MP of the week: Jason Macias

This week’s featured missing person is Jason Richard Macias, who disappeared from El Paso, Texas on August 30, 2011, at the age of 23. He left all his belongings behind, including his car, but nothing has been said about his passport, which probably would have needed if he was going to cross the border into Mexico. Macias was a frequent traveler to that country, but I don’t know if he went there after he disappeared.

If he is still alive, Macias would be 28 today. He’s quite tall — six foot five — and has the name “Martha” tattooed on his arm.

Make-a-List Monday: Extensive burns

This list is of MPs who have burn scars, not ordinary ones, but serious scarring covering a sizable area of skin. What counts as “sizable” is entirely up to me. For what it’s worth, I’ve heard they recommend you seek immediate medical attention if you’re burned over an area larger than your hand. In some cases I’m not 100% sure the scarring is really large, but only reasonably sure. Cynthia Milstead being an example of that.

I think that in some cases, burns can cause damage that will be apparent in the skeletal structure as well as the skin. I’d guess they’d have to be quite severe for that to happen, though.

1. John Haywood Barreto
2. Joyce Creola Brewer
3. Brian Eric Carlstrom
4. Mark Norman Dantche
5. William Henry Forshee Jr.
6. Ivon D. Fowler
7. Gina Renee Hall
8. Rayna Rew Harris
9. Matthew Ellis Keith
10. John Lawrence McMeel
11. Cynthia Renea Milstead
12. Danny Joe Riley
13. James White Smith III
14. Luke David Stout

Select It Sunday: Brenda Lambert

This case was chosen by ChristynShawn K.: her sister, Brenda Gail Lambert, has been missing from Bluefield, a small town in southern West Virginia, since July 26, 1992, and ChristynShawn had asked me to highlight Brenda’s Facebook page. I can do one better.

Brenda left all her belongings behind at home, including her car and the clothes she was wearing when she was last seen. She had filed a domestic violence complaint against someone, not sure who, before she disappeared. She was 23 years old and would be 47 today.

Five months later, in January 1993, Brenda’s boyfriend, 24-year-old Mark Anthony Cook, also disappeared without a trace, and he hasn’t turned up either. Either the cases are related or it’s a heck of a coincidence. Foul play is suspected in both disappearances.

Flashback Friday: Loralee Lhotka

This week’s Flashback Friday case is Loralee Sue Lhotka — another one of those cases where I have precious little information and doubts about what I do have.

NamUs gives Loralee’s date of disappearance as January 1, 1975, but they also say she disappeared en route to a doctor’s appointment. Nobody makes medical appointments on New Year’s Day, although hospitals and perhaps a few urgent care clinics would be open. I think it’s more likely that the actual date of disappearance isn’t known and whoever entered the case into NamUs put down January 1 to encompass the entire year of 1975. I put in the Charley Project casefile that she disappeared on some unknown date that year. She would have been 19 or 20 at the time; she was born in June.

NamUs also gives Loralee’s race as “unsure.” The Washington State Missing Persons database entry for her lists her as white. She looks like she could have some Native American blood, but it’s very hard to judge by the photograph. For what it’s worth, the name Lhotka is of Czech origin. It is said that Loralee may use the last name Spamola, a VERY rare surname that’s almost unknown in the United States.

As for what caused her disappearance… I would have to guess foul play. Loralee may have decided to hitchhike to her doctor’s appointment and it’s possible she picked the wrong ride. Her wallet turned up in the Wenatchee National Forest in 1978. I wish I knew where exactly; the forest covers 2,700+ square miles over three counties.

Yeah, I’m back

I was away from home, road-tripping, from Monday to Thursday. I didn’t get back until last night by which time I was quite dead on my feet. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, then I’ll come home and deal with updates, chiefly this, which is quite a story.

Make-a-List Monday: Great Lakes

This list is of MP cases that have some connection to the Great Lakes. Probable drownings being the most obvious kind, of course.

I nearly drowned in Lake Michigan when I was five. It was a hot summer’s day and I was in four feet of water, surrounded by happy vacationers at the public beach, but when you’re only three and a half feet tall and can’t swim and your family is all at their own beach a quarter of a mile away, things can go bad very quickly. Fortunately I was fished out and dragged ashore just before I crossed the point of no return, and a police officer who was present pounded life back into me.

Lake Erie

1. Khristine Renee Smith
   
2. Mel L. Wiley

Lake Huron

1. Mistie Nicole Murray
2. Charles Rutherford Jr.

Lake Michigan

1. Michael Steven Bickel
2. Michael Black
3. Patricia Blough
4. Renee Bruhl
5. James Robert Hysong Jr.
6. Sofia Khan
7. Ann Miller
8. David Randall Warner

Lake Superior

1. John Lipuma

Select It Sunday: Thomas James

Selected by Justin, this week’s SS case is Thomas James, a Universal Studios employee who disappeared from Los Angeles on June 18, 1998. I don’t have much about his disappearance but it doesn’t look like he left on his own. He left everything behind at his apartment, and his car turned up abandoned in Burbank, California.

If James is still alive he’d be 60 this year.

ET entry yesterday

Yesterday I had my last Executed Today entry for the month (there were supposed to be four but the Headsman forgot to publish the one I wrote for the 18th). It’s John Johnson, who, together with another man, beat and gut-shot a Chicago cop for no apparent reason and was hanged in 1905. The victim lingered for four months before dying, and this in an age before modern medicine. Johnson’s partner-in-crime only got fourteen years.

This is actually the second time I’ve written about the execution of someone named John Johnson; this is the first one.

Some pics, courtesy of NamUs

1. Stacy Ann Aragon has two
2. Maria Socorro Kimbrell has two
3. Laura E. Mason has three

Oh, and I replaced the first picture of Sandra Breed with a photo of slightly better quality, and replaced Pauline Lorraine Klumpp‘s picture with a color version of the same.

That’s all.

Not sure this has ever happened before

For my updates today I just wrote up a case with FOUR given dates of disappearance from five different sources. I’ve got November 24, 2014 (NCMEC and news article), March 1, 2015 (state database), March 12, 2015 (another news article) and May 7, 2015 (NamUs).

*headdesk*

I’m going with the earliest date, to be on the safe side, and also because it’s the only date that was given more than once.