Got back to early 2013

I’ve put up everything through the Resolved89 list, which dates back to early 2013-ish. I tend not to recognize the names but I do recognize the photos of people. It seems the stories of recoveries are as varied as the stories of disappearances.

I want to emphasize that I am NOT going to keep those resolved cases updated. By which I mean, what I put down in the resolved notice is whatever I know at the time, usually right after the person has been found or identified, and I don’t plan on updating that to reflect things like autopsy results, arrests and so on. I’ve got enough on my plate as is.

The back of my right shoulder has pretty well seized up from all this typing and repetitive motions: copy, paste, copy, paste. I’m trying to stretch it out as best I can, and I have applied extra strength Tiger Balm and taken Meloxicam, which is the strongest stuff I have nowadays. I miss the days when, eight or ten years ago, you could go to the doctor and they could give you something for pain that would actually work.

Michael’s parents were over today as they usually are on Saturdays, and they gave me a birthday cake and a card. Shopping for presents with them was kind of problematic last year, so I asked them just to pay my dry cleaning bill instead, and they did. The cost was about the same as they would have spent on my gift.

My psychiatrist had prescribed a new medication last month to help deal with my anxiety, and I think it’s finally started working. I managed to survive lunch with Michael and his parents without even one episode of rocking or hyperventilating, and I don’t think I’ve managed that in years.

National Hispanic Heritage Month: Henrietta Cruz Avila

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month I’m featuring a Hispanic missing person every day from September 15 to October 15. Today’s case is Henrietta Geck Cruz Avila, a seventeen-year-old missing from Santa Ana, California. This is a very old case, from 1960. 58 years ago.

Henrietta married a few months before her disappearance; it wasn’t at all unusual at that time for teenagers to marry. She had only known her husband, Merle Avila, for a month or so, and he was 24.

The circumstances of her disappearance are unclear, but I think it’s quite likely that Henrietta met with foul play around the time of her disappearance or shortly thereafter, and that her killer or someone acting on the killer’s behalf made attempts to make her family believe she was alive and well.

I cannot imagine why a girl who had run away would come back and leave some of her clothes — and underclothes at that — sitting in her parents’ driveway. But I can well imagine that a killer, trying to confuse the investigation, would do so. In fact, I know of a documented case where something similar happened: a woman whose daughter was supposedly abducted got mailed one of the little girl’s mittens. Nothing else was in the envelope. It turned out the mother had killed her daughter and mailed the mitten to herself.

Sadly, after so many years I doubt Henrietta’s disappearance can be solved. I wonder if the police have talked to Merle Avila at all over the years, or know where he is now or if he’s still alive.