And it’s right here.
They’ve got quite a bit of info that isn’t on the Charley Project so I’m going to be busy for a bit.
And in other news, that stupid glitch keeps happening over and over again and it’s very frustrating and I just told my computer to go beep itself. Orville, I’m sorry, I know it’s not your fault.
I listen to Small Town Murder every week and last week’s episode (that is, the most recent one) was about a whole family of, basically, serial killers. Two generations of people, traveling around the country with little kids (the third generation), robbing and murdering everywhere they went. The primary offenders were Sherman Ramon McCrary, his son Dennis Taylor and his son-in-law Carl Taylor; their wives and the grandkids were just along for the ride. I think the oldest of the grandkids was only like six years old or so, so not in a position to stop what was going on or tell anyone about it.
They liked to target small businesses where women were working alone; they had a particular fondness for donut shops. They would rob the business (usually not getting much cash), abduct the women, take them to some out-of-the-way spot, rape them, kill them and dump the bodies. (The wives were present, and aware of what was going on, but didn’t do anything to stop it. Love, they said.) The family is believed to have been responsible for 23 deaths. At least, that’s how many they could tie to one particular gun. They were finally caught in 1971.
The podcasters, and I also, think it’s likely the family could be responsible for other murders besides those 23. I have to wonder if they could be responsible for any of the cases on the Charley Project.
On the face of it, it seems unlikely cause these people didn’t make much of an effort to hide the bodies of the people they’d killed. For example, in the murder of Leora Rose Looney, the only one they were actually charged with, they just dumped her in a field without attempting burial or anything like that.
But I think it’s not impossible that they’ve killed people who haven’t been found, and possibly people who have been found but haven’t been identified. Someone ought to look into this. Like, track the family’s road trip across the country, and check for news articles wherever they were at, to see if anyone has disappeared or turned up murdered.
From what the podcast said, only Carl Taylor and his wife are still alive, and Carl is in his eighties (and still in prison; the wife turned state’s evidence and wasn’t kept locked up long). So there isn’t a lot of time left here.
So… Websleuths? Anyone?
I hope everybody is doing okay. I’m not doing okay. Bipolar is bipolar, and even while stable and on meds I find myself having downswings. Right now my depression level is pretty bad and it’s really hard to get anything done. I just want to sit in bed and watch stupid YouTube stuff all day. For this past weekend that’s pretty much all I did, and it didn’t help. It never does.
I saw my therapist today and spent most of our allotted time ranting about how selfish everyone in the world is. But the world was just as selfish earlier this month when I wrote “I am very happy and satisfied with my current life circumstances.” I know it’s just the chemicals in my head acting up and it’ll pass, but that doesn’t do anything for my current emotional pain.
I forced myself to put in a small update today but it was very difficult for me. I’m still having trouble with WordPress. I had fixed the earlier glitch by resetting my browser to its default settings; well, every time I change the settings, I have to reset them to default again before I can update. Logged out of everything I’m in, no browser extensions going, etc. And I kind of liked the (non-default) settings I had and would like to keep them. But that’s technology; it is mysterious to me.
This week’s featured missing person is Justine Gabrielle Flynn, a 21-year-old woman who was last seen on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California on September 9, 1982. She’s described as white, with brown hair and brown eyes, though her only available photo leaves a lot to be desired. She was wearing a purple sweater, loose black pants and flat black shoes with a strap. No scars, tattoos etc. are noted.
I have written a great deal on this blog about Golden Gate Bridge disappearances. Many of them are presumed to be suicides, but I don’t know very much about the circumstances of Justine’s case. Just that she was last seen there.
Hope all of you are well and staying covid-free. Please get vaccinated if you haven’t already.
I put up a bunch of age-progressions today. As is my custom, the cases I updated where there wasn’t already an existing age-progression, got listed on the Charley Project’s updates page. In cases where I was just replacing the previous age-progression with a more recent one, those are listed below:
This week’s featured missing person is Adan Andrada Velasco, an 18-year-old boy who disappeared from Austin, Texas on May 2, 2007. He’s described as Hispanic, 5’9 and 140 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, and a tattoo on his abdomen of a shield with the initials AV and the number 88. I have a photo of the tattoo.
It’s not clear whether Adan ran away from home or what, but it’s mentioned he could be in the Chicago area and may be with a white Maltese dog.
He suffers from an unspecified mental illness or illnesses. He’d be 33 today, and has been missing for close to half his life.
After consulting various people, trying this, trying that, trying the other thing, and so on and so forth for the last several days, I have FINALLY fixed the glitch (whatever it was) that was making it impossible for me to get any work done.
Now to attend to all that has piled up…
Per my tech guy, the problem that’s preventing me from updating at the moment cannot be replicated on his side, meaning whatever is wrong is happening with my computer and my computer only.
What FUN.
I tried emptying the cache and giving it another go; no luck. Now I’m going to spend an indeterminate amount of time messing up my browser settings while I try to get the gears clicking again.
Started work on updating cases only to find some technical glitch is getting in the way of everything. For some reason none of the changes I make to the “details of disappearance” section of the casefile forms are going through. I’ll change the details, save the case, and the details go back to being what they were before.
Here’s to hoping my designer works this out and I can get to at least some of it later today. But as of the moment there’s no point in trying to get any work done.
I hope everyone is doing well. Michael and I went to see The Hu last week — our first event since the Delta variant came to the US, kicked off its shoes, had a seat and decided to stay awhile. We masked up, had a great time and avoided getting sick. I had never seen The Hu before. We were supposed to see them perform in April 2020, but, well…
I’ve been getting a lot of reading done. I am very happy and satisfied with my current life circumstances, in spite of the problems in the world.
So it’s been in the news in several places: Theodore Frederick Kampf, a 46-year-old man who was last seen in Oaklyn, New Jersey in July 1981, has been identified.
I was just talking to David Mittelman, the Othram Inc. guy, and he says it was in part cause of Charley that Kampf was identified. He was identified through DNA, but I guess Kampf wouldn’t have even been on the list of possibles except his Charley Project page notes he was road-tripping to Canada and was supposed to cross the border on July 13.
His body was found in the Yukon, you see. Specifically, “in a wooded area near the North Fork Dam and Dempster Highway in Dawson City.” Which is about as far away as it is possible for him to be and still be on the same continent. I looked it up and Dawson City, Yukon Territory is a 63-hour drive from Oaklyn, New Jersey — and that’s only if you take a direct route (which Kampf didn’t, since he was last known to be in Washington State). The direct route is 6,382 kilometers, or almost 4,000 miles.
After forty years I think it’s unlikely his murder will ever be solved. The killer could even be dead by now. But at least he’s coming home.
This week’s featured missing person is, like the case I was discussing earlier, another obscure missing child case that for whatever reason never seems to have made it into the NCMEC database: Adriana M. Bejarano, a 15-year-old girl who disappeared from her Ephrata, Pennsylvania home on November 28, 1988. From all appearances she left her house voluntarily, but my guess is she didn’t intend to be gone as long as she has been.
She’s described as Hispanic and Colombian-American. 5’3 and 125 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. She had braces at the time of her disappearance and may have been last seen wearing a black trench coat and jeans.
I have to wonder if perhaps she had a secret boyfriend, maybe a much older man, and this is the person she went out to meet.
If still alive, Adriana would be in her late forties.
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