Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Mahfuza Rahman

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Mahfuza Rahman, a 30-year-old woman of Bangladeshi origin who was living in the Bronx when she disappeared on December 8, 2015. She was a nurse, a devout Muslim, and the mother of a nine-year-old girl.

The circumstances of her case make it pretty clear what happened: she was almost certainly murdered by her husband, Mohammad Chowdhury. The cops are trying to build a murder case against Chowdhury, who decamped for Bangladesh immediately after Mahfuza’s disappearance. He’s still there as far as I know; I wonder if they’ve got an extradition agreement with the US?

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Troy Le

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Troy Le, a 19-year-old student at San Diego Mesa College who disappeared on March 20, 2010 and is presumed dead.

Troy and his girlfriend were at the beach and after she ran into some trouble in the water, he tried to save her but wound up in trouble himself. The girlfriend was rescued, but Troy disappeared and he’s presumed drowned and pulled out to sea by the riptide.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Girly Hossencofft

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Girly Chew Hossencofft, a 36-year-old woman born and raised in Malaysia who moved to the U.S. in the early nineties, after meeting and marrying an American, Daizien Hossencofft.

She disappeared from Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 9, 1999. By this time, she and Daizien were in the process of a divorce, as Girly had tired of his infidelity and domestic abuse.

Daizien pleaded guilty to Girly’s murder in 2002 and was sentenced to life plus 61 years in prison. He testified at the trial of his mistress, Linda Henning, who was also accused of the murder. It was a memorable trial to say the least, as Daizien said under oath that he was “a reptilian shape-shifter and capable of being in several places at one time.” He claimed Henning was innocent, but she was convicted anyway and got 73 years.

Girly’s body has never been found. Daizien implied that it was cannibalized.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Hee Kim

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Hee Chol Kim, a 61-year-old man who disappeared from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on February 25, 2013.

He left home that afternoon, apparently to go for a walk, and never returned. He had diabetes, had a history of becoming disoriented and wandering, and didn’t speak good English, so I don’t have a lot of hope for him.

If he’s still alive, which I think is unlikely, he’d be about 67 today.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Rhonda Yocom

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Rhonda Lynn Yocom, a 19-year-old woman of Filipino descent who disappeared from Oroville, California in February 1985.

Rhonda left Oroville on February 7 with a man, Odis Garrett, who said he was going to drive her to Oregon so she wouldn’t have to make a court appearance. It’s possible he took her to Vallejo, California instead. She called her boyfriend on February 11, but no one has seen or heard from her since then.

Both Rhonda’s boyfriend and Garrett she was last seen with were Hells Angels, and Garrett’s doing multiple life sentences right now for crimes unrelated to her disappearance.

Curiously, although Rhonda’s boyfriend isn’t a suspect in her disappearance, another woman he dated, 29-year-old Paget Renee Barr, disappeared from Oroville a year later and was never found, and he was the last person seen with her.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Adam Li

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Adam Li, a 26-year-old man who disappeared from San Francisco, California on September 15, 2016. He’s of Chinese descent; over twenty percent of San Francisco residents are Chinese-American.

Adam Li sounds like what they call a “dependent adult.” He’s got bipolar disorder/depression, has very poor social skills and is apparently very shy. He may still be in the San Francisco area, perhaps among the homeless population.

I hope he’s alive. If he is, he’d be 29 today.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Alexandria Suleski

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Alexandria Christine Suleski; her father is white and her mom is Korean. She disappeared from Radcliff, Kentucky on October 26, 1989, at the age of five.

What happened to her is known, and two people were convicted, but I don’t think it’s possible to recover her remains: supposedly the bones were crushed to crumbs.

I updated her case recently after reading Alexandria’s stepsister Nyssa’s self-published memoir, Dark Secret: The Complete Story: The True Account of What Happened to Little Alex Suleski. For a self-published book it’s pretty good, and it’s available on Kindle Unlimited. (Though you might want to skip the last hundred pages or so; the post-trial stuff dragged on and on and on.)

The book describes in vivid detail what life with Nyssa’s sociopathic mother was like, how her mother ultimately tortured and murdered Alex because she kept having potty accidents, and how Nyssa ultimately turned against her mother and testified against her in court.

Poor Alex was let down by every adult in her life. The best that can be said is that after her death, her siblings were all raised by good people, and her killers are both still in prison.

Incidentally, Alex was also a family abduction victim: her dad told her mom he was just taking her and her sister on a vacation, but never returned them, and within two months Alex was dead.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Larry Haynes

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Larry Charles Haynes, a 22-year-old man who disappeared from Oxnard, California on December 16, 1994.

It’s basically know what happened to Haynes: he accidentally drove his car off a cliff near Mugu Rock at Point Mugu. They found the car, but not Haynes. His remains were presumably washed out to sea.

He would have been 47 years old in October.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Nhi Nguyen

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Nhi T. Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American woman who disappeared from Port Angeles, Washington on May 1, 1985

She was living there with her two children and her husband was working in Alaska. She knew very few people in the U.S. For that reason, and probably some others, authorities think she was taken against her will. But I don’t have much on her case.

If still alive, Nhi Nguyen would be 67 next month.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Phoulivay Thetsombandith

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Phoulivay Thetsombandith, a 20-year-old man who disappeared from San Diego, California on August 18, 1991, two years after he’d moved to this country from his native Laos.

Thetsombandith was seen being forced into a vehicle at gunpoint by a group of about four or five men. He was never seen again.

Although a group was said to be responsible for his abduction, in the end only one man, Percyval Leslie Dryden, was convicted of Thetsombandith’s murder. Supposedly he mistook Thetsombandith for some guy who had broken into his car. Dryden never said what he did with the young man’s body.

It’s such a sad case. This guy moves to the US from a third-world country, hoping to have a better life, only to be gunned down by thug(s) for no good reason. And they don’t even have his body.