October 17, 2016 – The Charley Project Blog

A NamUs profile that just went up is for Reginald Lovell Garrett. I already had a Reginald Garrett on Charley, courtesy of the CDOJ, so I pulled him up to update his case with the info from the NamUs profile.

However…

Reginald Lovell Garrett on NamUs has the listed date of disappearance as January 1, 1995, and in the “details of disappearance” it says his family doesn’t actually know the date but they believe it was sometime between 1994 and 1996. He is said to have disappeared from Pascagoula, Mississippi, after getting into a car with a white man. The Pascagoula Police Department is investigating.

Reginald Garrett on the Charley Project has a date of disappearance as February 2, 1995, and the place is given as Tulare, California. I have no other details about his disappearance. The Tulare Police Department is investigating.

I’m pretty sure these are the same man. I mean, the names are the same; they’re both black; the listed ages, heights and weights correspond with each other; the date range in Reginald Lovell Garrett’s case fits the date given for Reginald Garrett; Reginald Garrett’s photo closely resembles the three photos of Reginald Lovell Garrett.

I’m just not really sure how to deal with this, though. I mean, where’d he actually disappear from? Is it possible that he disappeared from Mississippi, went to California and then disappeared again from there? This isn’t the only time that’s happened.

Thoughts, anyone?

I thought I’d make a list today of kids under 18 who were had atypical housing arrangements. I don’t mean kids residing with stepparents, adoptive parents, foster care, boarding schools, group homes or residential treatment centers. Nor do I include cases where the child was left with a non-relative in what was meant to be a temporary arrangement.

I mean minors living with their friends, those living with adult friends of their families, those living with a spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, those living alone, and those living with members of their extended family, provided the extended family were not officially foster parents or adoptive parents.

I know a guy who lived in a situation like that for a few years. I figured I’d talk about him here. I’m using alias names for everyone, and also placing the story in a different state, for privacy. This story is going to last for several paragraphs so skip to the list if you don’t care. This is what he told me:

START OF STORY: Basically, my friend Alec grew up in a tiny sneeze-and-you-miss it farm community in Illinois. Alec was the oldest of three siblings, and his mother abandoned the family when he was like six years old and dropped completely out of sight. There was a divorce but they couldn’t force her to pay child support because they couldn’t find her.

Alec’s father, Craig, was an alcoholic. The only jobs he could get were low-paying manual labor — construction, farm work, that sort of stuff. There was basically no chance of him improving his career prospects because he was more or less illiterate. Craig could write his name, and he could slowly sound out words if he had to, but his comprehension was just about nil. I don’t know if he had dyslexia or an intellectual disability or whether he simply wasn’t properly educated, but it’s hard to find any kind of decent job if you can’t read.

Craig was also an unreliable employee because of his constant drinking. At home, when drunk, he would verbally abuse his children. I asked Alec once if his father ever beat him and he said no, but he did say Craig “smacked him around” sometimes. When Craig wasn’t working, the family subsisted on food stamps and welfare (this was back before the big welfare overhaul in the mid-nineties) and on whatever Alec could bring in from his own part-time jobs.

One day, when he was 16 or so, Alec just fed up with it and left, with no belongings, and only the clothes on his back. He went across town to his best friend from high school, Trevor Martin. By rural Illinois standards, Trevor’s family was rich. Mom was a professional counselor. Dad was an anesthesiologist, which is one of the highest-paying medical specialties. Alec basically showed up on Trevor’s doorstep and asked the Martins he could stay there for two years until he graduated high school.

And they let him. I wouldn’t say the Martins treated Alec like their own son, but they provided for his material needs and they were nice to him and didn’t use them as their verbal or physical punching bag. Alec remains in close touch with the Martin family to this day.

After Alec graduated high school, the Martins’ generosity did not extend towards paying for his college education. I’m not even sure he wanted to go to college anyway, and his GPA wasn’t that great. He opted to join the military. After his discharge he got a high-paying job using the training the military gave him, and he’s doing well for himself.

Technically I suppose this was a runaway situation, but Craig knew exactly where Alec was the entire time, and never reported him missing to the police. Alec continued to attend the same high school, and the teachers knew he was actually living with the Martins, and nobody reported it. I mean, let’s face it, he was in a much better living situation than CPS could have provided him. END OF STORY

Now on to the list!

An honorable mention: Marble Ace Arvidson. Although his residence was officially a foster home, his “foster father” was in his twenties — that is, only a few years older than Marble — and many accounts refer to the other residents in the home as “roommates.”

It’s pretty hard to put a list like this together. I may very well have missed a few, or more than a few. My apologies.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
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2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

The Charley Project Blog

Day: October 17, 2016

I’m almost sure these are the same person…but…

Oh well, no list for us

Make-a-List Monday: Minors in unusual living situations