Yet another “I hate it when this happens”

In the past week two different family members of MPs have contacted me asking to correct errors on the MPs’ respective casefiles.

One of them emailed me saying:

The profile mentions that [MP’s] sons were raised by [MP’s] parents. Actually, while [MP’s parents] had custody of the boys for the year after [MP’s] disappearance, my husband and I adopted and raised them. They joined our natural family of five (one daughter and two sons) on August 10, 1996. I am [MP’s] first cousin and her will named me as guardian for her children. My husband’s name is XXXXX. The boys are now grown and doing well.

I corrected the information and told her it sounded like MP’s kids were lucky to have her and I was glad they were doing well after having suffered such a terrible loss early in life.

The other found my personal Facebook account and told me one of the two photos I had for her son wasn’t of him. (Color me surprised; that photo was on his CDOJ page for years.) And, she said, if I didn’t remove the wrong photo immediately she would “be forced to take further action.”

Oh-kay then. I did of course remove the photo. I don’t want wrong info on my site and all she had to do was, like MP’s cousin above, explain that it was in error and politely ask for me to fix it. I was slightly flabbergasted.

I asked my friend Wendy the Minister why people behaved that way (like the second person I mean) and she said, “Because they’re so used to being ignored. They’re used to people not caring, so they learn that they have to threaten people if they want anything done.”

That’s probably true. And very sad.

Maybe I should phone this in on Monday

Earlier this month I mentioned on this blog a case of a local guy who disappeared, Kori Glossett, and how I went to school with Michael and Michelle Glossett, presumably relatives of Kori. Kori himself went to the same school but he was many grades below me and I’m not sure we ever met.

In my blog entry I’d said I had seen Michelle in a gas station awhile back. She was working there. Yesterday evening I was at the same gas station and, as I’d like to satisfy my curiosity as to what the Glossett twins’ familial relation is to Kori and maybe get more details about his disappearance, I asked the guy behind the counter if Michelle still worked there. Nope, he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh well. I run a missing persons database, you see. There’s a guy named Kori Glossett missing from around here and I figure Michelle must be related to him and I was going to ask her about it, see if she could tell me something I could put on my site. I don’t know a lot about his case.”

“Kori?” the gas station guy said, as if in surprise. He looked to be about 25 or so, about Kori’s age. “That ***hole? He’s STILL missing?”

“Yup,” said. “For over a year now.”

I was a bit surprised he was using that kind of language, given how he was an employee and I was a customer and we didn’t know each each other. I mean, I didn’t mind but I bet his boss would have had something to say about it.

“He’s not REALLY missing, you know,” the guy said. “He’s buried out in the woods.”

“Hmm,” I said noncommittally. I know there had been multiple search warrants executed on private properties, and digs on said properties for Kory’s body. You don’t really need to read between the lines to realize the cops think he’s dead.

“A LOT of people wanted Kori dead,” Gas Station Guy said. “This is what happens to scumbags, especially when they get into drugs.” He just kinda shrugged and smirked at me as he said that.

I gave him one of the Charley Project business cards. Maybe he will give it to Michelle or Michael or someone else in the family, and they’ll contact me.

But what I’m thinking is maybe I should call LE about this.

Chances are this guy knows nothing in particular about Kori’s case and is just repeating rumors he’s heard. Maybe LE has spoken to him already. But suppose he DOES actually know something and suppose the cops HAVEN’T interviewed him or heard of him? Maybe he even knows the person or persons responsible for Kori’s disappearance. Anything’s possible.

I didn’t catch the guy’s name or anything but it should be easy for the cops to learn his identity. Only two people were working in the gas station when I walked in yesterday.

So what’ll y’all think?

[EDIT: Yeah, like ten minutes after writing this I decided to call it in right then and there even if it was Saturday. The man who answered the phone listened politely, wrote down what I said, and promised to pass the info on to the detectives, plus my name and phone number for if they need to talk to me.

My mom is worried because this guy has my Charley Project business card and I used my credit card to buy snacks at the gas station so he’s got that info too. What if the police come to talk to him and he gets mad about it, she says. Well, the credit card billing address is my dad’s apartment, not my own house. He could harass me online, I suppose, but I doubt he will, and even if I did, I’ve certainly dealt with that before. He could steal my credit card info and buy stuff with it just to give me a hard time, but if someone does that within the next few days or weeks, I will tell the credit card company to look at him as a possible suspect in the theft.

I doubt anything will come of this at all but I’ve done my bit. It’s all you can do.]

Better nip this in the bud

I got a comment on this blog post today, from someone named “Jo”:

I am Brandi but everyone wants me to forget that I am pretty sure I have figured out who Tiffy is & what name she goes by now but the Meagan chic that runs the Charli Project thinks she’s god smarter than everyone else & thinks only she can solve any of these cases but if you read the disclaimer for the Charlie Project website it states she is not an investigator & they do not investigate the cases on that site. So I think this Meagan person is a misleading liar trying to convince people her words & thoughts are law written in stone. She claimed to do a hair strand DNA test on me yet that has never happened I have never met her. My DNA test was an oral swab that matched a member of the Summers Family we went through a private lab so people like Meagan couldn’t tamper with it.

And I replied,

What on earth are you talking about? I never convinced you to do a DNA test or said I did. I’ve always been very open that this website, and its administrator, doesn’t investigate cases and serves as an information portal only. You’ve got me mixed up with someone else.

I just want to make it very clear that I have never met Jo in my life or had anyone run a DNA test in any case. This person, if they didn’t imagine this entirely, clearly has me mixed up with another individual. I certainly have an idea as to who that individual might be, but let us say no more about it.

Follow-up on my previous post

Remember my previous blog post about the missing lady whom I believed was Aboriginal Australian? Well, I’ve heard from her brother again. I asked him directly if she was Aboriginal and he says not: she is of Sri Lankan and Indian descent.

But he also said:

I rang up your place at [a Burbank, California phone number] on 30th may 17 and spoke to a lovely lady called Jeanette. She took down my details and said she would get in touch with social security and try to find out about [his sister] but I haven’t heard back from her. Would you be able to just remind jeanette about this please and see if she can follow it up ??. Appreciate your Help as days are approaching fast ( I will be in L.A in 10 days time) and it would be nice if I can meet her.

Um…what? Jeanette who?

I think I’ll have to call this number himself and see if I can find out who on earth he spoke to. I’ll have to wait awhile, though, because right now it’s 3:00 a.m. California time.

Yes, I am aware the Charley Project hasn’t been running very well

I know the database has been pretty patchy the last several days and continues to be so. I enclose an email I got from my host about it:

There appears to be a new botnet that sprung up on Friday which has been causing periodic periods of high load on all servers.

The data center has been diligently working to block the offending machines, but the problem appears to be resurfacing multiple times per day.

This unfortunately has the effect of putting a high load on the servers, and then they cannot service normal customer traffic.

We do not have an ETA as to when the problem will be resolved, but will update you when we know more.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you or your clients.

I don’t understand what this email means exactly, but Lizard Hill is usually quite reliable and I’m sure it’ll get itself straightened around.

A few observations

A friend of mine, not someone involved in the world of MP cases and true crime, sent me an email today to ask if I knew anything about a woman who had disappeared from her area the other day. I replied saying I didn’t really follow cases that recent, but I had Googled the missing woman and reported what I’d found. I added,

Right now the California Department of Justice’s database is classifying her as “voluntary missing,” something her family is taking issue with. I wish I could talk to them and explain that, as far as I can tell, CDOJ classifies missing persons cases pretty much at random. They’ve got a teenager listed as a “runaway juvenile” when she was witnessed jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Yeah, I don’t pay too much attention to CDOJ’s “voluntary missing adult” stuff. I make up my own mind, provided I have information to work with.

Some other MP news today made me think of cases where there is a great deal of suspicion against the missing child’s parents, or the missing adult’s significant other, but not a lot of evidence pointing towards any theory.

I have researched and written about enough MP cases that I think I’m entitled to make this general observation: When the public, and perhaps the police also, have a person of interest in mind like parents or a spouse or whatever, someone close to the MP, a good indicator is to look at the person’s behavior after the disappearance. Let’s say it’s a child and there’s suspicion that the parents did it. From what I have seen, people who are innocent try to keep the case in the public eye, give interviews, put up posters, etc., even at great personal cost to themselves. They want the MP found and if they have to get crucified in the media for that to happen, that’s what they’ll do. Guilty people, on the other hand, tend to hide, desperately hoping the police and the media will shut up and go away.

Called in to the NCMEC today

I’m writing up new cases and put together a certain case featured on the NCMEC database, a 16-year-old runaway girl, missing since September 2014. I drafted a casefile based on her poster, as per usual.

When I Googled her name I found she was on NamUs, but when I clicked on the link, it said “The case you are trying to view is restricted to authorized persons ONLY.” This usually means the MP has been located, but sometimes they do this for other reasons — like when they’re comparing the MP to a UID case and they’re pretty sure it’s a match and are just waiting to confirm. I investigated further and found a press release from August, saying two missing girls — including the one I was planning to post — had been recovered.

So I made a quick call to the NCMEC’s tip line (it’s 1-800-THE-LOST, translated to 1-800-843-5678) and told the nice lady what I found. She looked up the MP’s name and confirmed that yes, she had been recovered. It looks like she got left on the NCMEC website by accident. This isn’t the first time this has happened.

The hotline person thanked me and promised to take action. And now I shall move on to other cases.

Think before you email, people

Got an email from somebody I don’t know saying she had been a witness at the trial and a lot of stuff I said was “very wrong” and I need to get my facts straight. She was pretty ticked off about it.

She failed to mention which case, however. I’ve got 9,500 of them, approximately. If there was a trial, it’s probably a MWAB case, which narrows it down to 575 cases. *headdesk*

“It would help,” I wrote back, “if you told me which case you’re talking about.”

An evolution of thinking

I wanted to share with you guys a conversation I had on the Charley Project’s Facebook page, about a mother who disappeared almost a decade ago and has turned up alive:

After getting that final response I realized I’ve become much less judgmental than I used to be about MPs who left of their own accord. I know that around ten years ago I was interviewed by a newspaper about such a case and I said it was “abominably selfish” for a person to do that. Whenever I heard about an MP who turned out to have simply walked out of their lives, leaving their family wondering what happened and if they were still alive, I used to get angry — like the other person in this conversation here. Now my response is much more tempered. I’m not sure when it changed.

I think back to my own early- to mid-adolescence, when I was suffering from horrific, untreated, mental illness. I had very intense thoughts about running away from home, traveling to a distant city, taking my own life there without any ID or anything on me, and getting buried as a Jane Doe. I do not know why this seemed like a great idea at the time. My brain was basically broken.

Mind you, I still think it’s selfish to desert your loved ones without a word, and I still tend to feel much more sorry for the left-behind family and friends than the MP who left them. But now I also tend to wonder “what was going in that person’s life that was so bad that they felt they had to take such steps?” I don’t get mad anymore, I don’t judge them. I just feel glad their family has learned their fate, and hope they all can reconcile or at least reach some level of acceptance.

I was talking about it with Michael today and I asked him if he thought my change in attitude about MPs like this woman was due to an additional decade of learning about these cases and what motivates these people to walk out, or was it just that I was once 21 and am now 31 and I’ve simply grown up. Michael said the one cannot be separated from the other, that learning new things through reading and stuff is one more part of growing up.

Heard from the cops about Kenneth Welch

I got an email from a detective with the Flagstaff, AZ police department asking me where I got my photo of Kenneth Lawrence Welch, since the Flagstaff police had none available. Welch’s case has never been updated and may have been created by Jennifer Marra back in the MPCCN days.

I was able to tell him where I got the photo — the CDOJ — and now I’m going to have to correct Mr. Welch’s casefile, because Flagstaff says the date of disappearance was April 3, 1980, not April 5, 1990. Whoops.

I’m feeling a lot better. When I took Dad back to his apartment yesterday, we had dinner (my first meal since Monday!) and he gave me a sack of apples to take home with me.