MP of the week: Deklon Ford

This week’s featured missing person (sorry about last week, it wasn’t a good week) is Deklon Ford, who disappeared on May 6, 2015. He was only six months old at the time, and would be four years old now.

He and his mom, 28-year-old Brittany Anne Ford, disappeared together, and although the place of disappearance is given as Columbus, Ohio, they were “last known to be” in Hardin, Montana. Brittany’s car (which had Georgia plates, incidentally) was found abandoned on Highway 87 between Billings, Montana and Sheridan, Wyoming, but I’m a bit hazy as to which state it was in.

I’m not sure under what circumstances they’re missing, but they have a Facebook page set up for them, and Deklon’s dad set up a GoFundMe for search funds.

Thinking aloud on updates, 10/30/2017

I had a bit of a burst and spent all night and into the morning working on today’s updates. I raided Facebook, as I have said, finding additional pictures and sometimes a lot more.

1. Autumn Starr Cerenil-Lee: It’s eerie and sad to find traces of my MPs’ pre-disappearance lives online. I found Autumn’s Facebook page. Less than a month before her disappearance she wrote she was getting a divorce, after a marriage that had lasted under a year. Her husband posted a comment saying she was to blame for what had occurred. Autumn also wrote about her daughter, who had some chromosomal anomalies that caused severe health problems.
   I can only hope that she decided to walk away from her life — and the evidence does seem to indicate that she did walk away, at least for awhile, since she was allegedly sighted in Wyoming. But did she intend to stay gone this long, almost four years now?
2. Kelsey Emily Collins: I finally found out the name of that scumbag who was pimping her. I wish I could have found his picture too, and that of his woman accomplice. It seems like a massive failure on the authorities’ part that they didn’t offer Kelsey witness protection, but they claim they didn’t know it was needed, and that if she had told them about any threats they would have helped her.
3. Georgia Nadine Kirk: Shades of Walter Dunson here; they were the same age too, almost. Ted Kirk sounds like a snotrag. I read that he lives on a huge property with something like 20 vehicles on it, and friends reported the place smelled pretty bad. I’m not sure if the cops have searched for Nadine’s body there yet; they asked for permission to go over it with cadaver dogs but Ted said no. It seems like there should be enough evidence by now to get a warrant.
4. Irma Mkrtchyan: I found Irma’s Facebook page too. She often wrote posts in Russian, and she posted photographs of herself visiting Armenia. She was born there, graduated from a polytechnic there and moved to the U.S. sometime after 1996 (that’s when she got her degree). I found her children’s Facebook pages as well and it says her son was born in Yerevan.
   Irma’s disappearance appears to have torn her family apart. I found a vicious character assassination of her brother Davit (aka David), which accused him of fraud, laziness, dishonesty, and generally being a slimeball. I think it must have been written by Irma’s ex-husband. The horrible statement said Davit had dishonored his sister’s legacy, lied to the police, and started fights within the family, and that Irma’s daughter had a restraining order against him. I hope that anyone who reads it would take it with a grain of salt. Davit appears to be the only one in the family who is actively trying to solve his sister’s disappearance.
   I wonder how Irma’s surname is pronounced. It needs a serious infusion of vowels.
5. Noah Pomaikai Montemayor: A very sad case — a bright, talented, promising kid who, it appears, cracked under the pressure to live up to that promise. It reminded me of the Matthew Wilson case from ten years ago. Matthew did eventually turn up alive, if not well, and I hope Noah will do the same. They say that the longer you’re gone, the harder it is to call home. But it seems odd that he hasn’t been found by now, especially given he had nothing with him and there was an extensive and well-publicized search. I mean, it’s an island.
6. Nancy Paulikas: My God Alzheimer’s is scary. Especially in someone as young and smart and successful as she was. Recently I read a book I liked and looked the author up on Facebook, hoping to contact her; I found her page but it hadn’t been updated since 2013 and the last post said she had Alzheimer’s. I concluded there was no point in messaging her because she probably could no longer read. Hopefully by the time I’m old enough to worry about getting it, they’ll have found a cure.

Select It Sunday: Sharon Baldeagle

This week’s Select It Sunday is Sharon Baldeagle (often named as Sharon Bald Eagle), chosen by Fluttergirl. She was twelve when she disappeared on September 18, 1984, and her case has for some reason fascinated me since I started getting interested in MPs, back when I was the same age that Sharon was when she was taken. I actually blogged about her once before, exactly three years and one week ago.

Sharon and a fifteen-year-old friend ran away from Eagle Butte, South Dakota, which is on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, the fourth-largest reservation in the U.S. Sharon was Native American, presumably Cheyenne River Sioux, and probably her friend was too. They were hitchhiking in Casper, Wyoming, almost a six-hour drive from home, when they got picked up by Royal Russell Long, a truck driver who took them to his house in Evansville. There he attacked them, raping the older girl and beating Sharon. Sharon’s friend escaped and went for help, but by the time the authorities arrived at the scene, Long and his other captive were gone.

Long wasn’t arrested until the following year; by then he’d gone to New Mexico. He claimed Sharon was alive and well the last time he saw her, but let’s face it, what are the chances of that? He was convicted of two counts of kidnapping — that of Sharon and her friend — and died in prison 25 years ago.

Long was probably serial killer; he’s also a suspect in the cases of Carlene Brown, Christy Gross, Deborah Rae Meyer, Jayleen Dawn Baker, Charlotte June Kinsey, and Cinda Leann Pallett, who ranged in age from ten to nineteen. Carlene and Christy disappeared together from a rodeo in Rawlins, Wyoming in July 1974, and Deborah and Jayleen disappeared, nineteen days apart, from the same area in August of that year. Cinda and Charlotte from a fair in Oklahoma in 1981 — Long was actually charged with their murders, but the case was dropped for lack of evidence. Only Christy and Jayleen’s bodies were ever found.

I think it’s pretty obvious what must have happened to Sharon; I only wish her family had answers. Her father was alive as 2013 and still hoping to find her — he looked all over the country for her. I’m not sure if he’s still living as he had cancer in 2013, but I can’t find an obituary for him.

I wonder if anyone’s ever written a book about Royal Russell Long. Serial killers are a popular topic in literature, after all. If someone has, I’d love to read it.

Visited my car yesterday, and so on

Yeah, so yesterday Dad came over to see me and together we went to the tow lot to have a look at my car and retrieve the last of my belongings from it. Turns out the thing is in even worse shape than I thought. Presenting exhibits A, B and C:

Yeah, so not only is just about the entire driver’s side trashed, but the front driver’s side wheel is bent and the windshield is cracked. I emailed the photos to the insurance company. I also noted, and photographed, a pile of automobile detritus in front of my car. I’m not sure whether it’s mine or not, but I sent it along.

It had less than 100,000 miles on it. *sobs* It was a really nice car, too. I mean, yeah it was old (1996) and fracking HUGE and consequently it didn’t have the greatest gas mileage. I doubt its Blue Book value will be much. But it was a luxury model with all the bells and whistles, and its very size may have prevented me from further injury. While we were out I showed Dad the ditch I went into and he was like, “Oh. My. God.”

Last night, Michael and L. and I went out to Granite City, my favorite restaurant, to celebrate my birthday. When the waitress found out it was my birthday they gave me a free, delicious “birthday cookie” with caramel and nuts and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. We had a good time. Today Michael’s parents came over with a card and a cake for me, which was nice.

I don’t know what’s going on but I can barely talk at all and it’s been like this for a few days now. I was able to talk to the insurance companies on the phone on Wednesday, but my voice sounded very hoarse, and gave out almost entirely after that. It’s not so bad with Michael because he’s used to it, but today his parents kept asking me questions and I kept pointing and shaking my head in frustration.

My throat hurts, but not very much — not even enough that I’ve wanted to take aspirin or anything. I don’t feel sick — no sniffling or coughing, no fever, ears don’t hurt, etc. It has been suggested that maybe it’s just a stress reaction due to the accident; I dunno. Certainly I often have physical reactions from stress but I’ve never lost my voice from it; usually my back just freezes up. If I’m still like this by Monday I suppose I’ll have to go back to the doctor.

It’s kind of inconvenient being without a car of course. I had a friend drive me to the doctor this week for my concussion followup, and then my mother drove me back to Fort Wayne. Earlier this week I took an Uber ride to the library and back. But that’s just not practical for anything outside the city. Mom thinks I should demand a rental from the insurance company until my car gets replaced.

As for the Charley Project: I have been working on it, but it’s been “behind the scenes” type stuff you guys can’t see. (Purging cases, answering emails, etc.) Tomorrow I’m planning to start public updates again.

Today I read a book called Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park. It was very good. It mentioned several accidents where the person undoubtedly perished but the body was never recovered — by author Lee Whittlesey’s reckoning there are at least a dozen, perhaps as many as twenty, bodies in Yellowstone Lake and he doesn’t recommend that ANYONE take a small boat out on there, EVER, because the water is so cold (year-round average temperature is around 45 degrees) and storms can come very quickly and capsize small craft. I have several Yellowstone cases on Charley, and in the book Luke Sanburg was mentioned, as was Dennis Johnson. Whittlesey mentioned one case from 1900 where the guy disappeared from his hotel in the park and was never found; he thinks the man went out for a walk after dark and fell into one of the hot springs. The book also mentioned — and had a copy of the poster for — another case I don’t have on Charley.

If you’re interested in such things I also recommend Michael P. Ghiglieri and Thomas M. Myers’s book Over The Edge: Death in Grand Canyon. It’s really good too, and quite similar to the aforementioned book, except of course it’s about a different national park. It does however have a mistake in it for which I am partially to blame: they claim Connie Smith‘s body was found in Grand Canyon National Park several years after her disappearance. In fact, the remains were misidentified as Connie at first; the mistake was quickly rectified and Connie is still missing, obviously, and “Little Miss X” remains unidentified to this day. When I read that in the first edition, I remember thinking “Someone should tell them they’re wrong.” That someone should have been me. When I read the second edition of the book and realized the error was still there, I emailed Mr. Ghiglieri and told him about it and provided some links. He said they were working on another edition and he’d try to make sure the error was corrected, but it might already be too late for that.

Amazon also recommends Death in Glacier National Park: Stories of Accidents and Foolhardiness in the Crown of the Continent, which just came out in May, for readers who enjoyed the two aforementioned books. I will have to check that one out. WorldCat says neither the Allen County Public Library nor any library in the OhioLink system has it, but I’ve got birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and I could spend some of it on that. I had thought Glacier National Park was in Alaska, but I was mistaken; it’s in Montana. The Charley Project has Patrick Terrence Whalen who disappeared from there. I think I had Glacier National Park mixed up with Arctic National Park, which is in fact in Alaska; Thomas Seibold is missing from there.

For the first two books (and probably the third although I haven’t read it), the moral of them is basically this: “These places are beautiful and offer a unique experience you’ll remember for the rest of your days and we highly recommend a visit. BUT pay attention to the warnings and obey all the rules and don’t go over the guardrails, and generally don’t be an idiot, because almost everyone who got seriously injured or died here did so at least in part due to their own arrogance and/or stupidity.” Amen.

YouTube Saturday: Justin Harris and Kimberly Palmer

For this week I did Justin Phillip Harris and Kimberly Anne Palmer. Both very mysterious cases.

Flashback Friday: Amber Elizabeth Scholz

This week’s Flashback Friday case is Amber Elizabeth Scholz from Rock Springs, Wyoming. (Rock Springs is northwest Wyoming. It had a population of 23,000 and change, which makes it a booming metropolis by Wyoming stands.) Amber was last seen on her way home party. She apparently made it home, and something happened there. It was November 8, 1981.

One thing I don’t get: “Scholz has a neurotic disorder which makes her highly suggestible and easily influenced by people.” I have NO IDEA what this “neurotic disorder” could be and I know a lot about mental illness.

Back from Toledo, will do a proper update tomorrow

So this morning I saw a neurologist at the University of Toledo about this incident. The appointment went reasonably well in that the neurologist was very professional and attentive, listened closely, took a lot of notes, etc. The bad news is the neurologist doesn’t know what happened. The good news is, whatever it was, it wasn’t a seizure, because people who are in the midst of a seizure can’t answer other people’s questions using clear, coherent, grammatically correct answers that indicate some kind of thought process is going on (even if those answers don’t make sense). The neurologist did not put me on any medicine or schedule another appointment for me to see her. She says what happened doesn’t seem to fit any diagnosis she can think of.

Best thing then is to eat my veggies (which I have been doing) and hope it never happens again. Chalk it up to “why does this always happen to me?”

Now, regarding those resolves I mentioned. I’ll do a real update tomorrow but in the meantime:

They have found the remains of Nilsa Arizmendi, Melanie Camilini and Daniel Whistnant (aka Janice Roberts). All of them, plus several others, are believed to be the victim of suspected serial killer William Devin Howell. He’s only been convicted of killing Nilsa thus far. All three of the victims vanished in 2003.

They’ve also found the body of Michael “Bradyn” Fuksa, who disappeared from Wheatland, Wyoming in 2009. This is a really sad case; his death was ruled a suicide. He apparently drove from his home in Olathe, Kansas to the middle of nowhere in Wyoming (actually I think the entire state is included in the middle of nowhere), got a flat tire, walked further into the middle of nowhere and shot himself. He was only 22 years old.

And they’ve found the body of Anne Josette Hill, a sixteen-year-old girl who disappeared from Edmond, Oklahoma last April. Two other teenagers have been charged with her murder. There was never much in the way of doubt as to the defendants’ guilt; both have confessed. But I’m glad her body has turned up.

And this is quite late in the day, but they found the body of Misti Whitfield, age 35, who vanished from Tampa, Florida on May 2, 2013. She left behind five children.

On a cheerful note, both Kyanja Vanwey and Alondra Diaz-Garcia have turned up alive and well. Alondra’s recovery made the news, She had been missing almost eight years and Kyanja for nearly ten.

Select It Sunday: Justin Harris

This week’s Select It Sunday case, chosen by Eileen R., is Justin Philip Harris. This thirteen-year-old boy was living at a group home for troubled children in Casper, Wyoming when he vanished during the night on February 15, 2004. It looks like he ran away, at least at first — he’d tried the old “stuff clothes under the blankets” trick to fool the staff into thinking he was in his room asleep. But what happened to him afterward is anyone’s guess.

The latest news I could find on Justin was this article from last year, the tenth anniversary of his disappearance. Oddly, his father claims he didn’t have any disabilities but the staff at the group home said he needed psych meds and functioned at the level of a first-grader.

Sadly, I believe that whatever did happen to Justin, it wasn’t good and he probably did not survive long after he left the group home.

Flashback Friday: Sharon Baldeagle

Unlike with many of my Flashback Friday cases and Charley Project cases in general, it’s pretty obvious what happened to Sharon Baldeagle.

This twelve-year-old girl ran away from her home in South Dakota, accompanied by an older friend. They made it to Wyoming, where they were picked up by Royal Russell Long, a probable serial killer. He took them back to his house and attacked them. Sharon’s friend was able to escape and go for help, but by the time the police made it to Long’s residence, he and Sharon were long gone. Although Long got picked up several months later in New Mexico, Sharon wasn’t with him. He claimed he put her on a bus for Dallas. Likely story.

If anything good came out of the disappearance of Sharon Baldeagle and the rape of her teenage friend, at least it got Long off the streets for good. Convicted of two counts of kidnapping, he was sentenced to life behind bars and died in prison in 1993. He’s a suspect in no fewer than four other disappearances of teen girls from Oklahoma and Wyoming, and as a truck driver, he could have picked up victims from all over the country and possibly Canada too.

Sharon’s case is one of those where an Amber Alert, had they been in place back then, might have saved her life. Certainly it fits the criteria: she had been kidnapped, they knew who did it and they had a description of his truck.

Her disappearance was one I was fascinated by when I first got interested in missing people over fifteen years ago, although I knew little about it at the time. She doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of press; being Native American, a runaway and probably poor didn’t help. But her father is still alive and wants to find her.

Detailed confession by Gerald Uden

That was fast — only a little over a month after his arrest, Gerald Uden has pleaded guilty to three murders and offered a detailed confession as to what went down. And it’s despicable. He outright executed an entire family.

And even after all this time, he STILL hasn’t apologized and he’s STILL blaming Virginia — one of his victims — for what happened. Just who are you calling “predator” Gerald, when you’re the one who shot a woman and two children in the back of the head? So this all started because of a dispute with Virginia over the divorce…then, what did the kids do? Why’d you have to kill them too?

And he’s 71 years old. Which means he won’t serve many years of his life sentence. Sigh.