While I was out

While I was away (and I’m fine, I appreciate you all asking), of course the missing person world kept carrying on as usual. Some items of interest:

Five years and one day ago, two-year-old Everlyse Cabrera was reported missing from her foster home in North Las Vegas, Nevada. There’s an anniversary article about it, quoting Everlyse’s biological mother. The child and her brother were taken into care because their parents both had problems with drugs. The cops are looking pretty hard at the foster parents, in part because no one besides them recalls having seen Everlyse for nearly a month before her disappearance was reported.

A grand jury is investigating the 1984 disappearance of Mary Edna Badaracco from Connecticut. She supposedly left her husband and walked away into oblivion. Her case has been classified as a homicide and her daughters have been active in lobbying for it to be solved. I think I heard from one of them once.

Nancy Dunsavage has taken a plea for the 1984 abduction of her six-year-old daughter, Eva Marie Fiedler. Eva didn’t turn up until last fall. They’d both been living under assumed names and Eva didn’t know about her history. Dunsavage pleaded guilty to custodial interference and got…16 days in jail. Time served. She’s claiming the usual “he was abusive” crap. Eva has legally changed her name to Melissa Olszewski (Melissa being the name she went by for most of her life, Olszewski being her husband’s name), and has only spoken to her left-behind father once. She has, however, said she might establish a relationship with him once she’s processed everything that happened. There’s a video at the link. Sigh. I hope she’s in therapy.

The body of Jadon Higganbothan, who was reported missing last October, has probably been found. His mom got involved with some crazy cult called the Black Hebrews. Nine adults and and least nine children were living together in this one house. Authorities have long suspected the Black Hebrews in the disappearance of Jadon and also Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy, who disappeared after him. Well, they just turned up two bodies in the backyard of the home where the Black Hebrews had lived: one woman, one child. No prizes for guessing who, but the cops haven’t confirmed the identifications yet. Pete Lucas Moses Jr., the cult’s leader, has been charged in Jadon’s murder. Moses and six others — including Jadon’s mother — have been charged in McKoy’s murder.

I found this interesting article about chronic runaways in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Some of them are staying in youth shelters, run from there, get found, get put back in the shelter, then run again, etc. The article mentions one thirteen-year-old who ran away 18 times in one year. The thing is, being a runaway is not a crime in Pittsburgh, and the police can’t force them to stay in the shelters, so there’s a bit of a conundrum. A juvenile court judge quoted in the article suggested they need to find foster homes for older teens instead of putting them in shelters. Good luck with that!

In Alberta, Canada, two skulls have turned up close to each other and one of them has been identified as 19-year-old Rene Gunning. Rene disappeared with a 16-year-old friend, Krystle Knott, back in 2005. Both of them were regular hitchhikers. Presumably the other skull is Krystle’s, but the police haven’t released the ID yet.

In Australia however, they have identified the body of 13-year-old Declan Crouch, who had been missing for nearly three months. His body was found in a mangrove swamp near his home. The police, citing unspecified “evidence,” believe he committed suicide — a double blow, perhaps, for Declan’s parents. I can’t find anything about the cause of death.