I found this anniversary article about Joey Offutt, who’s been missing since early July 2007. She disappeared under bizarre circumstances. She was a single parent of three children; one of them was a six-week-old baby, one was a toddler and one was school-age.
On July 12, Joey’s house was set on fire in the middle of the night. When the fire department arrived and put out the fire, they found the body of Joey’s baby boy in the bathtub. He had been dead since before the fire started but no cause of death could be established. Joey’s older children were fortunately staying with relatives at the time. Joey was last seen on July 4, that is to say, over a week before the fire started.
I haven’t seen a lot of press attention about this, and the police seem to be keeping whatever they know to themselves. I haven’t heard any serious suggestions that Joey was the one who killed her son, set the fire and ran off. Her family believes she was probably kidnapped. They described her as a religious woman and a devoted parent who wouldn’t have abandoned her family.
I really hope this case is solved sooner rather than later. It is, after all, probably a double homicide.