William Loyd Cox’s foot, and body parts in general

William Cox, an elderly man who disappeared after a boating accident on the Sacramento River in 2007, has been found. Well, his foot’s been found, anyway. You could argue that a man can live without feet, but let’s be realistic here. I’m resolving his case.

I do have a case on Charley where they found a missing woman’s finger after her disappearance. Nothing else, just the finger. The Doe Network had — maybe still does have, I don’t know — a case of a missing woman profiled even though her skull had been located. I guess they did it because someone might find the rest of the body and need to identify it, but the skull? Not missing, people. Dead.

Mary Lee Grobe probably found

A skeleton found near Poplar Bluff, Missouri is probably that of Mary Lee Grobe, who’s been missing since 2003. The bones were found only a short distance from her home. I think I will wait for DNA confirmation before resolving her case on Charley, but I don’t see how the skeleton could be anyone but her.

The Grobe case was pretty ugly. Various members of her family turned on each other and accused each other of causing her disappearance. I hope now everything can be sorted out and justice will be served (assuming Ms. Grobe was murdered, which isn’t clear yet).

Additional articles:

KAIT 8
KFVS 12
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Dorothy Autrey’s killer convicted

On the Unsolved in the News blog I found this article saying the grandson of Dorothy Autrey was convicted of killing her. Her body was never found, but the grandson, Matthew Levine, confessed freely so it was kind of a no-brainer. Autrey had invited him to share her home because he was down and out, and he repaid her by killing her.

I don’t know anything about the trial; I’ll have to look it up. From what I know now, I’m surprised by the first-degree murder conviction. I would have guessed second-degree murder or even manslaughter. There’s not a lot of evidences besides Levine’s confession, and he said he accidentally killed her in a fit of temper while under the influence of drugs. Where’s the premeditation there? Not that I’m saying the guy deserves any sympathy. Far from it. I hope he never sees the light of day again.

UPDATE:
Ahh. It seems they found a lot of blood in the house, and Levine had been itching to inherit grandma’s money. Premeditation.

Article:
The San Luis Obispo Tribune

Woman missing over six years found dead inside her own house

Eunice Lydia Workman (listed as Burwell-Workman on Charley), a 77-year-old California woman, disappeared in December 2002. Just now they’ve found her body buried under a pile of debris inside her own house. Okay, the body hasn’t been officially identified as Eunice’s yet, but whose else could it be?

She apparently was a pack rat and accumulated a whole houseful of crap, and the relatives are only now going through the process of digging it out. Perhaps they wanted to sell the house. I’ve heard of this sort of thing happening before. Most famously, a pair of extremely eccentric recluse brothers in New York City, I think. One of them was blind and pretty much completely disabled. The other took care of him. The able brother was crushed by a pile of their accumulated stuff and the disabled one starved to death with no one to help him. I’ve known people like that, even a certain member of my immediate family, whom I can totally imagine suffocating under a heap of her own stuff someday. It’s so sad. What a way to die.

More articles:

The San Jose Mercury News
CBS 5
The Oakland Tribune
KTVU San Francisco

Oh-kay…

This article from the San Diego Union-Tribune says the cops have apparently located an 80-year-old woman who’s been missing for a decade or so. Her identity hasn’t been released, so I don’t know yet whether she’s a Charley case or not.

San Diego police unearthed skeletal remains believed to be of a woman Wednesday in the back yard of a Clairemont Mesa home as part of an adult missing-person’s investigation.

Police said no foul play is suspected.

The woman was buried in some backyard and no foul play is suspected? What gives? Perhaps she died of natural causes and her son or whoever buried her in the backyard, either out of some twisted desire to stay close to her or because he wanted to continue to collect Social Security benefits and stuff. That’s the only explanation I can think of.

What a bizarre case. I’ll keep you posted on it, if I find out anything more.

The three John Davises

Today, for the first time in the Charley Project’s history of four years and three months less a day, there are three missing people profiled with the same first and last name. Presenting: John Wesley Davis, John Davis, and John Davis Jr., also known as davis_john.html, davis2_john.html, and davis3_john.html. Thank goodness one has a middle name and one has a jr., or it would be even more awkward.

Really, about the only thing the cases have in common is that all of them involve adult men named John Davis. The first is a young white man who disappeared from Florida in 1981. His truck was found at an airport, indicating that perhaps he left on his own, but if he did then twenty-eight years is certainly a very long time to be gone with nary a postcard. The second is an elderly white man with dementia who wandered away from his Idaho nursing home for the umpteenth time in 2002. This time, though, he never came back. He’s probably dead. The nursing home seems very negligent to me, and John Davis’s sons think so too; they’re suing. I know almost nothing about the third case, just that John Davis Jr., a middle-aged black man, vanished from Louisiana in 2006.

I don’t know about John Jr., but I’m pretty sure John and John Wesley won’t make it home alive. But I’m thinking of them today, and since you’re reading my blog, you’re thinking of them too. That’s something, anyway.

It’s late (or early) and I’ve come off of night shift and I’m tired.