Without all of you, the Charley Project would have no meaning or purpose at all. It would be like a pile of puzzle boxes sitting abandoned in a dark room, with no one to try to put the pieces together.
So I thank all of you.
Happy Thanksgiving and stay safe.
As Christmas approaches, I wanted to say thank you to all the people who have donated to the Charley Project since I asked for voluntary subscription fees back in May.
I’ve been running this database since I was a teenager. Now fifteen years’ running, it takes a lot of my time and I’m very proud of its value as a resource to the true crime community, law enforcement, missing persons’ families, and others. The Charley Project has always been a labor of love, but I am really happy that I’ve found myself a way to make a small living off of it, thanks to you guys. I really appreciate being appreciated.
I’ve been working on a long term project involving the Charley Project. This project has been almost two years in the making and I hope it will be completed in the coming year. I can’t divulge any more details about it at this time but you guys are going to be delighted by it.
Yeah, so this afternoon Orville failed to restart after a Windows update, by which I mean the screens are both black, the keyboard doesn’t seem to be working either, and I can’t even get a restart in Safe Mode.
I can’t think of anything else to do but drag him to the shop tomorrow. Perhaps nothing in particular is wrong. Perhaps Orville is just sulking and they can fix him in a jiffy, or perhaps it will be an intensive and expensive repair. I have no idea; computers mystify me.
It costs $50 for them to even look at it, and things go up from there. Money will be tight this month anyway, as my car insurance is due. Any donations towards the cost of the repair will be appreciated.
So both NamUs and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office give Chelsey Coe’s disappearance as July 1, 2017. I found this article her mom reported her missing in July after last hearing from her in June, but then this article saying she was last seen in August and her mom last heard from her in “June or July.”
If Chelsey disappeared in June, I can post her now, and I’ll be able to post her either now or soon if she disappeared in July. But if she went missing in August this case will have to wait at least another month.
Since she was last known to be living with some man whom I gather is a suspect in her case (they did search his yard with ground-penetrating radar after all), perhaps no one knows precisely when she went missing.
Help?
Yes, I am aware that Simorali Nieves has dark skin and textured black hair. No, I did not make a mistake when I wrote her race down as Caucasian. Yes, I double-checked. Every source I could find says she’s Caucasian.
So if a mistake was made, it wasn’t mine; I have to work with what I’m given. I am hoping this post will stop some people from emailing me “correcting” her casefile.
Again–I try not to judge the police because I’m not a police officer and I don’t know the procedures and everything. But I am a bit confused by law enforcement’s actions in David Standish‘s case. Specifically this:
The houseboat was eventually destroyed by the police after they’d thoroughly checked it.
Why would they do this? The houseboat was Standish’s private property and his home. Surely it should at least have been given to his heirs? We know he had a family.
Can anyone who knows more about police procedure than I do possibly enlighten me as to why this may have been done?
As you ought to know, I often use pictures of an MP that come from their own Facebook, MySpace, and other social media accounts. Those accounts are a great resource for photos.
But here’s my question: what do I do if all the pictures of the MP have obviously been Facetuned? Because obviously that can change the appearance of a person a lot.
As anyone who looks at the Charley Project knows, I try to include as many photos of an MP as possible, and pictures of their tattoos as well, if I can get them.
Occasionally I’ve had to reach out to the crowd on the Charley Project’s Facebook page to ask about photos of an MPs’ tattoos. What happens is I’ll be looking at photos of the person (often on their own personal Facebook page) and see a tattoo but I can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be, or what the words are supposed to say. It doesn’t help that all that I know about tattoos is from watching episodes of Ink Master.
That happened again with this guy. The published info about his disappearance mentioned the “Zoey” tattoo, but the photos on his own Facebook page showed he had others.
I couldn’t figure out what that thing on his chest was supposed to be — I guessed “a stylized snake” or “a fancy ribbon” or suggested it might be something “tribal.” Within seconds, Facebookers responded: it was the astrological sign for Leo, except in reverse, since it was taken with a mirror. (I don’t know anything about astrology either.)
I also was pretty unclear on what the words on his left arm were — it looked like “Joy Meeu” to me. Facebookers answered me immediately and said “Self Made” was much more probable.
Thanks, Facebookers! You contributed invaluable information to William’s casefile. In fact, it was someone on Facebook who verified for me that William was still missing in the first place. I wasn’t 100% sure since the only real source of information was a Facebook page about his disappearance, and it hadn’t been updated since July.
And on another note, I really wish someone would add this guy on NamUs or something. He’s only listed with United Legacy and I can’t find any articles about him or anything. He apparently left of his own accord. but that doesn’t mean he stayed gone of his own accord.
People really like this Black History Month thing I’m doing and I plan to do it again next year. I’d also like to do similar things for Native American History Month, Hispanic History Month, etc. (Note to self: find out when those are.)
Some people have suggested I do the same thing for Gay Pride Month, which is in June. I’d love to, but there is a logistical problem: I don’t usually know if an MP on Charley is LGBTQ.
I stopped specifically mentioning people’s gayness in the profiles after I got an email from some guy’s sister screaming at me for bringing it up when it had nothing to do with his disappearance.
Obviously in some cases it would be easy to tell by reading the circumstances of disappearance, but for finding such people in a keyword search I’m not sure what to do.
Anyway, what I mean to say is, can any of you throw the names of some LGBTQ Charley Project cases my way for possible coverage on this blog during Pride Month?
I got a message on Charley’s Facebook page today:
I’m writing you from Karga 7 Pictures in Los Angeles, with serious admiration and awe for the work you do. I’m a producer, researching missing persons for a potential upcoming TV show, and looking for cases that we might highlight for further investigation and inquiry. The irony is, of course, that in order to justify including them in our development at this point, they need to have a certain amount of information already gathered. So often, the kinds of cases I find that have a lot of information and media attention are of middle class White folks, as I’m sure you know. So, to be blunt, I’m looking for cases of missing people of color to highlight, and wondering whether you might be able to point me in the direction of an interesting case with a bit of meat to it? 9,000+ cases is a lot to wade through and unfortunately we never have enough time to be as thorough as we’d like….
So this nice lady would like some suggestions. I have a few in mind, but I’m sure you guys can come up with a few more.
Can you name some black, Asian, Hispanic or Native American MPs who ought to be “hightlight[ed] for further investigation and inquiry”?
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