Chugging along

So this update is kind of more of the same: I’m still working on the vehicle change, and at the same time purging loads of outdated cases that have been removed from the sources database which means the person is probably not listed as missing anymore.

Right now I’m working on the letter L. After I finish L, I’ve got to do M, N, P, R, S and T. I try to finish at least one letter a day, which generally takes several hours at minimum. There are a LOT of missing with last names starting with M, S etc., and those may take more than one day to do. I’m doing this as fast as I can without compromising the thoroughness of it.

I just want to get this done as quickly as possible. I’ll resume updates when I’m done. Yes, I know Jarral Osburn and Serenity McKinney have both been found deceased. RIP to them both.

Everything in my life is going pretty well right now. My kitten Viola has apparently ceased peeing on the bed, though she’s kind of on probation at the moment and we try to keep her off the bed unless she’s sitting on one of us while we’re on the bed. Viola doesn’t seem to mind being shooed off the bed, since, like most kittens, she is full of zoomies and has the attention span of a toddler with a cocaine problem.

All of you guys — my blog readers, my site readers, my supporters — are really awesome people and I never forget that. The Charley Project is a partnership. I couldn’t do this without you.

MP of the week: Dolly Hall

This week’s featured missing person is Dolly Loucina Hall, a 42-year-old white woman who was last seen in Bradley, Florida on January 19, 2019. Dolly has brown hair and blue eyes, and is 5’2 and 110 pounds. She’s got a couple of tattoos, her ears and nose are pierced, she has a mole on her upper cheek and her nickname is Dee.

I don’t have anything much about her disappearance, other than the fact that the very last post publicly visible on the Facebook page was written the day she went missing and says:

Just wanted to say im getting married to the man i’ve waited my hole life for.Thank you God for putting him back in my life.And im given up facebook and messager. Bye everyone and i hope everyone gets what their looking for in life cause i know i have.

Maybe she really did get married, but wouldn’t they have been able to locate her by checking state marriage registries and see which city/state she married in, and then searching there? It seems equally likely that this post was a lie and written (either by Dolly herself or by someone else) in an effort to cover up whatever caused her disappearance. But there is insufficient information to really say what occurred here.

This kind of reminds me of the Beverly Sharpman case. Beverly also left a statement saying she was getting married, and also, if she got married it wasn’t under real name because they couldn’t find a record of her marriage. But Beverly disappeared quite a few decades ago, and at the time she was young enough to have been Dolly’s daughter.

I hope Dolly is happy and okay. I hope she calls home soon.

I’m purging SO MANY cases

Yeah, I worked on the letter F today, doing the vehicle thing. Yesterday it was D. And as I go along I keep checking if the person is still listed as missing with the original source, because if they aren’t, there’s a good chance they aren’t missing anymore. In which case I purge (just delete) the case.

I’ve deleted SO MANY cases. I hadn’t done a full-on purge in awhile and it shows. The number of cases listed on the site has dropped below 15,000 again. And I’m far from done. I’ve got the letters G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, R, S and T left to do.

But I am happy with how things have been going and am happy with my life in general so far. I hope you are happy too.

MP of the week: Stanley Chandler

So yesterday although I changed the missing person of the week on the actual Charley Project I was basically too tired to write an entry for this blog, still recovering from the stomach bug thing. Here it is now:

This week’s featured missing person is Stanley Gene Chandler, last seen leaving his mom’s home for his own. This was in Seattle, Washington on May 18, 1990 and Chandler was 23 at the time. He’s described as black, with black hair, brown eyes and scars on his left hand, right leg and above his left eyebrow. For a man he’s on the small side, 5’4 and 150 pounds.

As Chandler was involved in the drug trade, foul play is possible in this case. If still alive he’d be 55 today.

Erin Foster and Jeremy Bechtel located

To the surprise of no one, the remains of missing teens Erin Leigh Foster, 18, and Jeremy Lee Bechtel, 17, have been identified inside the wreckage of Erin’s car, which was found in 13 feet of water in a local river near Sparta, Tennessee. Per the article, the car was “almost completely intact” and it looks like they just ran off the road, poor kids.

It’s been 22 years in April, and I’m sure their families are relieved that they’ve found answers. May Erin and Jeremy rest in peace.

I’m feeling a lot better today.

Taking a rain check

Yeah, so I’m sick.

It was a massive Weekend of Suck. Horribly sick on Saturday. Horribly sick on Sunday. Maybe I’m not horribly sick anymore, I’m not sure. I thought I was better yesterday at this time but then I became horribly sick again later in the afternoon. No, it’s not covid. My husband took me to Urgent Care for medical attention and they gave me a covid test and some medicine.

I’m talking about “going back and forth between bed and bathroom for two days too miserable to care that both you and the bedclothes are soiled” sick.

My kitten, Viola, has developed a persistent peeing-in-the-hooman-bed problem. (I do not need advice. We are working with a vet and trying to fix the issue as quickly as possible.) She peed on me 3+ times over the weekend and I was too sick and exhausted to care.

Right now I no longer feel sick, but I do feel very tired. And I can’t even go back to bed because I finally felt good enough to get up and start washing all the bedclothes down to the bottom sheet. Right now the first and second loads of bedding are in the machines and the bed is covered with piddle pads cause I’m not sure our mattress protector could hold a large direct hit from Viola.

Anyway, obviously I got no work done over the weekend and I highly doubt I’m going to get any work done today. I MIGHT go out and pick up a prescription refill if I feel good enough.

As far as the Vehicle Change goes, the change is now integrated into the letters A, B, E, I, O, Q, U, V, X, Y, and Z. I just finished B before I became sick.

Well, pack it in, folks, I’ve found the winner

Now, in my time I’ve read many, many horrifying stories as part of my Charley Project research. I’ve pored over detailed descriptions of dismemberment and decomposition. It takes a lot to shock me.

But this article has got to be one of the grossest and saddest stories I’ve read in awhile.

Also, regarding the vehicle information change, I’ve now done the following letters: A, E, I, O, Q, U, V, X, Y, and Z. And I’m halfway through B.

It is extremely boring.

That is all.

PS if you want a palate cleanser try this cute baby aardvark.

Progress

Just wanted y’all to know I am hard at work doing the associated vehicles thing on the Charley Project casefiles. I go letter by letter, and so far I’ve done E, I, O, Q and U-Z. So ten letters.

Which sounds impressive until you remember that these letters are the ones with the least number of cases. I suppose probably M or S would have the most.

While I go I’m also cleaning up — correcting typos, checking to see who isn’t missing anymore and purging cases accordingly, etc.

MP of the week: Tiffany Westford

This week’s featured missing person is Tiffany Susan Westford, a 2-year-old girl who was abducted by her non-custodial mother, Marie Catherine Dominique, from Amityville, New York on November 13, 1993. This is one of the Charley Project’s older family abduction cases.

Tiffany and her mother are both black, and I think they are of Haitian descent, given that Marie speaks Haitian Creole and they could be living in a Haitian-American community if they haven’t left the country altogether. Tiffany has a two- or three-inch scar below her navel and may use one of several alias last names. Marie may also use any of a number of alisas. She’s described as 5’3 – 5’4 and 130 – 140 pounds. She worked as a CNA (certified nursing assistant) though I suppose her license would have expired by now.

Tiffany would now be 30 years old, and her abductor would be 57. There’s a good chance Tiffany has no idea she’s a missing child, and given the passage of time I think it’s unlikely that Marie would face any charges if they were located.

Associated vehicles

So I’ve started making a change to the Charley Project, which would allow you to search by vehicles associated with the case (including not just cars and trucks, but boats, motorcycles etc). I’ve had my designer Preston Winfrey make a “vehicle” field for cases, and now I’m going through them all and filling in that field as appropriate.

I also note when I know the vehicle has been accounted for — that is, it’s not missing, only the person is.

People have been asking for this for awhile but then I got a big kick in the pants from one of the Adventures with Purpose volunteers and suddenly I was like “the heck with it, let’s get this done.” So I’m getting it done.