Flashback Friday: Kristi Vorak

This week’s Flashback Friday case is Kristi Lynn Vorak, who disappeared from Tacoma, Washington only ten days after her thirteenth birthday, on Halloween in 1982. In other words, 32 years ago today. She was living with a foster family at the time.

Kristi has long been considered a possible victim of Gary Leon Ridgway, the Green River Killer, presumably because of the time and place of her disappearance. However in many ways she doesn’t fit the profile: she was younger than any of his other victims and wasn’t a prostitute or a runaway. Only Ridgway himself knows whether or not he was responsible for her disappearance. I wouldn’t be surprised if something else had happened to Kristi, though.

MP of the week: Nestor Vega Osuna

This week’s featured missing person is Nestor Javier Vega Osuna, missing from Arroyo Grande, California since January 2011. Mr. Vega Osuna was last seen en route to Mexico, nearly 1,500 miles away. He was driving a pickup truck which was never located.

As to what happened? I have no clue. Nestor was 38 years old.

Cracked article about missing persons

Cracked has done an article titled “5 Creepy Unsolved Disappearances That Nobody Can Explain.” Three of those five are listed on Charley: the Sodder kids, Ben Padilla and Zebb Quinn.

Disappointingly, as far as I can tell, the article does not link to the Charley Project.

Make-a-List Monday: MPs wearing Birkenstocks

This list is for missing persons last seen wearing Birkenstock shoes. They’re expensive, high-quality items, mostly sandals but some regular shoes too. I’ve never owned a pair but Michael gets one every couple of years.

Quite a short list.

Deandre Nativoni Brown
Kyle Andrew Carl Eppler
Jarrod Devlin Green

Seeing them on Facebook

I was doing what I call “fishing” today — just Googling the names of MPs to see what comes up — and came across a Facebook post by the mother of a missing baby. She wrote that she was feeling sad, recounted her son’s disappearance and asked people to look for him.

It’s kind of funny, because she herself is the prime suspect in that child’s disappearance and got in trouble later on for trying to sell one of her other kids. The charge was later dropped, not because she hadn’t done it but because the prosecution wasn’t sure whether this was illegal.

I see that kind of thing from time to time.

I’m curious…

Who, beside myself, has read every single Charley Project casefile? I know some people have, chipping away at it until they got everything done. I’m just wondering how many.

Select It Sunday: Charles and William Vosseler

This week’s Select It Sunday was selected by Bill R.: Charles Jason Vosseler and his brother William Martin Vosseler, aged three and two respectively. The boys’ case is one of the oldest family abductions on the Charley Project, and one of the more unusual ones.

The cops have almost caught up with them on several occasions, but each time the boys and their abducting father have been able to stay one step ahead. Given the ages of the children when they were taken, it’s possible they have no idea they’re missing. It’s equally possible — indeed probable — that they’ve been lied to about their mother, told she didn’t want them or that she’s dead. Both the children would be in their thirties today. Charles Sr. sounds like he could be a dangerous man. Certainly he is as calculating and cold-blooded a family abductor as I have ever heard tell of.

The Vosseler case will be mentioned on the Today Show tomorrow, Monday October 27. They also have a Facebook page set up for them.

Flashback Friday: Lew Welch

Sorry I missed Flashback Friday for the last two weeks. I don’t remember why I did so; probably laziness. This week goes to Lewis Barrett “Lew” Welch Jr. The 44-year-old disappeared from Nevada City, California on May 23, 1971, taking a friend’s gun and leaving behind a note indicating suicide.

Lew Welch is a bit unusual in that he was sort of famous before he disappeared. He was a minor poet in the Beat Generation, which including Jack Kerouac, etc. Apparently he published only one major book in his lifetime, but the following works are for sale on Amazon:

How I Read Gertrude Stein
How I Work as a Poet
I, Leo: An Unfinished Novel
I Remain, Volume 1: Letters of Lew Welch & The Correspondence of His Friends 1949-1960
I Remain: Volume 2: Letters of Lew Welch & The Correspondence of His Friends 1960-1971
On Out
Ring of Bone: Collected Poems
Selected Poems

Ring of Bone was actually published in 2012 and is still in print. You can also read a few of his poems here.

Tony Luzio’s car, body found in retention pond

Per Jennifer W. and the Columbus Dispatch: missing man Anthony “Tony” Luzio Jr.’s body has been found inside his car in a pond not far from where he was last seen leaving a friend’s house party. It appears he just drove off the road into the pond. Searchers had been operating under that theory for some time and were systematically checking ponds in the area to see if they could find him.

R.I.P. Tony. He was 25 years old.

James Pflueger finally sentenced for his crimes

Per someone who wrote to me on Facebook, James Pflueger has finally been sentenced for causing the deaths of seven people and one unborn child when his dam collapsed and drowned them all in the ensuing 350,000,000-gallon flood. The bodies of four of the victims were never found: Timothy Noonan, Carl Rotstein, Daniel Arroyo and a toddler, Rowan Dingwall, whose parents were also killed.

Pflueger’s sentence? SEVEN MONTHS IN PRISON. Seven months, plus five years’ probation, and a $7,000 fine which is pennies to him as he’s worth millions of dollars. That’s only one month and one thousand dollars per person killed (minus Christina MacNees’s baby). Pflueger’s company has already paid a $50,000 fine for each victim — money to go to the state. So one month in prison and $51,000 — that’s how much a person’s life is worth in the state of Hawaii, which is also partially responsible for what happened because they failed to perform required inspections on Pflueger’s dam. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.