So many watery graves

Due in part to the activites of Adventures with a Purpose (and they are awesome, check them out and give them money or something), it seems like there have been quite a few missing persons are turning up inside their cars inside lakes and rivers lately. I have many cases to resolve.

Most recently we’ve got, in no particular order:

1. Miriam Ruth Hemphill, 84, missing from Oak Ridge, Tennessee since July 22, 2005. Her vehicle was found in Melton Hill Lake with human remains inside.
2. Samantha Jean Hopper, 19, and her unborn baby, and her 1-year-old daughter, Courtney Esther Danielle Holt., missing from Russellville, Arkansas since September 11, 1998. Their car was found in eight feet of water in Pope County, Arkansas, although the news articles I’ve found haven’t said which specific body of water.
3. Judith Ann Chartier, 17, missing from Chelmsford, Massachusetts since June 5, 1982. This was a surprise, as everyone had suspected foul play in her case. But it turned out she’d (probably accidentally) driven her car into the Concord River in Billerica, Massachusetts. The remains inside have already been identified as hers.
4. Van Thay “Stephanie” Nguyen, 26, and her two children, 4-year-old Kristina Thay Nguyen and 3-year-old John Thai Nguyen, missing from Cincinnati, Ohio since April 18, 2002. Their vehicle was found in the Ohio River in October, something which isn’t terribly shocking since Stephanie had threatened to drive into the river and they were last seen near a boat ramp.
5. Brian E. Goff, 64, and his 55-year-old girlfriend Joni E. Davis, missing from St. Clairsville, Ohio since June 10, 2018. Their car was found in the Ohio River with two bodies inside, still seat-belted in.

In these cases where multiple people were involved, I am not sure what to do at this point. Like, we can safely assume that the human remains inside Miriam Hemphill’s car are Miriam’s. But when people disappear like this and years or decades later it turns out they drove into water, sometimes not every person can be recovered. Like, it’s entirely possible that the remains found in the Nguyen’s car belong to just one or two of them, and the river took the other person.

Of course in such a case the individuals not found in or near the vehicle would be presumed dead as well, but the Charley Project usually keeps the case up until remains are found, regardless of what the circumstances indicate.

I’ll start sorting it out tomorrow I guess.

Murder charges filed in Ashley Parlier disappearance; I wish other cases would get moving

I had written in May about how a suspected serial killer had “links” to Ashley Marie Parlier, who disappeared from Battle Creek, Michigan in 2005. Well, I guess these were more than just links, because the suspect, Harold Haulman, will be charged with Ashley’s murder. He was earlier charged with murder in the 2018 disappearance of Tianna Ann Phillips and the 2020 death of Erica Shultz.

I’m glad that happened. Murder-without-a-body cases are becoming increasingly common, and I hope this continues.

One case I’d love to see charges filed in would be the disappearance of Amiah Robertson. I really don’t understand why that hasn’t happened. I mean, a man left with a baby — not even HIS baby — and came back without her and without any credibly explanation as to her whereabouts, and nobody has been charged in that case. It’s been over two years. The baby was eight months old; it’s not taking care of itself. It was a frustrating case to write up because so much of the available info was contradictory. The only thing I’m sure of is that no one in that child’s life did right by her.

MP of the week: Angelia Hilbert

This week’s featured missing person is Angelia Spaulding Hilbert, a 22-year-old woman who disappeared after leaving work in Louisville, Kentucky on June 3, 1989. She was supposed to follow her parents (her in her car, them in theirs) to Owensboro, where they were moving, but never arrived there. I’m not sure at what point she became separated from her parents, but she was last seen in the area of Dry Ridge Road at about midnight.

For some reason she wasn’t reported missing until June 16; I don’t know if the police refused to accept a report before then, or what. On June 26, her car was found abandoned in a nightclub parking lot.

Some distinguishing info about Hilbert: she has a surgical scar on her back where she had metal rod inserted in her spine to correct scoliosis. Probably that rod has a unique serial number; medical devices of that kind usually do. She was pregnant at the time of her disappearance but I’m not sure how far along.

If still alive, Angelia would be in her mid-fifties today.

(Sorry forgot to put this up yesterday.)

Suspected serial killer charged with Tianna Phillips’s murder

In December last year, Harold Haulman was charged with the murder of a 26-year-old woman. Well, he’s been charged with a second homicide in the same county, the murder of Tianna Phillips. Tianna disappeared from Berwick, Pennsylvania on June 13, 2018. (The article says July 13 but I think that’s wrong. NamUs says June.)

Tianna had a boyfriend, but was apparently also seeing Haulman, who was married. Haulman has confessed to the homicide, and his wife is apparently also a major witness against him. She said that after Tianna’s boyfriend called Haulman’s house to say he knew she was seeing him, Haulman got angry and threatened to kill either Tianna or the boyfriend. He later told his wife he had killed Tianna, and when she didn’t believe him he showed her photos of a woman’s dead body. From this article:

Haulman’s wife told police that several months after the crime had occurred, she went with him back to the site. She said he wanted to collect some of the evidence there. He took with him, he told police, black trash bags that he then filled with clothing and some of Phillips’ body parts. He stashed them in these dumpsters behind the AMC Theaters in Scott Township.

When questioned by police about Phillips’ disappearance, Haulman said he never picked her up that night.

Haulman was charged in December of 2020 for the murder of Erica Shultz. Her body was discovered in the same location where Haulman told police he killed Phillips.

So that’s happened. And according to this article, that may not be all: Haulman has “links” to Ashley Marie Parlier, a 21-year-old mentally disabled and pregnant woman who disappeared from Battle Creek, Michigan in 2005. I wonder if he was the father of her child and/or if they met on a dating app (or site? did apps exist in 2005?), which is where Haulman met both Phillips and his other victim, Erica Schultz.

MP of the week: Elizabeth Hernandez

This week’s featured missing person is Elizabeth Ann Hernandez, a 29-year-old woman who was four months pregnant when she disappeared on November 15, 2017 from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Miguel Martinez, who was her boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, said he dropped her off at the Department of Human Services office that day, but she never signed in.

Foul play is suspected in Hernandez’s case. If still alive, she’d be 32 today, almost 33, and the baby she was carrying would be two going on three.

Native American Heritage Month: Marion Gonangnan

In honor of Native American Heritage Month I’m featuring a Native American missing person for every day in the month of November. Today’s missing person is Marion Gonangnan, a 32-year-old woman who disappeared from Anchorage in 2003. I don’t have tribal info for her. The site Justice For Native Women says she had spent a lot of her life in the lower 48 states, was unhappy in Alaska and wanted to return to California, where she’d spent her younger years.

Marion may have been suffering from an ectopic pregnancy at the time of her disappearance. Basically, that happens when the fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. The only treatment is to terminate the pregnancy; if left untreated, this is a life-threatening condition.

That alone would make her disappearance concerning, but Marion’s lifestyle indicates foul play could have been involved in her case. She had a history of drug abuse, sex work and “residential instability”, and a violent relationship with her boyfriend. (He was in jail when she went missing, though, so he isn’t a suspect.)

It seems likely that Marion is deceased. If still alive, she would be 48 today.

Black History Month: Sheryia Grant

In honor of Black History Month I’m profiling one African-American MP every day on this blog for the month of February. Today’s case is Sheryia Ronsha Grant, a twenty-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared from Kilgore, Texas on August 19, 2016.

The police seem to think they know what happened: three suspects, one of them a juvenile, have been charged with evidence tampering in Grant’s case. The evidence they allegedly tampered with was a corpse. You can draw the lines from there.

According to her family, one of the suspects is Grant’s ex-boyfriend and the father of her unborn baby, whom Grant planned to name I’yanna Ree. No trials have happened as of yet, however, and Grant’s disappearance remains unsolved.

Pride Month: Martha “Clyde” Dicks

In honor of Pride Month I’m featuring a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer missing person every day for the month of June. Today’s case is Martha Ann Dicks, aka Clyde, who disappeared from Sumter, South Carolina on March 29, 1972.

Said to be a lesbian who sometimes dated men, I wonder if Martha wasn’t actually transgender. She had a man’s name for her nickname and she liked to wear men’s clothes.

Martha/Clyde is thought to have been a victim of the serial killer Donald “Pee Wee” Gaskins. She was 19 and possibly pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

MP of the week: Rene Perez

This week’s featured missing person is Rene Perez Jr., who disappeared with his mom, Cecilia Elizabeth Newball, from Los Angeles in 1994. Rene was six years old; Cecilia was thirty-two.

Cecilia’s husband of one year, Alfredo (who is not Rene’s father) claims Cecilia and Rene simply left one day and never came back. Cecilia left a goodbye-card and her wedding and engagement rings, and Alfredo got a typewritten letter a few days later. The letter said Cecilia (who is originally from El Salvador) was moving to Honduras with a guy named Arturo.

However, foul play is suspected in their cases. Cecilia was eight months pregnant, and women don’t usually pick that time to make major life changes or travel internationally. Furthermore, all of her and Rene’s belongings were left behind, including Cecilia’s car, their clothes and Rene’s glasses.

Some general questions that occur to me with the info that’s available:

1. Did Cecilia and Rene’s passports disappear with them? Did Rene even have a passport?
2. Was there any record of either of them leaving the United States?
3. Did Cecilia even know how to type? Did she usually type her letters?
4. Did Alfredo own a typewriter? If so, did the police check and see if it had been used to write that letter?
5. Was Rene’s father a presence in their lives, and has he been ruled out as a suspect?
6. Does Alfredo have a criminal record or a history of violence towards women?

If he’s still alive, Rene would now be 30 years old. I think he’s probably still six. And I don’t think his younger sibling was ever born.

Thoughts on today’s updates

It’s 11:47 p.m. as I type this, so perhaps by the time it’s finished, “today” will be “yesterday.”

For all the updated cases today, except Jahi Turner and Donna Mezo, you can thank Mion, who kindly gathered together a bunch of old newspaper articles about cases I had and emailed them to me.

Regarding my Donna Mezo update, I hope it clarifies the situation with her boyfriend’s death. Earlier I had said there was a suicide note and his death was ruled a suicide in spite of the fact that the gun used was found in “a nearby lake.” Well, I have since learned that “nearby” was more like “a few feet away.” I think what probably happened is that Jeffrie either threw or dropped his weapon into the water during or after firing it.

I found quite a lot on Newspapers.com for Marcell Byers‘s case. His NamUs profile includes a clipping about how the people charged with kidnapping him disappeared and their lawyer had been threatened and maybe it was foul play.

Well, the two suspects did disappear, leaving a van shot full of holes, but I guess it was all just an attempt to evade prosecution because they were alive, back in custody and well enough to cop a plea less than a year later.

It’s disturbing that Marcell was never found. All this over a gold chain. The Zuppos pleaded no contest to kidnapping, meaning they didn’t even admit they were guilty. They’d be out of prison by now and I’m not sure what they’re up to these days. I think Gerald Sr. may be dead; someone with the same name and birth year died in North Carolina in 2003.

Tejin‘s case is just sad. (Also, NamUs has him listed as a girl? I admit you can’t really tell from the pictures. If I hadn’t found some articles on his disappearance I’d have been none the wiser.) I found his Facebook page and one picture was of him holding a little turtle, whom Tejin called “my son.” This was just a few months before his presumed death.

Julie Davis‘s case is sad too. Judging from the Facebook page created for her, she was lost for awhile before she disappeared. They only have the one not very good quality and out-of-date photo of her, and from the Facebook page her family apparently wasn’t really clear on when they’d last heard from her. They mentioned getting a letter from her “around 1985 or 1986.” (I’m not sure where NamUs’s date of disappearance comes from.)

She was just sixteen years old and already out on her own, almost four hours from her hometown.  I know things were a bit different back in the eighties, but that’s still pretty unusual. I wonder if she was in foster care. Obviously her family cares about her or they wouldn’t be trying to find her. I hope she’s alive out there and doesn’t even know anyone is looking, and isn’t a Jane Doe somewhere, or worse, dead and never found.

For this case, normally I’d have listed her as just regular “Missing” but then I saw the detail about the track marks and thought “drugs” and upgraded her case to “Endangered Missing.” Question: do track marks ALWAYS mean drugs? There are some medical conditions that require a person to get frequent injections; do those people get similar scars?

Ashley Lynn Thomas has such striking eyes, so big and dark against her pale skin and hair. I hope she’s okay. I hope she and the baby are both healthy and being looked after.

Stuart Owen Collins got a big update today. (Thanks again, Mion!) It does sound like something bad happened to him, and one inevitably wonders about the woman he was with, and even more so about her husband.

With Paul Egan (another big update there) the whole rendering theory is just awful to contemplate. The police seemed to suspect Paul’s friend. They said his friend was not a suspect, but they also made a point of saying they couldn’t confirm the friend’s story.

It could have happened something like this: Paul and his friend got into some kind of argument at the plant after hours — his friend was a foreman, Paul a technician — and things got out of hand something went horribly wrong, and his friend is panicking and thinks “well, there’s this rendering machine, if I just chuck him in and keep my mouth shut, no one will ever know.” I doubt such places had security cameras in 1975. The rendering machine was designed to grind up horses; a human corpse would be easy.

Of course that’s all supposition. I did look up the friend in the Florida DOC database and on Facebook and couldn’t find anyone by that name. I did find a Newspapers.com mention of a person by that name (and a photo of that person) from 1970, five years before Paul disappeared. Nothing since then. I wonder if I’ve got the spelling of his surname right.

As far as the note Elsie Elsinga left behind — and her daughter’s poo-pooing the significance of that note — I don’t know. Her daughter said something like “How could someone of that age have done anything to mess up their life?” But perhaps Elsie’s “possible mild depression” was more significant than her daughter thought.

For Helen Robinson, I wonder if she decided to take a plane to visit one of those CB radio friends she had, and maybe something happened that prevented her from coming back. It was two solid years before her van turned up; by then, the weeds might have grown over the flight records. Robinson is definitely dead now; I don’t think she would have lived long in any case, because of her emphysema.

I added 27 updates and I’m very pleased with my work output today. I hope y’all have noticed how much more productive I’ve been ever since the site got redesigned. It takes less time to add/update stuff, since I don’t have to write all the code by hand, or hand-add case names to the lists.