Sofia Juarez will have been missing nine years next Saturday, as noted in this article. She vanished without a trace, presumably kidnapped, the day before her fifth birthday — making her just old enough to have some memories of her former life, assuming she’s still alive. After Jaycee Dugard, etc., you can never say never. Sadly, though, Sofia’s mother will never be reunited with her daughter on this earth. Maria Juarez died three years ago. She was only twenty-six years old. Natural causes.

(Another article about the case which says “Sofia is the only open missing child case on record for the [Kennewick] police department, but the oldest missing person case is from 1978 when June Howard disappeared.” Who’s June Howard? Inquiring minds want to know. They ought to do an article on her.)

The police are re-examining the case of Virginia Rambus, who disappeared from Washington state in 1985. She was nineteen and last seen leaving home to go to a party. They had previously mentioned a person of interest, a neighbor known only as the “Candy Man.” Well, he’s been identified as Jesse Pratt, who’s currently doing life in an Oregon prison for killing another Seattle woman. Prior to the murder he had kidnapped yet a third woman. Click here for a picture of a car Pratt drove, which might have some connection to Virginia’s case.

The family of Tracy Melton, a 32-year-old Stockton, California woman who disappeared in 1998 and is profiled on Charley, are very angry that the police identified a bone fragment as hers all the way back in last April but didn’t bother to inform them for nine months. The police are sorry and promised to mend their ways. With so little remains to go off of, they may never know how or when Tracy died.

There’s going to be a TV show focusing on black missing persons, hosted by S. Epatha Merkerson, who used to be on Law and Order.

Anyone who’s in psychotic online stalker mode can just go to the Cleveland Clinic’s headache center Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 for the next three weeks. I’ll be there.

All the best to her; I hope this marriage works out. She is a very strong, resilient young woman who has been through a lot.

I am particularly pleased with the Amber Hoopes one. I had some stuff on her from NamUs and then realized I had never altered her casefile in the whole seven years the Charley Project has existed, so I Googled her name to see if I could find anything. I found things in abundance, in particular a website her grandparents made about her disappearance. The Hoopes updates lead to my updating Stephanie Crane‘s casefile too; since those two cases share a suspect, they also shared a lot of the same details for the “circumstances of disappearance” section.

If only nights like this could still happen at the rate that they used to. But! I have an appointment to see a neurologist in Cleveland on Tuesday and it looks like the ever-elusive I-Match Program will at last come within my grasp. I think this appointment is the final, or close to the final, hoop that I have to jump through before I get my name on the waiting list. And then it’s just a matter of, well, waiting.

Because the Headache has for the past fifteen months been such a powerful malevolent force in my life. It makes me feel nostalgic for the days when all I had to worry about was severe depression and resulting suicidality, or horrific bullying at school, or academic problems, or all the backstabbing petty fighting in my family, or all of these at the same time… all of these seem to pale in comparison to this entirely different kind of misery. I must needs get into I-Match because it is the greatest weapon that I know of to fight the Headache. One of us has got to go.

I’ll put him on Charley’s resolved page next time I update. His online obituary is here. He was 25 when he disappeared, had been married for two years, and left behind three children. I’m sorry he was found dead, but glad that he was found at all.

In 2010, Herzog had been paroled and was required to keep curfew, wear a tracking bracelet and live on the grounds of the High Desert State Prison. He had a trailer there and was free to come and go at will during the daytime hours. He hung himself inside his trailer. This may have been prompted by a warning that his partner-in-crime, Wesley Shermantine, was planning to disclose the locations of their victims’ bodies.

I doubt many people will mourn him.

January 17, 2006: Clarence Ray Allen, who was ultimately responsible for four murders, although he didn’t commit any of them himself. One of the homicides is a Charley Project case: 17-year-old Mary Sue Kitts, who disappeared in 1974. Allen was 76 by the time of his execution and in very poor health, and his attorneys said it would be cruel and unusual to execute a sick old man. The court of appeals rejected this argument and pointed out that it was Allen’s own fault that he was a sick old man on death row; he’d been 50 years old when he ordered the murders that would lead to his death sentence, and spent the next quarter-century trying to prolong his life with endless appeals.

After Qua’mere’s disappearance was finally reported in July 2009, Damion was charged with statutory rape of Qua’mere’s mother. His trial has been postponed just before it was supposed to start, however, since Damion has suddenly begun acting crazy.

Davis began ranting that Aloi, Cali and Smith [the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney] all were among the legions of extraterrestrials who have taken over the world.

Several times, Aloi tried to interrupt, but Davis just continued his rant as he sat at the defense table beside Smith.

I would totally bet money that he’s faking it.

DNA tests performed in September proved that Damion was NOT Qua’mere’s father, after all, although both Damion and the boy’s mother thought he was. That isn’t going to stop the statutory rape prosecution, though.

The police think Qua’mere was probably murdered. There’s an article about his disappearance that ran just before Damion became “crazy.” It has some new information.

Patrick Sr. was shot during a home invasion at his apartment in Brooklyn. It was particularly nasty: Five men broke into the apartment in broad daylight and fired five shots, hitting Patrick Sr. in the head and the leg. He returned fire with his own gun. His two young children were inside the apartment and were, thank goodness, unharmed. The police are thinking it was drug-related: Patrick Sr. has 20 prior arrests, many of them for drug offenses, and there were 20 baggies of pot in his apartment.

He’s in critical condition. No word on whether they expect him to pull through or not. I suppose this case would probably have gotten no media attention at all were it not for Patrick Jr. being missing.

Articles:
New York Daily News
The Staten Island Advance