The “maliciously missing”

I found this editorial about voluntary missing adults, whom the author refers to as “maliciously missing.” That may be a good term for it, though as I have written on here before, I believe many adults who walk out of their lives are deeply troubled people who need help. The article references Jon Van Dyke and David Rockey, both of whom have previously been profiled on Charley.

I sometimes wonder just how seriously we should take a spouse or parent’s assertion that their MP would “never” abandon their family, children, job, etc. Of course, the MP’s family knows them better than anyone else, but at the same time they don’t want to think or speak badly of their missing relative. And it’s possible to have secrets your closest friends and relatives don’t know about. The family’s opinion should be taken into account, but I don’t think we should assume an MP definitely didn’t leave on his own just because his family says he was an honorable and responsible person who wouldn’t have walked out on them.

James Hendrickson article

The Arizona Daily Star is doing a series on cold cases, and they just ran an article on James Hendrickson, a twelve-year-old boy who disappeared from Tucson in 1991. The case has not received much publicity — most boys’ cases don’t — and it’s not really clear what happened to him, but probably it was nothing good.

Twelve or thirteen seems to be a common age for a stranger abduction. A child that age is typically given some independence (walking alone to school and stuff) and no longer watched constantly by their parents. Also they feel quite grown up and think they can handle anything that comes along, but they’re pretty naive still. When I have time perhaps I’ll go back through the Charley cases and determine if a significant percentage of presumed abducted children are that age.

Jeannie Melville article

I had previously reported that Jeannie Melville, an eighteen-year-old girl who went missing in August 1970, was found deceased. I thought she wouldn’t get any press, but I was wrong: I just found this article in the Dayton Daily News. Jeannie’s nude body was found in a cornfield in Darke County, Ohio in October 1970, but it wasn’t identified until now. She was en route to visit her aunt in Ohio when she disappeared. It looks like she met the wrong person on that bus.

Obviously she was murdered, and the killer got a 39-year head start. I doubt the case is solveable, but at least her family knows what happened to her.

Missing child Bejohna Peres possibly found in Canada

Bejohna Peres disappeared from Houston, Texas in 2007. She was three years old at the time and is believed to have been abducted by her non-custodial mother. Well, Bejohna may have been found in Ontario, Canada. According to this article (which misspells the child’s name as “Brejohna”), police have taken a little girl into protective custody and are trying to determine whether she is Bejohna. The little girl was in the care of Carol Ann Cozzi, who says she’s the child’s mother and her name is Briana. She gave the police a birth certificate to support her claims. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt about Cozzi’s identity. If the girl is Bejohna, how did she end up with Cozzi and where is her mother? This would not be the first time a parent abducted their child only to foist it on someone else.

The article contains additional info about Bejohna’s disappearance. She and her three siblings were in the care of their grandmother when their mother took all four of them. The three other children were found safe in Las Vegas, Nevada in November 2007, but Bejohna and her mother have yet to be located.

It’s not really clear why the police think Briana is Bejohna. I really hope she is. Otherwise, a mother and child have been separated needlessly and probably traumatized by the experience.