Young runaways

Having just written about the twelve-year-old runaway Kathrynn Seefeldt, I got curious and decided to find out how many runaways under 14 I have listed on Charley. Here they are:

Age 11
Mayra Soto, since 2003
Quinn Renard Woodfolk, since 1998

Age 12
Jorge Acosta, since 1992
Donna Marie Barron, since 2006
Kamyle Stephanie Burgos Ortiz, since 2006
Patricia Joan Chesher, since 1969
Karen Marie Hughes, since 1983
Maria Magdalena Carralejo Ojeda, since 1995
Francheska Sugel Martinez, since 2000
Carlota Maria Sanchez, since 1979
Mayra Erisuria Sandoval, since 2006
Kathrynn Sholly Seefeldt, since 2002
Ekaterina Shcherbakova, since 1998
Elyssa Marie Vasquez, since 2003

Age 13
Jesus Javier Blanco, since 2010
Adam Lawrence Bowens, since 2008
Richard Burton, since 2009
Daniel Cantrell, since 2006
Julian Carrozza, since 2009
Melinda Karen Creech, since 1979
Diana Echeverria-Acevedo, since 2008
Maria Isaia Flores Rubio, since 2007
Anel Gaspariano Perez, since 2010
Amelia Gomez, since 2008
Shaunda Renne Green, since 1983
Heather Janelle Lewis, since 2003
Misheila Isleen Martinez, since 2000
Lorena Mendoza, since 2005
Alishia Dachone Miller, since 1989
Johnny Lee Mills, since 1990
Jose Federico Nieto, since 2008
Tiffany Rose Hayes Oliver, since 2007
Merelyn Toro Ortiz, since 2008
Adaneli Perez, since 2007
Jennifer Rae Perry, since 1993
Stephanie Marie Pinero Morales, since 2008
Taranika Nichelle Raymond, since 1995
Ima Jean Sanders, since 1974
Uma Davi Sewpersaud, since 2002
Lawshawndra Seymore, since 2009
Isadora Sorrozo, since 2000
Marceline Tolondo, since 2000
Noelle Elizabeth Wilkening, since 2006
Elsa Janell Wind, since 1992

A depressingly long list. And many of these children have been missing for a depressingly long time.

Some of these don’t sound like runaways to me. Patricia Chesher and Ima Sanders sound like kidnappings, but they are listed as runaways on NCMEC which presumably knows more about their cases than I do. Karen Hughes is thought to be with her non-custodial mother, but the case is classified as a runaway rather than a family abduction.

Kathrynn Seefeldt articles

I found this article and this one about the 2002 disappearance of Kathrynn “Katie” Seefeldt from Independence, Missouri. She ran away from home, but she was only twelve at the time and no one has seen or heard from her since then. The police haven’t found any evidence of foul play, but nearly nine years of silence speak volumes.

I hope Katie is all right. I hope hears about herself and decides to call home. She’s 21 now and doesn’t have to actually return if she doesn’t want to, but her mom would love to at least hear that she’s alive.

Susan Powell’s parents get custody of her kids

Following Susan Powell‘s disappearance nearly two years ago, her husband, Josh, moved to Washington with his father, Steve. He took his and Susan’s children with him and wouldn’t allow her side of the family to have any contact with them. Well, as I wrote recently, Steve Powell has been arrested for voyeurism and child porn possession. It doesn’t appear that her children were victims, but some of the photos the police found were of Susan.

Susan’s parents have obtained temporary custody of her sons. I think that’s the best place for them, seeing as how Josh is a suspect — the only suspect, as far as I know — in her disappearance. (For the record, though, Josh has said he knew nothing of his father’s porn collection and will not be bailing him out of jail or letting him come home if he bails himself out.)

Steve had claimed Susan was “flirtatious” with him and that they were in love with each other, but Susan told all her friends she couldn’t stand Steve and that she actually moved to Utah just to get away from him. Her sister-in-law — Steve’s own daughter — was a close friend of Susan and she too has said Steve was really inappropriate towards her. The Examiner has several quotes on this topic from Susan’s friends and from Sandy Crain-Anderson, a friend of Steve’s.

As for Sandy Crain-Anderson’s info, it’s kind of sick:

For about a decade Steve Powell told Sandy that he had been in love with and obsessed with Susan.

“Susan was the focal point of the songs he wrote and that are posted on the Steve Chantrey website. Those are but a few of the many more songs written about Susan,” Sandy said.

“He is pining for a love he never could have,” she said.

“Steve was very proud of his stash of porn magazines he kept in a locked cabinet in his bedroom. He showed them to me when he lived at his previous Puyallup home,” Sandy said.

Last fall Sandy said Steve boasted that he still had the pair of Susan’s very sacred Mormon Temple Garment underwear that he stole from the dirty laundry when she and Josh lived at his house at the beginning of their marriage.

“Not only did he stash her underwear in his locked bedroom cabinet, he said he stashed her pictures, journals, and porn in there too,” Sandy said.

“In fact,” she said, “when police went to search his house last fall they missed it – Steve told me they never even looked in his locked cabinet so he still has her private belongings, including her underwear.

Sandy said she contacted the police several times with this information after Susan disappeared, but they didn’t even get back to her until early this year.

The Examiner also talks about Susan’s father, Chuck Cox, saying he’s shown an admirable degree of restraint in public in spite of the fact that Josh and Steve have been saying all sorts of nasty things about Susan and her family.