Remains found in 1979 identified, and other stories

Today is National Missing Persons day. This article has some info about how the new Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains Act, which was signed into law on New Years’ Eve, will help communities along the Mexican border.

In Alabama: Skeletal remains have been found in Conecuh County, Alabama. Though they haven’t been identified yet, the police think they’re those of Brian Estrada, who disappeared last October. His ID was found near the bones.

In California: They’re still looking for Sydney West, a 19-year-old University of California, Berkeley student who disappeared from San Francisco on September 30. Her parents are offering a $10,000 reward for info leading to her return.

In Colorado: The murder trial of Donthe Lucas in the disappearance of his 21-year-old pregnant girlfriend Kelsie Jean Schelling from Pueblo has begun. Kelsie was last seen on February 5, 2013.

In Florida: They’re still looking for Lemuel Robert Hall, a 79-year-old man who disappeared from Escambia County in 2019. He was last seen in July, but wasn’t reported missing till September.

In Maine: They’re still looking for Jason D. Reil, a 33-year-old man who disappeared from Brunswick in January 2012. He had schizophrenia and was off his meds when he went missing.

In Mississippi: They’re still looking for William Brian McKenzie, a 21-year-old who disappeared in September 2019.

In Ohio: They’re still looking for Nylo Lattimore, a 3-year-old boy who disappeared from Cincinnati on December 4. His mother was allegedly stabbed to death in her home on December 5 and her body dumped, but it wasn’t found for a week. Desean Brown has been charged with Nylo’s mother’s murder, but Nylo has never been found and Brown hasn’t cooperated in the case.

In Pennsylvania: They’re still looking for Robert Scott Baron, who disappeared from his restaurant in Old Forge on January 25, 2017. It looks like he was probably killed in a robbery of the business; they found some blood in his car and a tooth in the restaurant’s sink.

In South Dakota: 9-year-old Serenity June Dennard disappeared from the Black Hills Children’s Home two years ago today. Though the case is still open, the police have suspended the search for now, for lack of any ideas where to look.

In Tennessee: They’re still looking for Shelley Lynn Mook, a 24-year-old woman who disappeared from Shelbyville on February 28, 2011. Her husband Tyler is a person of interest in her case, but has never been charged.

In Texas: They’re still looking for Joshua Jayvaughn Davis Jr., a one-year-old boy who disappeared from New Braunfels on February 4, 2011 — ten years ago tomorrow. The police seem to think his parents were involved or at least know what happened. I’m not sure. I am a firm believer in the axiom that there’s usually no smoke without fire. But one thing I will observe: Joshua’s parents have talked to the media a fair bit about his disappearance and tried to publicize it as much as they can, which in my observation is inconsistent with people who were responsible for their child’s disappearance.

In Oregon: They have identified remains found at the bottom of Multnomah Falls in September 1979. His name is Freeman Asher Jr.

In Washington: They’re still looking for Sofia Lucerno Juarez, who disappeared from Kennewick on February 4, 2003, the day before her fifth birthday. 18 years ago tomorrow.

In Australia: They’re still looking for Lisa Govan, a 28-year-old woman who disappeared from Kalfoorie, Western Australia in 1999. The police believe she was murdered.

Also in Australia: They’re still looking for Steven James Goldsmith, a 28-year-old arborist who disappeared from Toowoomba, Queensland in 2000. Authorities believe he was murdered. There’s a $250k reward out to help solve the case.

In Canada: They have identified a body that washed up on Gulf Island Beach in British Columbia in 1972. The name of the man, who was 41 when he disappeared from Coquitlam in 1967, has not been released.

Also in Canada: They’re still looking for Ben Tyner, a ranch manager who disappeared from Merritt, British Columbia in January 2019.

In Belgium: A car was found in a canal in Bruges; it turned out to belong to Ronny Lateste, a 39-year-old man who disappeared in 1990. His body was inside it.

Teala Thompson found deceased

Earlier this year I added the new/old case of Teala Thompson, a light-skinned, gray-eyed biracial thirteen-year-old who disappeared from Pittsburgh nearly fifty years ago on September 5, 1967. Well, she’s been found: a body that turned up in a Salem Township, Pennsylvania landfill just two weeks after Teala disappeared has been identified as the missing girl.

This case should have been solved a long time ago. I mean, she was found not too long after she disappeared and less than 40 miles away, and they got her fingerprints and were able to chart her teeth. They were off on the age, but only slightly — they thought the dead girl was between fourteen and sixteen, when Teala was thirteen years and ten months.

I don’t really know what happened here and neither, according to the article I linked to, does anyone else:

[Teala’s younger sister] Mary Thompson said some family members believe that police had contacted [their mother] Shirley Thompson once early on in the investigation and had asked her to view a photo of the unidentified remains but that Shirley Thompson had declined. “I think it was just too hard for her. I don’t think she wanted to admit that Teala wasn’t coming home,” Mary Thompson said.

There’s no evidence in the police record that indicates the Thompson family was contacted by police nor that the Thompson family had reported Teala missing.

Perhaps Shirley really did turn down a chance to identify the body. She’s dead now so we can’t ask her. It would explain why she told Mary that Teala had been murdered in Greensburg (which is, I believe, where the landfill was). It’s also entirely on the cards that the police either wouldn’t take a missing persons report for a teen girl — a child of that age would have been written off as a runaway, and probably the fact that she was non-white wouldn’t have helped matters — or that they did take a report but the records were lost later on.

In any case, I’m afraid there may be no more answers to be found. Whoever killed Teala could be dead now, and even if he/she isn’t, building a case after all this time is well nigh impossible.

“I can’t say I remember much about what happened,” her sister Mary says. She was four when Teala disappeared. She adds: “What I remember was that Teala was beautiful and she was loved.”

Other articles

• Sister Of Victim In Cold Case Mystery Is Devastated, But Relieved To Have Some Answers
• Cold case heats up: Pittsburgh girl killed in 1967 finally ID’d
• Exhumed body ID’d as girl who vanished in ’67; murder probe opened
• Composite Sketch Released Of Remains Of Unidentified Teenager  (this is from before she was identified; as you can see the sketch does resemble her)

April MP news

Catching up on where I left off, here’s some of the latest missing persons news for this month so far:

A suspect has been charged with murder in the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia May Hernandez. This is almost a new record for the longest time between disappearance and charges and filed in a murder-without-a-body case. Sheila Lyon and Katherine Lyon‘s alleged killers were charged last summer, forty years after their 1975 disappearances. With Cynthia’s alleged killer it’s been only a few months short of forty years.

Colton Clark‘s aunt and uncle (and foster parents), Rex and Rebecca Clark, have been arrested for murder and child abuse in his case. As of yesterday evening, though, formal charges have not been filed against them. Authorities are digging on their property looking for Colton’s body.

They’re checking a well to see if Mark Wendell Wilson, who disappeared from Quincy, California all the way back in 1967, could be in it (or maybe have been in it at one time). The people doing the checking are not cops but students at Cal State Sacramento, and they’re checking the well for traces of Mark’s mitochondrial DNA. I think this is awesome. I highly doubt they’ll find anything but I still think it’s awesome. I was able to find the 2014 article referenced in the aforementioned link, and read it, but it doesn’t really tell anything about the disappearance that I didn’t already know.

They’ve found the body of Kelli Cox, a woman who disappeared in 1997 from Denton, Texas. She’s still on Charley right now but I plan to remove her case in today’s update. William Reece, a convicted kidnapper, lead authorities to Kelli’s remains and the remains of another person, probably Jessica Cain, who disappeared a month after Kelli did.

Sometimes reading the comments section is useful

Reading the comments sections of most articles makes me lose my faith in humanity. But sometimes comments can yield useful nuggets of information. Take this HuffPo article about the Kevin Collins case: A commenter by the name of Paul Montoya posted saying, “My brother’s disappearance in 1975 is still unsolved No milk cartons no Amber alerts just missing….”

Charley’s got a Phillip Alfred Montoya who disappeared in 1975, from Fremont, California, which is only 40 miles from San Francisco where Kevin Collins disappeared. He was 14. I posted a reply to Paul Montoya’s comment asking if this was his brother. I’m hoping he will write back in the affirmative and perhaps supply more info on Phillip’s disappearance, as I don’t have all that much to go on.

Furthermore, a person who replied to Paul Montoya’s comment said his cousin disappeared in 1967 at the age of 11. Charley’s got two eleven-year-olds who vanished that year, Mark Wendell Wilson and William “Billy” Hoag. I’m guessing that if the cousin is one of those, it’s probably Mark, because (A) Mark’s case is a California one, like the one featured in the article, whereas Billy’s is from Missouri and (B) Billy disappeared with two other people and it seems like his cousin would have mentioned that. I asked that commenter for information also. I have NOTHING on Mark.

Feature story on Missouri’s second “missing trio”

The Hannibal Courier-Post has done this three-page story on the 1967 disappearances of Craig Dowell and the brothers Joey and Billy Hoag. Last month was the 45th anniversary of their disappearances.

The three boys are presumed to have become trapped in a cave they were exploring after it collapsed on them, but a search turned up nothing. However, as the article notes, the search might not have been as thorough as it should have been. I suppose there’s always the possibility that they were abducted or something, but I think that’s quite remote.

There’s a book about the case, but from the reviews I don’t know if it’s worth the price tag of almost $16. And my library doesn’t have it — in fact, according to Worldcat, no libraries have it. It seems to me that if an author wants to promote their book they should send some free copies to a bunch of libraries, at least locally. I can’t tell you how many wonderful books I’ve found just randomly browsing shelves.

John Doe found in 1967 identified as missing teen

An eighteen-year-old boy missing from Ontario, Canada since April 1967 has been identified as a John Doe located in December of that year. This is the second time this has happened in the same area in recent history; in December 2006, police identified another body they’d found in 1968. That victim was also a teen boy. Police think a serial killer was involved. It reminds me of Dean Corll, or John Wayne Gacy.

After over forty years, it’s unlikely that these young men’s killer(s) will be caught. They may very well be dead by now. But at least their families know what happened to them. A small, hollow consolation. The actions of the Ontario Provincial Police in these cases were commendable; the cases were not so much cold as frozen, but they persevered and now there’s a resolution, of sorts. I wish all the other police departments out there would be so tenacious.