In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is James Eric Bess, a fourteen-year-old boy who disappeared from Ashland, Kentucky on October 4, 1984.
James lived in a children’s home. He ran away with another resident of the home, Chipley Charles Saunders, who is white and was thirteen years old at the time.
Neither of the boys have been heard from again and, given the length of time — over 30 years — you have to wonder if they’re still alive.
I would like to note that although James is African-American, he has blue or gray eyes. This is very uncommon and might serve as an identifying feature.
The Charley Project Blog 
In these types of cases, I always wonder if there was an adult predator behind the scenes encouraging them to run away and offering help. Otherwise, they should have been sighted somewhere nearby in the first week or so.
http://mysterymachine.us/showthread.php?16342-Chipley-Sanders-13-and-James-Bess-13-ran-away-from-a-group-home-1983-1984
There is some additional information on Chipley in the last posting. (But the links given don’t work anymore.)