This week’s featured missing person is Elaine Johnson, missing from my home state of Ohio since November 22, 1990. Elaine left behind what the police might call “no indications of foul play.” As in, no witnesses to any screams or abduction, no blood, no signs of a struggle at her apartment. Nothing that could be called “evidence” of anything.
But she has what I might call “negative indications” or “negative evidence.” As in: negative on any possessions taken with her, even her car or ID. Negative on any apparent plans to drop out of her life. She’d paid her apartment’s rent a month in advance. She’d even left clothes behind in the dryer of her building’s laundry room, which is almost as bad as food still cooking.
Negative on everything, for a quarter-century.
In conspiracy theories, usually, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It’s harder to believe that with MPs, especially when their disappearance runs completely contrary to all their previously established patterns of behavior. I can only hope that Elaine is still alive somewhere. She would be 67 today.
The Charley Project Blog 