents check with friends before a description is broadcast and officers will check areas the teen is likely to be.

"If someone isnt located, the case will move up to detectives the next day," Barry said. Investigators rarely are called in immediately.

Under the missing persons act, reports can be made by anyone, no matter what their relationship is to the missing person. "If you havent seen an elderly neighbor out for a few days and there are newspapers in the driveway, call the local police and ask for a well-being check. Theyll contact relatives and see if someone knows where this person is," Barry said.

He said its important to share information with people you trust in case something happens: "Cell phone numbers, phone numbers of friends and relatives and vehicle descriptions give police somewhere to start. Its really important to provide law enforcement with as much information as possible."

[Denise]

http://www.ksdk.com/...?storyid=140567

Watch the video: http://www.ksdk.com/...x?aid=68927&bw=

When An Adult Disappears, Does Anyone Care?

Created: 2/19/2008 1:23:33 PM
Last updated: 2/20/2008 5:29:31 PM

By Ann Rubin

(KSDK) - If a child disappears, police act immediately. There are search parties, statewide alerts and photos distributed to the media. But with missing adults it's a different, often more frustrating process.

The old rule that you have to wait 24 or 48 hours to report someone missing is gone. But that doesn't mean police will give you immediate attention. That was something Kyrstin Whitter learned the hard way.

When George Whitter disappeared, his wife knew he wasn't in Las Vegas, there wasn't another woman and he didn't leave on his own.

"I knew that something was wrong right away," Kyrstin Whitter said.

Police on the other hand, were more skeptical.

"My sister-in-law asked him what would make this case more pertinent? A dead body? And the response was, you don't normally get a detective down here to do this kind of legwork because men go missing all the time."

That was the problem. Adults can choose to leave their lives, to just disappear. Thousands do each year. It's not a crime. But what happens when you believe there has been a crime or an accident?
That was the case with Tanya Rider.

Rider had accidentally driven into a ravine in Washington. Instead of looking for her, authorities looked at her husband.

"What did it take them once they turned it into a criminal investigation, an hour? She was in that car for eight days," Tom Rider said.

Tanya Rider survived. Still, for families it's frustrating. While there are dozens of organizations and millions of dollars devoted to missing children, there is little available for adults. One Missing Link is the one non-profit that handles adult cases in Missouri.

Janis McCall runs the organization.

"They get more attention on missing cars than missing people. And that's sad," McCall said.

McCall started One Missing Link after her daughter, Stacey, disappeared. Stacey was 18; considered an adult. She has never been found. McCall has made it her mission to increase awareness and funding for these cases.

"It has to go through our Congress and our Senate, and we have to get some help for missing adults in addition to what goes to missing children," McCall said.

When it comes to missing adults, some states are now taking legislative action. Illinois passed a measure last summer offering very specific guidelines about how these cases must be handled.

It's a three pronged measure. All reports made "in person" must be taken immediately by police. Those who file them must be told what other resources are available, like national websites. Lastly, family members have to be told they can donate DNA to a database to help with identification down the road.

State Representative Dan Brady is a Republican from Bloomington, Illinois.

"It kind of empowers family or someone reporting that, hey I can be doing something while I file this report," Brady said.

Missouri too, passed new legislation last year. Already Amber Alerts applied to missing kids, but for the first time they created something called an Endangered Person Advisory, which also applied to adults.

It was used in four adult cases in 2007. But it was not used for George Whitter.

"The lady there said she didn't think I could even place even the report for 48 hours," Krystin Whitter said. She ultimately convinced police to take a missing persons report. Her husband, George, and his friend, Randy Greenman, were gone.
But she doesn't think authorities searched in earnest until a month later. That's when Greenman's body was found.

"They thought he was either a witness or a victim or I'm sure they thought he was a suspect," Whitter said. "And once it turned into a criminal case, then they pursued it."

George Whitter's body was found a month after that. His case remains open, not in the missing file, but as a murder. Krystin doesn't know if the outcome could have been changed. She just wishes someone took her seriously, sooner.

Other resources

http://www.ksdk.com/...s/missing.aspx/

Criteria for Endangered Person Advisory:

1. Do the circumstances fail to meet the criteria for an Amber Alert?
2. Is the person missing under unexplained, involuntary, or suspicious
circumstances?
3. Is the person believed to be in danger because of age, health, mental
or physical disability, environment or weather conditions, in the company
of a potentially dangerous person or some other factor that may put the
person in peril?
4. Is there information that could assist the public in the safe recovery
of the person?
 
Resources

FOR HELP IN ILLINOIS CALL
Illinois State Police
Springfield, Illinois
217-785-4341

Clearinghouse for Missing Persons
2200 S. Dirksen Parkway, Suite 238
Springfield, Illinois 62703-4528
1-800-843-5763 same as IL State Police

FOR HELP IN MISSOURI
Missouri Highway Patrol
Missing Persons Unit
Jeff City   573-526-6178

Missing Adults Websites:

Missouri Missing Adults:
http://missourimissi...com/default.asp

Illinois Missing Adults:
http://illinoismissingadults.com/

One Missing Link:
http://www.onemissin...g/omlindex.html

[Denise]

http://www.philly.co...-_and_why_.html

Where do they go - and why?

Philadelphia Daily News
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934

Hollywood would have you believe that missing people are snatched by psychos who bury their prey alive like Sandra Bullock in 1993's "The Vanishing" or eat them with fava beans and a nice Chianti like Hannibal Lecter's victims in 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs."

But most people reported missing have far different fates: The majority are found, and may in fact never have been technically missing.

"Every time a kid comes home late from school or misses curfew and mom calls the police, that goes in the (missing-persons) numbers," said Officer Robert Rajchel, who hunts the city's long-term missing juveniles.

Philadelphia police fielded nearly 6,500 reports of missing people in 2006, the most recent year for which police statistics are available.

An overwhelming majority were later accounted for. Rajchel and Det. Valarie Miller-Robinson, who handle most of the city's long-term missing cases, figure there are about 100 people who have been missing at least a month whose cases they are actively investigating.

Most missing-person reports involve juveniles - runaways fleeing problems or those seeking independence, Rajchel said.

Although they may have vanished willingly, they could still be at risk, said Lt. Stephen Biello of the Special Victims Unit.

"These kids run away and think: 'This is great; I'm on my own.' But they don't realize they have to feed themselves, they have to clothe themselves. How do you do that at the age of 13?" Biello said. "These kids are at great risk for homelessness, addiction, prostitution, exploitation."

Adults who willingly disappear may also face peril, Miller-Robinson said.

"We have elderly people with Alzheimer's or dementia who wander off. You might have a woman fleeing an abusive man," she said. "People with drug problems may disappear to go do drugs - or they may just want to privately check themselves into rehab and because of [medical-confidentiality laws], we can't find them."

In many cases, authorities suspect but can't prove foul play.

As cases get older, clues become more scarce. Scientific advances that help crack newer crimes, like DNA testing, typically don't help solve older cases, in which such evidence hasn't historically been collected.

Still, Rajchel and Miller-Robinson don't close their cases until they know the person's fate. They currently have 20 cases pre-dating 1990.

"We [police] all have families, so we realize how important this is to loved ones to find out what happened to these people," said Officer Robert Rajchel, a 23-year police veteran who handles juvenile long-term missing cases. "And after you investigate a while, you get to a point where you want to know too." *

[Denise]

http://www.philly.co..._forgotten.html

Posted on Fri, Feb. 29, 2008

Lost, but not forgotten

By DANA DiFILIPPO
Philadelphia Daily News
difilid@phillynews.com 215-854-5934

FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD Anthony Tumolo vanished on a brisk October afternoon in 1966, after pedaling away on his bicycle to meet a friend.

More than 41 years later, the Tacony teen's relatives and friends remain haunted by the unknown.

Was he kidnapped, molested and killed? Did he drown in the river and get swept into oblivion? Was he run down by a car whose panicked driver hid his body? Did he hit his head and develop amnesia, forgetting his life and forging a new one elsewhere?

Beverly Sharpman's disappearance in 1947 seemed without mystery: The 17-year-old girl from the city's Parkside section was last reported seen at a train station with a suitcase, and sent her parents a telegram telling them she was leaving home to marry and not to worry.

But the uncharacteristic move and her absolute silence since then aroused police suspicion and tormented her frantic parents for decades.

The two then-teens are Philadelphia's oldest active missing-juveniles cases.

And although the case files are yellowed and many potential witnesses are long dead or have moved on, police still search for Anthony and Beverly and about 100 other missing adults and juveniles who vanished months, years and even decades ago.

"They never leave our radar screen," said Capt. John Darby, head of the Special Victims Unit, which handles long-term missing-person cases. "We never forget about these people, because their families don't."

A telegram, then silence

In 1947, President Truman battled Communism and launched the Cold War. The United Nations created the territory that would become Israel. Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black man to play professional baseball. And the discovery of mysterious wreckage near Roswell, N.M., convinced legions of stargazers that alien life exists.

On Sept. 10 of that year, in a towering brick rowhouse on Viola Street near 42nd within walking distance of Fairmount Park, a 17-year-old girl went to her mother and said she had something to tell her.

Beverly Sharpman seemed "troubled," her mother later told police.

Nettie Sharpman went to make tea and did not pressure her daughter to reveal her secret. And Beverly, apparently reconsidering, later went to bed without confiding her concerns.

The next day, she disappeared, leaving her parents and brother agonizing over what could have driven the dark-haired, ruby-lipped teen away.

"She wouldn't do such a thing on her own," her mother lamented in a 1949 letter to city newspapers. "Please help me find 'My Baby Girl.' "

Police labeled Beverly - who family called "Babe" - a runaway.

Although she'd gone to Overbrook High School to register for her senior year the day she disappeared, she was last seen carrying a suitcase at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station at 24th and Chestnut streets.

Her parents received a telegram that night, heartbreaking and succinct: Got married. Leaving town. Will not be back. Don't worry. Babe.

The telegram left them bewildered.

Beverly had no boyfriends, and her friends told police and relatives that they knew of no men in her life, nor of anyone with whom she might have eloped.

But police found that Beverly had taken $173 from her savings account, resigned her clerk job at a downtown firm the day before she vanished and told co-workers she was going to Chicago.

Although she seemed to have left willingly, police still searched for her, baffled that she hadn't left a trail.

Detectives checked marriage-license bureaus in all 50 states but found no evidence that Beverly had married. And although the Sharpmans had family in Chicago, those relatives reported that they hadn't seen or heard from Beverly.

Police received hundreds of letters from people nationwide who reported seeing her. But searches in cities from Chicago and Detroit to New York and Los Angeles proved fruitless.

Her family's public pleas for her return were heartrendingly tireless, appearing sporadically for years in newspaper classified ads.

In 1949: Beverly Sharpman. Call TR7-7379. Will send money for clothes. Mother.

A year later: "Beverly Sharpman - Babe, where are you. Please come home. We love you. I'm ill. Call TR7-7379. Mother."

Two years after that: Beverly Sharpman - "Babe" - it's Mother & Dad's Wedding Anniversary today. Call or write . . . Love Bill.

Another year later: Beverly Sharpman, Happy brthdy., Babe. Come home. Call TR7-7379. Mom&Dad

In 1950, Nettie Sharpman offered this appeal in a newspaper article: "I want some word or sign that you are alive. Please contact me in your own way. I'll meet you anytime, anywhere. I'll sell my home and belongings, if necessary. I've got to find you."

But one slip of paper in Beverly's missing-persons file suggests that her family never lost hope of finding her. A letter, sent by a life-insurance company to Philadelphia police in 1981, indicated that her father had died and listed her as his beneficiary. Beverly's mother also died. Police haven't located her brother.

Detective Valarie Miller-Robinson, who still occasionally reviews the case, wonders if Beverly fled to conceal an unwanted pregnancy.

Most juveniles who disappear are runaways who eventually turn up, said Officer Robert Rajchel, who investigates Philadelphia's long-term missing juveniles.

"They're growing up and they want to be on their own, or they're escaping discipline problems or family abuse at home. Some might find themselves pregnant and afraid to tell their parents," Rajchel said.

People plotting suicide also may vanish to spare loved ones grief and gruesomeness, but Miller-Robinson doesn't think that's what happened to Beverly.

"I think she did run away and probably got married," she said, "but this is one of those cases that sticks with you. I'd still love to know for sure."

Darby agreed: "Some people may voluntarily go missing. But we still have an obligation to the family to find them to make sure they're OK."

Boy bikes into oblivion

When Anthony Tumolo disappeared in October 1966, police quickly labeled him a runaway. So they quit looking for him. And the city's newspapers ignored the case.

After all, as a boy, his disappearance didn't generate the concerns Beverly Sharpman's did nearly two decades earlier. And disappearing teens were as much a part of the 1960s as beehives and Bob Dylan, with many young people fleeing to New York, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and elsewhere to find themselves.

But Jack Marino knew better.

Jack and Anthony were best buddies to the core.

Growing up in Tacony in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they played toy soldiers together, flunked a grade at the same school and rode bikes daily, often pedaling over to survey the construction zone where workers were creating Interstate 95.

They also got jobs together, working for tips at Frank-the-fruit-vendor's truck and, later, landing Inquirer paper routes, rolling out of bed before the sun rose to deliver newspapers from shopping carts until school started.

Although Anthony had eight siblings, Jack was like another brother.

"My stepfather was Anthony's mother's cousin - to Americans, that don't mean much, but to Italians, that means you're related, you're family," said Marino, who spent his early childhood in Italy.

On Oct. 15, 1966, the boys spent the morning delivering papers and collecting dues, taking a break to devour a dozen doughnuts they bought at a bakery on Torresdale Avenue.

Afterward, they hung out with friends on the steps of nearby Lady of Consolation School, where they were eighth-graders. They parted just before 3 p.m. to head to their respective homes for supper, planning to meet up again afterward.

But the rendezvous never happened. Anthony ate his supper in a hurry; when Jack showed up at Anthony's brick duplex on Princeton Avenue near Torresdale, his mother told Jack that Anthony had left just 10 minutes earlier.

Jack trekked to all their hangouts - back to school, around the neighborhood, up to the unfinished I-95 - hunting for his pal.

As dusk fell, he went home, figuring Anthony had found something else to do.

At the Tumolo household, Anthony's parents weren't panicked.

"They just thought he spent the night over Jack's," remembered Joanie Hess, who was 19 and away studying at Penn State University when her brother disappeared.

While it was unusual for Anthony not to seek permission for such an outing, the Tumolos didn't worry until Anthony failed to return home to deliver his newspapers the next morning, a duty he never shirked, Hess said.

As his family and friends went hunting for him, Anthony's parents alerted police.

Still, the prospect of foul play was so unfathomable that Anthony's parents waited 10 days to tell Hess her brother was missing.

"Even then, it was: 'Is Anthony up there with you?' " recalled Hess, a retired nurse now living in Anaheim, Calif. "They just couldn't imagine something bad happening to him."

Neither could police.

Anthony's case file suggests that detectives figured the teen had a motive to run away. Just before he vanished, Anthony had argued with his parents about his paper route, which they wanted him to quit to focus on his sagging school grades.

And five days later, two students returning late to class blamed their tardiness on Anthony, saying they'd spotted the missing boy and unsuccessfully gave chase. The tale seemed plausible; the wiry Anthony was known for his speed.

"That stopped any police investigation - that's the real horror of the story," Marino said of the supposed sighting.

Marino, now a cop, works at the Philadelphia Police Academy as a firearms instructor and armer, fixing guns.

As Anthony's best friend and now as a 31-year veteran lawman, Marino never thought Anthony had disappeared willingly.

"He never voiced, ever, running away from home," Marino said. "He was a very family oriented guy. He idolized his older brothers and his father."

Hess also noted that Anthony had left an uncashed paycheck, some money and all his belongings in his bedroom, an unlikely oversight by someone plotting to run away from home.

And 20 years after Anthony vanished, Marino tracked down one of the tardy teens whose reported sighting of Anthony derailed the police probe.

"He said they were late because they were out having a cigarette, and they told that lie [that they'd seen and chased Anthony] to avoid catching a beating from the nun," Marino said.

Anthony's father died two years after his boy vanished. Although it was colon cancer that took his life, Hess blames heartbreak for hastening the end.

"He was a broken man after this happened," she said.

His father always thought his son had fallen victim to accident. That's a theory Marino hasn't discounted.

Marino said he and Anthony had talked about biking up to Hillcrest Dairy at State and Street roads after supper the day Anthony disappeared. Jack had tried to dissuade his buddy, worried that the long trek was a bad idea on a such a chilly day with dusk descending.

But Anthony was stubborn and independent, Marino said.

"We were all of us addicted to Marvel comics, and Anthony always viewed himself as Iron Man, like impregnable," he said. "Ice cream in those days was like the size of a cantaloupe for like 35 or 50 cents - it was a big deal. So say he rides up to Hillcrest Dairy because he's a hardhead like that."

State Road after sunset was a wooded, secluded, dark place, Marino said. And bike reflectors and reflective clothing didn't exist back then, he added.

"It would be so easy to believe that a car came over a hill or around a bend and hit him. The driver panics, throws him in the car and then ditches the body and the bike," Marino said.

Such a scenario makes sense to Officer Rajchel, who now has Anthony's case.

Rajchel grew up in the same area and was about the same age as Anthony when he went missing, although they didn't know each other.

"I could put myself in his place. Being a boy, you wander, you explore, you get into mischief. I suspect he probably got himself in a situation and met with some kind of accident," Rajchel said, adding that the I-95 construction and Delaware River presented perils that may have proven deadly.

Hess said their mother, who died in 2001, was more optimistic.

"She was in her 70s when I wanted to have him declared dead and have a memorial made, and she actually got mad at me," Hess said.

Anthony's mother always believed that Anthony had fallen victim to amnesia. As a small boy, he'd been hit by a car as he crossed the street.

"So my mom conjured up in her mind that Anthony maybe bumped his head somehow the day he disappeared and this delayed amnesia set in, that he forgot who he was and some day would show up on our doorstep once he remembered who he was," Hess said.

Hess instead always felt her brother had fallen prey to a child predator.

"He was a good-looking kid, but he was a naive kid," she said. "I think someone lured him to molest him and then killed him."

Joe Gabriele, who used to cut hair in a barbershop around the corner from the Tumolos' old house, still remembers customers speculating about Anthony's whereabouts as they got clipped.

"People figured his parents weren't too good to him and maybe he ran off. But then when he was gone so long and never came back, you figured somebody grabbed him," said Gabriele, who is now 90.

Learning Anthony's fate has become an obsession for Hess and Marino.

Both have repeatedly revisited Anthony's old hangouts and retraced his last steps. Marino has talked up the case with his police colleagues. Hess has hashed it out with advocates from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Adam Walsh Resource Center and similar agencies.

On the busy block where the Tumolos used to live, some things look the same as they did when Anthony and Jack hung out there as teenagers, plotting ways to make pocket money or impress girls. Rubino's Pharmacy, with its old-fashioned white marquee and RX icon, still promises the cheapest prescription drugs and other conveniences like it has for more than four decades.

"I can honestly say that there have been very, very few days since October 15, 1966, that I don't think about Anthony," said Marino, now 56 and weeks from retiring. "It's something that not only haunts me, but haunts an awful lot of people who lived in Tacony at that time.

"I can't tell you all the theories I came up with over the last 40 years, but I don't think I'll ever know what happened to Anthony," he said.

"You know when I'll know? When I'm dead and I make it to the other side." *

[Denise]

http://dailycamera.c...ssing-are-lost/

New program to track seniors with memory disorders

By Jolie Breeden (Contact)
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Broomfield residents with memory loss can now accessorize with a Memory Minder bracelet. Although the watch-like bracelet isn't very fashionable, it's the "in" thing when it comes to helping police find missing seniors.

Police are set to dole out 10 of the bracelets in early April, thanks to a $10,000 grant aimed at spreading the technology across the state.

The system consists of a hand-held radio tracking device capable of reading a unique frequency transmitted by the bracelet. When people wearing the bracelet go missing, police can use the signal to track individuals within a mile of their locations. Missing people can be located from the air as well.

"We feel it's a valuable program," said Broomfield police Sgt. H.R. Walts, who will coordinate the project. "If there is somebody out there with a tendency to wander and get lost, we'd rather them have this."

Not everyone will have the opportunity at first, though.

Because the grant only covered the costs of training officers, purchasing the $6,000 tracking device and buying 10 of the $300 bracelets, police decided to initially limit the scope of the service to seniors.

It's up to each agency to determine how to administer the program. Broomfield titled its project Memory Minder and will keep a photo and information about wearers on file. Police and Health and Human Services and Senior Services staff will form a committee that assists with the application and selection process.

Broomfield residents older than 60 who have a memory disorder such as Alzheimer's disease or dementia qualify for the free program. Police will determine which applicants receive the bracelets.

After the first 10 bracelets -- which are worn continuously -- are distributed, those interested in the program can put their name on a waiting list.

"We hope to expand the program to include kids with autism and other memory disorders in the future, but this year the focus is on the seniors," Walts said.

Broomfield was among 10 county law-enforcement departments to receive the Colorado Project Lifesaver grants issued by the Colorado Department of Public Safety, said Sandy Sayre, who administers the grants for the department. Fremont, Weld and Teller counties were among the others.

Before this year's grant cycle -- the first of three -- six other Colorado counties had been outfitted with the technology, mostly in the metro area, she said.

Broomfield previously used a system called ID For Me to keep track of those who might be prone to wandering and unable to return home. That system, which registers information about users with police and provides an identification bracelet, is still available, Walts said.


Broomfield residents must meet the following requirements to qualify for the Memory Minder program:

Suffer from a memory loss disorder

Be 60 or older

Be mobile, including those who use a wheelchair, walker or cane

For more information and an application, call Sgt. H.R. Walts at 303-464-5747 or e-mail hwalts@broomfield.org.

[Kelly]

http://kstp.com/arti...21846.shtml?v=1

4/25/08


DETECTIVES: Chris Jenkins murder connects dozens around country 
 
Could there be a calculated, cross-country plot to kill young college men, including some in Minnesota? It seems a little hard to believe, but two New York detectives say, they can prove it.

Now, they are revealing years of their evidence for the first time to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS...

GO DEEPER INTO THE INVESTIGATION:

THE JENKINS FILE: Rarely-seen documents related to the Chris Jenkins murder case

Interactive Map of victims possibly linked by the investigation

Visual timeline of the Jenkins murder case in Minneapolis

Extended video clips of detectives discussing the case

Kristi Piehl and John Mason talk about how the case has developed

List of possible Minn. and Wisc. victims

Kristi Piehl: How the story came about


University of Minnesota college student Chris Jenkins was found in the Mississippi River in February of 2003.

Minneapolis Police began investigating the case, which also caught the attention of two retired NYPD detectives.

Turns out, Jenkins' death was the missing part of the puzzle for Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte.

They think Jenkins connects dozens of other deaths around the country over the last decade. The stories are the same all over the country--an athletic, intelligent, well-liked college student goes missing.

Family and friends launch a massive search. Weeks or months later, the young man is discovered drowned. In more than 40 cases, the deaths are blamed on a drunken accident--except for one.

The death of Chris Jenkins in Minneapolis is the only one
"The level of evil we are dealing with here is rampant, it's deep and it's widespread," Chris' mother Jan Jenkins told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS

where the cause of death was changed from 'undetermined' or 'drowning' to 'homicide.'

"I can honestly tell you that I've walked every step of the way and it is hard for me to believe," Chris' mother Jan Jenkins told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. "The level of evil we are dealing with here is rampant, it's deep and it's widespread."

Because of extensive investigation by Duarte and Gannon, Jan Jenkins now says she knows exactly what happened to her son on the night he disappeared, Oct. 31, 2002.

"Chris was abducted in a cargo van," she said. "He was driven around Minneapolis for hours and tortured. He was taken down to the Mississippi River and he was murdered. And after that, his body was positioned and taken to a different spot and then to a different point in the Mississippi River."

Gannon and Duarte say they've discovered a link between Jenkins' death and the drownings of at least 40 other men in 25 cities in 11 different states.

It began in New York.

The investigation started 11 years ago in New York when then-Sgt. Gannon made a promise to the parents of Patrick McNeill.

Patrick McNeill was last seen at a New York City bar in 1997. His body was found 50 days later, 11 miles downriver.

"We knew it wasn't suicide," said Patrick McNeill's mother Jackie McNeill. "It was one of those things where he walked out and was never seen again."

One of the only things comforting the McNeill's is Gannon, a decorated officer with a long history in the New York City Police Department.

"I told them I would never give up on the case," Gannon told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. When Gannon retired, he devoted his life to keeping his promise to the McNeill's.

"We've been doing this on our own, our own finances" Gannon explained. "We've never taken a penny from any of the families. I personally have mortgaged my own home to investigate this."

According to Gannon's ally, Duarte, this is almost 'a perfect crime' because the water washes away any physical evidence and there are never any witnesses. Almost all of the men are last seen by friends leaving a bar or college party.

"I think it is a serial killer, but not one individual," Anthony Duarte said

Local police have investigated the deaths and the FBI has even taken a look at the cases.

In every case except for the Jenkins case, local law enforcement has ruled the death an accident.

"I think it is a serial killer, but not one individual," Duarte said."I would just say, a group of individuals, probably located in more than one state," Duarte said, adding that he thinks that he thinks they may kill again.

'Sick Signature'

Gannon and Duarte have done something that no other law enforcement agency has ever done in this case--they looked at the big picture and visited each site where the young man disappeared.

While most local investigations focused on where a body was recovered, Gannon and Duarte tried to figure out where the body went into the river.

City after city, when they'd find the spot where the body went into the water, they would find something else: The symbol of a smiley face

"It's very disturbing," Duarte said.

The paint color and size of the face varies, but the detectives are convinced that it's a sick signature the killers leave behind.

They found one eight years ago in Wisconsin and then others in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Then most recently, they believe they've found one in Iowa.

In Michigan, they found something strange among the groups graffiti, the word 'Sinsiniwa.' They couldn't figure out what it meant until a few months later when they arrived in Dubuque, Iowa to investigate the death of Matt Kruziki.

His body was found on Sinsiniwa Avenue. Plus, they've discovered the nicknames of people in the group at more than one location.

Two years ago, already entrenched in their investigation, Gannon and Duarte came to Minnesota. They connected with St. Cloud State College Professor Lee Gilbertson.

Gilbertson had challenged his criminology students to search for patterns in the 11 disappearances of Minnesota and Wisconsin college students.

Why go public?

Gannon and Duarte are now confident they've discovered a nationwide criminal enterprise.

The detectives say they have to go public to 'protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty.'

"If nothing else, we have to warn the families and the young individuals so that no one else becomes a victim," Gannon said.

Added Duarte: "Other kids are at risk, yes, it's very frustrating."

Gannon and Duarte want their investigation to prompt changes in the way drownings are investigated.

They say medical examiners frequently don't even consider murder when looking at the body of a drowning victim.

The detectives requested that 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS hold back some key details of the murders such as motive and the identities of the informants. They hope that information will someday be used to file criminal charges.

They have already taken all of this evidence in the Jenkins case to Minneapolis Police and Hennepin County prosecutors--so why haven't they taken action? We will ask them.

[Denise]

http://www.wgrz.com/...&provider=gnews

Inmates Receive Playing Cards With Pictures of Missing People

Posted by:  Autmn Lewandowski, Meteorologist 

Created: 5/9/2008 3:37:38 PM
Updated: 5/9/2008 4:35:26 PM

The playing card program gives inmates across New York decks of playing cards in hope of solving missing persons or homicide cases. The center of Healing Our Painful Emotions or HOPE teamed up with the Sheriff’s offices across New York to come with playing cards, which would create new leads on cases that have gone cold.

The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office submitted missing persons and unsolved homicides to the Center of HOPE. Each card places a picture of the individual along with a description of that case. Also cards have descriptions of how inmates may contact the authorities if they have information.

“The hope is that somebody that has been incarcerated may have the key to find one of these missing people, solve a homicide and bring closure to families” said Chautauqua County Sheriff Joseph Gerace.

Gerace says two cases from Chautauqua County are featured in this deck of cards. If the program proves to be effective additional decks of cards will be produced with new cold cases printed on them.

[Denise]

May 08, 2008

Sylvia's Claims

Sylvia Browne claims to talk with dead people.

And, according to the self-proclamed psychic, they talk to her too.

Five years ago, Craig and Pam Akers, the parents of Shawn Hornbeck, went on the Montel Williams show to see if Browne could give them fresh clues about what may have happened to their missing son. The show aired four months after Shawn's disappearance.

"Imagine your loved one vanishes without a trace," said Williams during the opening segment of his show. "Who do you turn to for some answers? Well, we called the right person and they're here to help. Please welcome the world-renown psychic Sylvia Browne."

Browne entered the room to standing applause and Williams kissed her on the cheek.

After helping Browne sell her book, Williams introduced the Craig and Pam Akers, then played a taped segment about Shawn's disappearance.

Immediately following the report, Williams introduced the Akers.

"There's absolutely no evidence to support any kind of theory" about what happened to Shawn, according to Craig Akers.

Desperate and willing to try almost anything, the Akers decided to see if Browne could help.

Here are her claims, if her revelations were TRUE or FALSE and what really happened:

1. Shawn was dead.

FALSE Four years later, Shawn was found alive in an apartment in Kirkwood.

2. Shawn was "picked up in a blue colored sedan. It's an older Chevrolet. Sort of with the tail fins on them, which was what 58, 59."

FALSE Shawn's kidnapper forced him into a pickup truck.

3. The kidnapper "was a guy named Michael" who was "passing through the area."

TRUE The kidnapper, Michael Devlin, lived in Kirkwood.

However, Michael has also been one of the most popular names in the United States for decades, according to the Social Security Administration, which means if the kidnapper wasn't named Michael he probably had a friend or close contact with that name. In other words, it was a safe bet.

It also seems logical that the kidnapper was from out of town. If he lived in the small community of Richwoods, it would have been much easier to find Shawn.

4. The kidnapper "was dark-skinned, although he wasn't black. He was more Hispanic looking. He had real long, dark hair....and he had dreadlocks."

FALSE Michael Devlin is white. He had a scraggly beard, short hair and did not wear it in dreadlocks.

5. Shawn was within a "20 mile radius" of his home in Richwoods and could be found in a wooded area "southwest of where you are."

FALSE Shawn was found nearly 50 miles northeast of Richwoods. He was living with Devlin, and recently kidnapped Ben Ownby, in Devlin's apartment in Kirkwood.

6. There were prominant landmarks in the wooded area where Shawn's body could be found. "Strangely enough there are two jagged boulders, which look really misplaced," she told the Akers. "Everything is trees, then all of a sudden you've got these stupid boulders sitting there. He's near the boulders."

FALSE Again, Shawn was found in an apartment.


When Sylvia Browne arrived at a St. Louis hotel Saturday night, I asked her if there was anything she wanted to say to the parents of Shawn Hornbeck.

The legendary self-proclaimed psychic looked very uncomfortable and quickly responded "No, no, no."

The woman who claims to talk with the dead and has always been eager to share her insight to strangers on almost any subject, still refuses to answer questions about her most controversial case.

Shawn's parents politely declined to talk about Browne or her claims about their son.

Sylvia Browne's involvement in one of America's most famous missing child cases speaks for itself.

I've provided several links in this blog, including one for Sylvia Browne. However, after reading numerous e-mails from our viewers I decided to provide two additional links for websites operated by Robert Lancaster and James Randi, her two most vocal critics. Both men have been following her for a long time and are skeptical of her alleged psychic powers.

The information in our story, and my blog, was taken directly from the Montel Williams show, then compared with various media reports, mostly the coverage of KMOV. I also used websites operated by Browne, Randi and Lancaster. However, KMOV covered the Hornbeck case extensively and our files provided the overwhelming majority of information in my report.

Randi and Lancaster were very helpful. Unfortunately, as you know, Ms. Browne and her staff never cooperated with us and Ms. Browne granted us only a very brief interview as she arrived at her St. Louis hotel.

I encourage anyone interested in our story to read all of the links.

Clearly, our story about Sylvia Browne has touched the nerves of many supporters and critics.

I appreciate the feedback from everyone.
http://www.beloblog....ias-claims.html

[Denise]

http://www.daytondai...08deadfolo.html

Missing adults are rarely focus of police attention
Parents of Heather Walker, whose body was found in trash can, don't think officers looked for her

By Lou Grieco
Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

DAYTON — Heather Nicole Walker, whose body was found in an alley trash can, had a history of running away, according to a search of Dayton Police Department reports. But as an 18-year-old, she was no longer a juvenile and could go where she wanted, a sergeant said.

"Many adults go missing throughout the year," Sgt. Chris Williams said Monday, April 28. Most, however, turn up again. Very few turn out to be victims of foul play, he said.

Police will search for juveniles reported missing or for adults in special cases, such as someone who is senile. If there is evidence of a crime or some form of crime scene, police also will search for a missing adult, Williams said.

But for those adults who are just missing, police do not search. They'll do a report, and if an officer happens to see that person, the officer will make a notification,

Williams said.

The Montgomery County Coroner's Office on Monday deferred the cause of death for Walker pending the return of toxicology tests.

The tests could take six to eight weeks, coroner's officials said.

Walker's parents, Tammy and

Robert Walker, reported her missing on Feb. 9. They said she was last seen in the parking lot of Sam's Market, 3501 E. Third St. Her body was found Saturday, April 26, in a trash can in an alley off Jersey Street, just north of East Third.

"I honestly in my heart don't think the police looked for her at all,"

Tammy Walker said during a vigil Monday evening in the alley where her daughter was found. "They should have been looking for her knowing that men are known to pick up young girls in this

neighborhood."

Tammy Walker said she has barely heard from police investigators since she reported her daughter missing.

A cashier at Sam's Market, about six blocks from where Walker was found, said police have yet to interview any store employees. Heather's parents have said she was last seen in the store parking lot. The cashier declined to give his name, but pointed out that the store has set out a jar at the front counter to collect donations for the Walker family.

Robert Walker also attended the vigil, accompanied by more than two dozen members of his mixed-martial arts team from his gym in Moraine.

"Somebody's going to find out what happened to her, whether it's me and my family, or whether the police finally decide to do their job," he said.

[Denise]

http://blog.clevelan...take_me_ho.html

Summit promotes its "Take Me Home'' program

Posted by Maggi Martin May 24, 2008 09:42AM

Summit County officials are reminding people of the "Take Me Home'' program as National Missing Children's Day kicks off Sunday.

"Take Me Home'' is a database maintained by the Summit County Sheriff's Office for children and adults with disabilities that impact their ability to communicate if they become lost or separated from caregivers.

The database contains the person's photo and identifying characteristics. It also lists their disability, such as autism, Down Syndrome, Alzheimer's or dementia and five contacts who can take responsibility for the individual.

The database pulls up photos that can be matched to the individual quickly, helping to reunite them with their families.

It is only accessible to law enforcement.

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh noted that National Missing Children's Day was a good time "for all caregivers and parents to take a few minutes to talk to their children about safety.''

Bevan Walsh said Summit County was one of the few programs in the state that boosts law enforcement efforts to reunite individuals with disabilities and their caregivers.

Bevan Walsh said the Summit database has enrolled 550 children, adults and seniors.

The Alzheimer's Association, Greater East Ohio Area Chapter, recently became a partner.

The group's advisory board includes local police and dispatch personnel, the Autism and Alzheimer's associations, the sheriff and prosecutor's office.

[Denise]

http://media.www.dis...e-3379631.shtml

The Black and missing finally get a voice

Courtney Battle/Contributing Writer
Issue date: 6/8/08 Section: Cover

As if it were a family reunion, smiling faces greeted each other at Meridian Restaurant and Bar on a warm Saturday afternoon. Twenty-five friends, family, and associates of Derrica Wilson had gathered in the sun-lit dining room. They hugged, kissed, and exchanged kind words. But then the mood suddenly changed when Wilson announced the purpose of the event - to honor those who have missed out on the company of their family. The Black and missing.

Local print and television media came out to capture the event which they inadvertently triggered by their apparent indifference to covering the lives of Blacks, poor and missing. Wilson wants to change that. On Saturday, May 24, Wilson, president and CEO of Black and Missing, Inc. (BAM), announced the launch of a free, Web-based service whose mission is to maximize exposure of missing persons of color so they can be reunited with their loved ones. The service uses a formal, technology database to create a profile of missing individuals and will include biographical and physical information.

"As a police officer, mother, and member of the African-American community, I have witnessed first-hand the disparity in media coverage for missing persons of color," said Wilson, a Hyattsville, Md., resident. "BAM was created to change that disparity by being the voice of the missing."

BAM will create public awareness campaigns for missing African Americans, Hispanics and Asians and provide parents, other family members and friends with a forum for spreading the word about the disappearance of missing persons. A variety of media will be used to help locate the missing. BAM is also dedicated to educating individuals on personal safety, and providing tips on what to do if a loved one is missing.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation statistical report published in January 2008, there are more than 65,000 persons missing. More than 25,000 of them are persons of color.

"For many years, the minority community has been severely underserved in the media mainstream when it comes to missing persons," Wilson writes on the new organization's web site: ww.blackandmissinginc.com. "We're dedicated to getting these cases to the media mainstream."

Wilson recalled the case of Phylecia White, a 48-year-old Alexandria, Va., woman who suffers from mental illness. After making what was probably a routine hospital visit, she disappeared. She was last seen in April, but her status was not publicized until May. Rupinder Kaur Goraya, an Asian woman has been missing since October 2007 from Fort Myers, Fl. In addition, Asian male, Khoi Dang Vu disappeared in April 2007. The 26 year old was last seen in Washington state.

Their cases did not meet media coverage standards, like Laci Patterson and Natalee Holloway which became household names, while missing persons of color like Tamika Houston received little to no news coverage. Houston was a 24-year-old South Carolina woman who went missing in June 2004. She was found dead the next year. Like Patterson and Holloway, Houston was young, sparkling, beloved, beautiful and gone without a trace, wrote one infuriated blogger.

"The mechanism of racism in our society is responsible for the media ignoring missing persons of color," Wilson said, adding, "Some might say that missing minorities don't generate the ratings. As a mother, I wouldn't know what to do if my son went missing," said Wilson, whose five-year-old son eagerly supported her at the luncheon.

The free service allows anyone to report a missing person by simply uploading a photograph and basic information. Within 24 hours, the new profile is published.

Wilson also plans to make the service available to the police. "We're going to be sending it to all the law enforcement agencies nationwide," she said. "We have to get out of the frame of mind of 'no snitching'," she said. "If anyone out there knows anything, please report it. The tips are anonymous."

Her next step is to bring BAM to the small screen. "My ultimate goal is to create a TV show like America's Most Wanted with reenactments, because I'm a firm believer that someone out there knows something," said Wilson.