42 replies to this topic

[Denise]

Heather has now been missing for 13 years.  Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones.

Print a poster: http://www.projectja...atherTeague.pdf

[Kelly]

AAN Poster Notify Sent  Code 37

Help us find the missing: Become an AAN Member
http://www.projectja.../awareness.html

[Lori Davis]

http://www.courierpr...scue-dogs-nose/

Missing woman's scent on rescue dog's nose
By Victoria Grabner (Contact)
Thursday, December 25, 2008

The search for Heather Teague, who was abducted 13 years ago while sunbathing on Newburgh Beach in Henderson County, Ky., will resume Monday where it began — on the bank of the Ohio River across from Newburgh.

A bloodhound will be the newest addition in the effort to solve a mystery that surrounds the disappearance of the Webster County, Ky., woman.

Teague was 23 when she was reported to have been dragged off the beach on Aug. 26, 1995, by a man with a gun.

An eyewitness who was viewing the area through a telescope from his Newburgh home reported the abduction to police.

On Monday and Tuesday, Penny Bell, a search dog handler from Milwaukee, will bring her bloodhound, Nixter, to the beach and surrounding area to search for Teague's scent.

Bell is the lead handler of Keeping Tracks, a Milwaukee-based bloodhound search, rescue and recovery organization that was founded in 1996 to help in the recovery of missing persons.

"(Bell) said she had heard about Heather's case for two years, and she didn't really know how to contact me," said Sarah Teague of Madisonville, the victim's mother. "I told her it was amazing that she contacted me because I was trying to get this search organized."

Teague is hopeful Nixter will be able to tell her which direction Heather Teague was taken after she was dragged away from the river.

The bloodhound, Teague said, will attempt to pick up Heather Teague's scent from her car, the chaise lounge she was lying on that day and her bathing suit that authorities found in a wooded area where she and her abductor disappeared.

"Somebody from the Kentucky State Police post will have to be there to hold the bathing suit, which has remained in the evidence room all these years," Teague said.

Weather permitting, Bell and Nixter will begin a search of Newburgh Beach and the area where a barn once stood at 8 a.m. Monday.

On Tuesday, Nixter and Bell will search an area on John Steele Road near the residence of Marvin Ray "Marty" Dill, the only person police identified as a suspect in the abduction.

Investigators followed leads on a red-and-white Ford Bronco seen at the beach at the time of Teague's abduction to Dill's residence. Sarah Teague said the screams of a woman reportedly were heard in that area seven hours after her daughter was dragged away from the riverfront.

Dill committed suicide as police went to the residence to question him before dawn on Sept. 1, 1995.

"We just don't know what's going to happen," Teague said, adding she has been assured by Bell that the bloodhound would be able to track her daughter's scent even after 13 years.

"This is the first opportunity that anything like this has come this way. I believe that we will find her," Teague said. "It sure would be a fine Christmas present."

[Lori Davis]

http://www.wztv.com/...fox17.com.shtml

Mother hoping with bloodhounds after 13 years
December 28, 2008 12:45 EST

HENDERSON, Ky. (AP) -- A western Kentucky mother is hoping that a bloodhound can track her daughter's scent 13 years after she disappeared from a beach along the Ohio River.

A Wisconsin woman, Penny Bell, and her dog, Nixter, will roam Newburgh Beach near Henderson on Monday and Tuesday, hoping to pick up the scent Heather Teague, who was 23 when she vanished on Aug. 26, 1995.

Bell is the lead handler of Keeping Tracks, a Milwaukee, Wis., bloodhound search/rescue and recovery organization that was founded in 1996 to help in the recovery of missing persons.

Heather's mother, Sarah Teague, says she's hopeful the dog can at least find the direction her daughter went in when she was taken from the beach.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.courierpr...es-scent-found/

Bloodhound indicates traces of Teague's scent found
By Victoria Grabner (Contact)
Originally published 07:49 a.m., December 31, 2008
Updated 07:49 a.m., December 31, 2008

A search was conducted on Tuesday in which a bloodhound appeared to indicate that there might be traces of a missing Webster County woman’s scent on property where a suspect in the case once resided.

Heather Teague disappeared on Aug. 26, 1995, while she was sunbathing on Newburgh Beach. Officials say an eyewitness who was viewing the area through a telescope saw the 23-year-old being dragged off the beach.

The initial suspect in the case, Marvin Ray “Marty” Dill, later committed suicide as police were closing in on his residence on John Steele Road to question him just days after Teague’s disappearance.

And for 13 years, Teague’s mother, Sarah Teague, has continued to search for clues to solve that mystery.

On Tuesday, a 5 1/2 year old bloodhound named Nixter apparently gave 13 separate indications that Teague’s scent was near or on Dill’s former property near Poole, according to handler Penny Bell.

Bell is the lead handler of Keeping Tracks, a Milwaukee, Wis., bloodhound search/rescue and recovery organization that was founded in 1996 to help in the recovery of missing persons.

She claimed Nixter used Teague’s tennis shoe that was found at the beach and Teague’s original bathing suit bottom to indicate that Teague’s scent was present on or near the Dill property.

The ways that the dog would indicate that he had picked up Heather Teague’s scent was to try to crawl through fences toward the Dill property and to stick his nose up in the air, Bell said.

“This is a very big deal,” Sarah Teague said Tuesday. “I’ve waited 13 years to bring her home.”

Sarah Teague has said that she hopes to convince officials to find probable cause for a search warrant of the Dill property. But by press time Tuesday, it appeared that no search warrant had been issued or even formally requested.

County Attorney Steve Gold said Teague’s attorney, Chip Adams, came to the Henderson County Attorney’s Office seeking clerical assistance in typing an affidavit, which he received.

“Adams left with the documents and we are unaware as to whether or when he intends to present the affidavit to a judge,” Gold said. “The Henderson County Attorney’s Office stands ready and willing to assist both law enforcement and Ms. Teague, through Mr. Adams, to bring closure to this tragic case.”

Meanwhile, the search for clues to Heather Teague’s disappearance began on Monday at Newburgh Beach. Bell told officials there is no standard certification for bloodhounds, though there is a national standard used for law enforcement dogs.

She said she works in line with standards of the National Police Bloodhound Association. According to the Web site, the association is a source for information relative to the use of purebred bloodhounds in the field of law enforcement.

The National Police Bloodhound Association said that membership qualification is limited to sworn law enforcement personnel and law enforcement agencies.

[Kelly]

http://www.publicbro...res/Billy's.Law

Billy's Law helps Kentuckians locate missing loved ones

Paco Long-Mendez (2009-12-04)

MADISONVILLE, KY (wkms) - One Western Kentucky woman is using her experience of having a loved one go missing to help people in similar situations nation wide. She has teamed up with a woman in Connecticut who wrote a federal bill to help find the missing, and is pushing Kentucky legislators to endorse it. So far Representative Ed Whitfield has signed on as a co-sponsor. Paco Long-Mendez has more.

It was a normal August day in 1995 and 23 year old Heather Teague of Madisonville was soaking in the sun on Newburgh beach in Spottsville before she disappeared. In the early days of the investigation simple processes were not completed. Sarah Teague is Heather's mother.

"There wasn't anything of Heather's on file, there was no fingerprints taken from her belongings left on the beach that day and I was just alarmed."

Over the next few years investigators found remains, though without any identifiable information on file they could not confirm a match to Heather. Sarah remembers what she asked State Police to do if they found her.

"And of course I am still in just a state of shock, and I remember vividly saying just bring me a piece of her hair. A parent shouldn't have to go through anything like that, just wanting to find a piece of her child's hair."


It's now, fourteen years after Heather's disappearance and there are still no confirmed signs of her whereabouts. Heather's Mother Sarah has come to understand the reality that she and many others across the nation face.

"Unidentified remains are there just waiting to connect the dots, to bring, to bring these people home to be able to say good by."

In the last year Sarah came in contact with Janice Smolinski of Connecticut who lost her son Billy in 2004. They are now teaming up with legislators and law enforcement officials to push a bill that Smolinski wrote. Potentially helping thousands of others missing loved ones across the nation.

"Right now we have what they call a silent crisis, and there are a hundred and sixty-five thousand missing persons in the United States and forty thousand unidentified."

Smolinski relates to Sarah and understands that her search is now for remains and the crucial time to act has long past.

"Billy's report wasn't taken seriously at the beginning, it's the first 24, 48, 72 hours that are the most important when a person goes missing."

Smolinski spent a few years developing a bill to secure money to streamline communication between victim's families, databases and law enforcement officials. Streamlining this communication may help individuals gain resolution in those few crucial days of investigation. The bill on the House floor is named for Smolinski's son Billy, and is also known as "Help Find the Missing Act".


A key database that will be utilized by Billy's Law is Internet based and called NamUs. This system is actually made up of two databases, missing persons and unidentified persons. Being internet based the system can aid searches with its speed and accessibility. System Administrator Todd Matthews says communication currently exists between NamUs and other vital databases such as the FBI's National Crime Investigation Center or NCIC, but the process is slow.

"So in legal terms you have to work out the agreement for open access to exchange between systems and Billy's Law expedites that process a great deal and allocates monies to foster these new initiatives."

-Matthews says though current communication is slow it is needed to protect data during such exchanges. In some cases states have their own or multiple databases causing the nation to be fragmented.

" all of the cases in the United States should be directed to the central system, and all of Kentucky's unidentified currently are either in the system or in the process of being entered into the system, Kentucky's way ahead."

The process of centralizing this data to a national network will be much easier if all police departments and medical examiners had reliable broadband. . Billy's Law would create incentives for such facilities to participate in online databases that may help bring closure to thousands like Sarah Teague seeking answers regarding the whereabouts of lost loved ones. For WKMS News I'm Paco Long Mendez

Billy's Law has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security and awaits further consideration.

[Kelly]

http://www.14wfie.co...83&nav=3w6oT7ea


Person Of Interest In Heather Teague Case


Reporter: Shannon Samson
Web Producer: Amber Griswold

UPDATE, SUN 9PM: Newswatch is learning more about a "person of interest" in the nine-year old missing persons case of Heather Teague.

The information is coming out of Medina, Ohio. For more than a decade, Detective Scott Thomas and his colleagues have been investigating Christopher Below, a native of Henderson, Kentucky.

Last year, Thomas got Below to confess to the 1991 murder of his lover, Kathern Fetzer, for which he's currently serving time. But the detective suspects Below may have also harmed other women over the years who fit a certain profile.

Both Fetzer and Teague had long, dark hair, were around five feet tall, and weighed only 100 pounds.

Detective Thomas told Newswatch, "The Heather Teague case was interesting because, a) He's from the area. I was able to establish a time frame that he was in that area at the time and that shortly after her disappearance, he left the state of Kentucky."

Thomas says the more he dug into Below's life, the stranger it got. He calls the 39-year-old a pathological liar, a sociopath, and an extreme manipulator.

We will continue to follow this story on Newswatch at 5 and 6. We will bring you the exclusive interview with the Ohio detective who suspects Chris Below is the man who dragged Heather Teague off a beach in broad daylight, or may have played some other role in her disappearance.


EARLIER: A hot lead Friday night in a cold tri-state case.

Heather Teague disappeared while sunbathing on Newburgh Beach in Henderson County nine years ago. Now, Kentucky State Police are taking a closer look at someone they're calling "a person of interest."

Kentucky state police say a Henderson native who is currently behind bars for killing a young woman in Ohio, has become a person of interest in the Teague case. They say there have been many "people of interest" in the Heather Teague case over the course of the nine year investigation.

One stands out in particular because of his violent past and his whereabouts at the time of Heather's disappearance. Only a detective in Ohio was willing to go on record to talk about the possible connection.

It took a detective in Medina, Ohio twelve years to get a Henderson, Kentucky native to confess to the murder of a young woman named Kathern Fetzer. It took another year to bring that man to justice. But this detective says his work is not over.

Through a telescope across the Ohio River, an eyewitness says he watched a man come out of the woods behind Newburgh Beach and drag 23-year-old Heather Teague away at gunpoint. She was never heard from again.

Four years earlier and 450 miles away in Medina, Ohio, 26-year-old Kathern Fetzer left a note for her husband that said she was feeling restless and needed to go to the mall. She was never heard from again.

The investigation led to Christopher Below, originally from Henderson, Kentucky. He was living near Medina at the time and working with Fetzer at a factory. He was reportedly having an affair with her too, but denied any involvement in her disappearance.

Medina City Police Detective Scott Thomas didn't believe it. Over the next twelve years, Detective Thomas continued to track down and re-question Below as he moved from state to state.

In the fall of 2003, Below had returned to the tri-state, living in this home on Evansville's west side with a woman and her five children. Evansville police detectives joined detective Thomas on November 18th, when they knocked on the door and asked Below to come downtown to talk about an unrelated case.

Inside, Detective Thomas confronted Below with new evidence in the Kathern Fetzer disappearance and Below finally confessed to shooting her.

He was eventually extradited to Ohio where he made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and is currently serving eleven to 18 years in prison.

Through it all, Fetzer's body was never recovered.

Below would have got less time if he would have led police to the woman's body, but all he would tell them is that she would never be found.

Detective Thomas says he doesn't believe Below disposed of her body in a dumpster as he initially confessed. He says in the past, Below had bragged to friends that he knew how to "get rid of bodies" and his philosophy was "no body -- no crime."

Those statements prompted the detective to start looking at other missing persons cases, especially those whose physical descriptions were similar to Kathern Fetzer's. And that's when he started looking into the disappearance of Heather Teague.

Detective Thomas says Below would have had the opportunity for involvement, because he was living in Henderson in August of 1995, when she vanished.

And since Henderson is where Below grew up, it's likely he knew the only suspect in the case, Marty Dill.

Newburgh resident Tim Walthall has always contended Dill is the man he watched through a telescope drag Heather off the beach at gunpoint. Heather's mother Sarah has always suspected the composite sketch was drawn to match Dill's picture rather than the eye witnesses account of the actual gunman.

Whether Below is connected to Dill or the disappearance of Heather Teague is something investigators plan to ask him as he sits behind bars in an Ohio prison, serving an eleven to 18 year sentence for the death of Kathern Fetzer.

Detective Thomas says because Chris Below worked as a truck driver for some time, he may have ties to other missing person cases in other parts of the country too.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.courierpr...ng-madisonvill/

Nationwide tour for missing persons coming to Madisonville
By Beth Smith
Evansville Courier & Press
Posted August 24, 2010 at 5:47 p.m., updated August 24, 2010 at 5:47 p.m.

The seventh annual “On the Road to Remember” nationwide tour for missing persons will stop in Madisonville on Thursday honoring three of Kentucky’s lost — Heather Teague, Albert Mitchell and Sandra Kay Travis.

The public is invited to the rally which will be at 1 p.m. at Madisonville City Park, 745 City Park Drive.

The tour is an initiative by the Community United Effort Center for Missing Persons, “to raise awareness of missing children and adults,” a press release said. The tour also hopes to generate new information regarding cold cases.

During Thursday’s tour stop in Kentucky, three people will be remembered.

Heather Teague, 23, of Webster County, disappeared from Newburgh Beach on Aug. 26, 1995.

Authorities said an eyewitness viewing the beach through a telescope saw a man drag Teague off the beach. She hasn’t been seen since.

She is described as a white female, about 5 feet tall and around 100 pounds. She has brown hair and green eyes. She has scoliosis of the spine therefore she has a noticeable curvature of the spine, according to the CUE web site. She has a round, red birthmark on her right buttock.

Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call the Kentucky State Police at 270-826-3312.

Albert Mitchell, 65, of Paris, Ky., has been missing since Aug. 29, 2004.

Mitchell was assaulted three weeks before his disappearance, according to information from the CUE Center’s web site. He was last seen by his ex-girlfriend on Aug. 23 when she went to the bank with him.

He is described as a white male, roughly 6 feet tall, around 200 pounds with black hair and blue eyes.

The day of his disappearance, he was wearing blue jeans, a blue denim shirt, black cowboy boots and a brown leather belt and a gold horseshoe shaped ring with diamonds.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts should contact the Bourbon County Kentucky Sheriff’s Department at 1-859-428-1212 or the Kentucky State Police.

Another person being remembered is 58-year-old Sandra Kay Travis, who disappeared on July 31, 2005, from Mayfield, Ky.

According to the CUE web site, Travis was last seen at her residence in the vicinity of Old Dukedon and Slaughter roads in Mayfield.

“Travis’ husband told his family that she died while visiting her children in Illinois. The family contacted her children and found that to be untrue. Her family contacted the sheriff’s department and they went to her home. Her husband said that he lied to his family because he was embarrassed to tell them that she ran off with a truck driver out of Southern Illinois. No one has seen or heard from her since,” according to the web site.

She is described as a white female, around 5 feet tall and 115 pounds. She has red hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information about her appearance is asked to contact the Graves County Sheriff’s Department at 270-247-4501.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.wdrb.com/...f-missing-woman

Scholarship formed in honor of missing woman

Posted: Aug 18, 2012 5:31 PM EDT Updated: Aug 18, 2012 5:31 PM EDT

HENDERSON, Ky. (AP) -- A western Kentucky high school will begin awarding a scholarship next year in honor of a graduate who disappeared nearly 17 years ago.

The Gleaner reports that the Heather Teague scholarship will be awarded next spring to a Webster County graduate who tries to succeed against difficult odds.

Teague was 23 when she was reported missing after visiting an Ohio River beach on Aug. 26, 1995. A Newburgh, Ind., resident told police he saw Teague being kidnapped from the area, but the case remains unsolved. Teague hasn't been seen since.

Teague's mother, Sarah Teague, said her daughter was salutatorian when she graduated in 1990 and the scholarship will be given to "someone that stands out in their effort and determination."

[Lori Davis]

http://www.wbko.com/...-167240035.html

17 Years Later, Search Continues For Missing Woman

Reporter: Casey Wheeless
Posted: Thu 4:24 PM, Aug 23, 2012
Updated: Thu 6:20 PM, Aug 23, 2012



August 26th, 2012 will mark the 17th anniversary of Heather D. Teague's alleged kidnapping.

Kentucky State Police say Teague, who was 23 when she was abducted, was last seen on that day in 1995 sunbathing at Newburgh Beach in Henderson County.

A witness told police he saw a white man grab Teague by her hair at gunpoint and drag her into the woods.

The man was described as six feet tall and about 220 pounds.

A man matching that description and police's main suspect, Marty Dill, committed suicide before police could question him about the abduction.

Police are hoping now, with the use of social media they will solve this case.

If you have any information contact KSP Post 16 at 270-863-3122.

[Kelly]

AAN Annual Poster Notify Sent to AAN Subscribers  Code 102

Help us find the missing: Become an AAN Member and receive notifications about missing persons via email.

Click here to become a part of the solution: http://www.projectja.../awareness.html

[Kelly]

http://www.tristateh...-still-has-hope

 

20 Years Later, A Mother Still Has Hope

 

Published 08/21 2015 04:09PM

Updated 08/21 2015 04:09PM

 

A billboard reminding people Heather Teague has been missing for 20 years is now up in Newburgh.

Her mom put at Covert heading into town from I-69.

Heather went missing during the summer of 1995. It was last reported she was sunbathing on a beach on the Ohio River in Spottsville, Kentucky.

A witness told police they saw a bearded man grab Heather from her lounge chair and pull her into a wooded area.

Kentucky State Police haven't been able to confirm the witness' account.
Police say the abduction scenario has been the main focus for years.

[Kelly]

http://www.courierpr...uction_15245800

Mother, police still seek answers 20 years after Teague abduction

Mark Wilson
4:54 PM, Aug 26, 2015
5:04 PM, Aug 26, 2015

Twenty years after Sarah Teague’s daughter vanished while sunbathing by the Ohio River in Henderson County, Kentucky, she has no answers.

No answers about what happened, where her daughter is and not even as to whether she is still alive.

Heather Teague , 23, disappeared Aug. 26, 1995, while sunbathing on Newburgh Beach in Henderson County across the Ohio River from Newburgh.

Five days later a man considered a suspect by police, Marty Dill, committed suicide as law enforcement officials attempted to serve a search warrant at his rural home.

Speaking from her Madisonville, Kentucky, home on Wednesday as she prepared for a press conference about her daughter’s case, Teague said she is dissatisfied with Kentucky State Police’s handling of the investigation and accused police of covering up evidence that the case was mishandled.

“I’m calling them out,” she said.

She said she has contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in hopes that it will take over the investigation.

Police, however, have a decidedly different take on the case. Trooper Corey King, spokesman for Kentucky State Police Post 16 at Henderson, said police are still actively pursuing it.

“We have exhausted many leads and we are continuing the investigation,” King said. “This is something that is ongoing for us and we refuse to give up.”

Investigators excavated several places last year based on leads, King said, including a cistern and several water retention basins. Nothing was found. The case remains open, he said.

At the time of the abduction, a Newburgh man told police he was looking at the beach across the river through a telescope and saw Heather Teague being dragged away by a shirtless man with a gun. The witness described her abductor as a bushy-haired man with a beard.

Almost from the beginning, Sarah Teague has looked on the witness statement not with hope but as a false lead.

“I still have the same questions now that I had six weeks after she disappeared,” she said.

Dill was linked to the abduction by his description and his ownership of a red-and-white Ford Bronco seen next to Heather’s car on the road to the beach the day she disappeared.

However, Sarah Teague believes the witness sketch of Dill was prepared from his drivers license picture, which she said she first saw published with a news story about six weeks after the abduction.

Last year, she showed a picture of Dill that she said was given to her by Dill’s mother and purportedly taken in July 1995, which would have been before Heather’s abduction. It shows Dill with a closely shaved head and beard, a clear contrast from sketch of the shaggy man seen dragging Heather off the beach.

She says booking records show that Dill was jailed three times in Webster County, Kentucky, between April 25 and May 24, 1995. Each time the records described him as being bald. A letter from Kentucky State Police responding to her open records request for the mugshot last year — provided by Sarah Teague to the Courier & Press — stated no such mugshot or photograph could be located.