Still Missing Teresa Butler!

1-25-10 Marked the 4th year of Teresa Butler's disappearance. How sad that we live in a world where someone would harm such a dear lady who was loved by so many.

Read the article from the DAR newspaper.

Support the Shirley Stratton Family

There will be a fund raiser for the family of Shirley Stratton who has been missing since 12-24-09.

Read more on KFVS

May God comfort and strengthen you during this difficult time.

Please Help pass the Silver Alert/Kristen's Act for the U.S.

There are many ways YOU can advocate for Missing Adults and their families.

1. Participate in the 2010 "March on Washington for Missing Adults" by calling, emailing and writing a letter of support for the Silver Alert/Kristen's Act. Information about this important piece of legislation can be found at:

Silver Alert & Kristen's Act

2. Become a state advocate.

3. Make a tax deductible gift to Let's Bring Them Home and the National Center for Missing Adults.

Visit NCMA for more details. You can change the gift amount found in the shopping cart to any amount. Every gift, large or small, makes a difference! All donations are used to support families with missing loved ones.

4. Host a Walk for the Missing in your community this spring.

For more information, please email letsbringthemhome@gmail.com.

Good Job Illinois law makers! Seniors need and deserve our help!

Amber Alert system created for missing senior citizens

KSDK -- Starting January 1 there will be a new system in place to help find missing adults in Illinois. It's patterned after the Amber Alert system for missing children.

The so-called 'Silver Alert' system urges law enforcement officials to send out alerts right away when adults with Alzheimer's or other health issues wander off, drive away and go missing.

State and health care officials say the new law will save lives. . . . .

Read article on KSDK

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary Mary & Eugene! December 17th would have been their 60th anniversary.

They stayed together through thick and thin with only death separating them. Gene fell asleep in death in April 1993.

Call Butler County Sheriff Dept. at 573-785-8444 if you have any information.

Training to help find the missing!

Every 30 seconds someone in the U.S. disappears, an average of 850,000 persons per year. Approximately 105,000 of these cases remain unsolved. Almost half of these cases represent unidentified persons.

This national conference provides attendees with investigative and forensic tools as well as updates on cutting-edge technology. A focus is placed on holistic strategies to foster collaboration across geographic jurisdictions and the importance of communication among local, state and federal law enforcement and criminal justice practitioners. View the Conference Brochure and Draft Agenda (under the Quick Links section to the right) for more detailed information.

Featured Speakers
Included among the schedule of diverse and experienced speakers at this national conference are Ed Smart, an expert on child safety and father of recovered Elizabeth Smart; Jim Clemente, writer and consultant for Criminal Minds television series; James Lewis, New Haven, Connecticut Chief of Police; and Dr. P. Michael Murphy, Coroner for Clark County in Law Vegas, Nevada. View the Featured Speakers web page for more information on these exciting presenters.

Who Should Attend
• Law Enforcement: administrators, investigators, K-9 search and rescue officers, medical examiners, and coroners
• Service Occupations: state clearinghouse staff, victim and child welfare advocates, and social service professionals
• Community: coalition members, faith-based personnel, representatives from non-profit organizations, advocates who support aging/at-risk populations, and families of the missing
• Education: administrators, faculty, academic counselors, school resource/liaison officers, and campus security officers
________________________________________
For questions regarding the Responding to Missing and Unidentified Persons National Conference, contact Barbara Nelson (phone: 888-370-1752.)


Registration information for conference

Project Rest

Click the link before for a poster of Mary Lee Grobe, Teresa Lynn Butler, Christina Carol Burnett-Pitts, and Tony Eugene Woodworth. All still missing! Thanks to MSHP and MoDot for keeping their names and faces out to remind people they need to be found.

Poster

Former Southeast Missouri public administrator charged with stealing from those in her care

Former Southeast Missouri public administrator charged with stealing from those in her care

Friday, October 2, 2009 ~ Updated 11:44 AM
Standard Democrat

NEW MADRID - A former New Madrid County official is charged with three counts of stealing from those under her care.

Nancy C. Pardon, who served as the New Madrid County Public Administrator until resigning in August 2008, is accused of a Class B felony of stealing for the theft of at least $25,000 in cash and checks from one of those under her care. Also she is charged with two Class C felonies of stealing for the theft of at least $500 from two others who she was responsible for as the public administrator.

Special prosecuting attorney Douglas S. Pribble with the Missouri Attorney General's office filed the charges in New Madrid County on Sept. 25. Following her appearance Sept. 28 before Judge W. Keith Currie, Pardon was released on her own recognizance and scheduled to return to court on Oct. 7. Currie is an associate circuit judge from Pemiscot County who was appointed after Judge Charles Spitler recused himself from the case because he handles the probate docket in New Madrid County.

In the probable cause statement, Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. Dennis A. Overbey stated Pardon was appointed guardian of the estate of Evelyn Barnes, who had two bank accounts. The Probate Court was not advised of the existence of an account containing $35,725.99, Overbey stated.

According to Overbey, within six months the account was drained of all but $81.38, at which time the final amount was withdrawn by Pardon and the account closed. "In six months Nancy Pardon spent $35,725.99 of Ms. Barnes' money on herself. Ms. Barnes did not receive any money from this account once Pardon took control," he stated.

The investigative officer noted several other incidents of Pardon allegedly writing checks to a range of businesses including Trees and Trends, J.C. Penney, Cracker Barrel and Sam's for clothing, jewelry, a 32-inch LCD television and other items. In his investigation, he stated, the nursing home's personnel were not aware of Ms. Barnes receiving any of the items.

Overbey found from January 2005 through April 2006, $7,050 in checks were allegedly written to Billie Sue Whitley and signed by Nancy Pardon for cash. After Whitley was moved into a nursing home, Pardon allegedly continued to write checks to Billie Sue Whitley and sign them for cash in the amount of $2,384.64, however the nursing home's records do not show Ms. Whitley receiving any of the money from the checks.

"It was also discovered that during 2006, after Ms. Whitley had been placed in a nursing home, her Social Security check continued to go into her bank account, but the money was never sent to the nursing home," Overbey stated. While this money totaled $2,013.20, eventually Pardon would provide the nursing home with $1,892, leaving $121.20 for which the investigator could not account.

In another incident Overbey noted Margie Weaver received a monthly pension of $301.20 from Caterpillar that went into a bank account, which Pardon did not report to the Probate Court. When the court brought the pension to Pardon's attention, he stated, she denied any knowledge of it but that same day closed the account.

"Several years of the pension (2005 through 2006 totaling $8,566.80) went unreported and cannot be accounted for," Overbey stated.

Nor could Overbey account for all the $5,000 Pardon received from the sale of Ms. Weaver's house. "The only legitimate expenditure appears to be a preneed burial policy for $2,000..." he stated, adding Ms. Weaver stated she had not received any money from Pardon nor do the nursing home records show any more than $70 deposited in her account.

The Attorney General's office is handling the case on the request of the New Madrid County Prosecuting Attorney's office.

The counts filed are charges. A person's innocence or guilt is determined by a court of law.

© Copyright 2009, seMissourian.com
Story URL: http://www.semissourian.com/story/1575581.html

http://www.semissourian.com/story/print/1575581.html

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Does Sharron Payne, Butler County public administrator, know what really happen to Mary Lee Grobe ?

Suspect in Doisy killing from 1976 is arrested

Suspect in Doisy killing from 1976 is arrested

By Virginia Young
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/30/2009

For 33 years, police in Columbia, Mo., have searched for Rebecca Doisy's killer.

Doisy, a Kirkwood High School graduate, disappeared in Columbia in 1976. The trail of evidence eventually led police to Johnny Wright, who had pestered Doisy at the restaurant where she worked as a waitress.

But by the time Wright was charged with the murder years later, he could not be found. Neither was Doisy's body, despite extraordinary efforts that included exhuming a "Jane Doe" in Jefferson County, consulting a psychic and letting a "cold case" class of forensic science college students investigate the crime.

"There were a lot of dead ends," said Chris Egbert, the Columbia police detective who pursued leads until he retired in 1993.

That all changed Monday, when Columbia police received a call from officers in Lawrenceville, Ga. They had nabbed Wright, 65, after he went to the police department and filled out paperwork for a routine background check needed as part of a job application......

stltoday.com

6 Years and Still Waiting for the Truth!

Today is the six year anniversary of Mary Lee Grobe's disappearance. It has been six long years without answers. We are still waiting for the person(s) responsible to develop the courage and integrity to step up and take responsibility for his actions so the family can heal.

America's Most Wanted to Feature Southeast Missouri Cold Case

NEW MADRID-- America will be asked once again for its help in solving a Southeast Missouri cold case.

The television show "America's Most Wanted" will air a segment on an old homicide in Greenville, S.C., and its link to the March 28, 1998, murders of Sherri Ann Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter, Megan Elizabeth. The two were found dead at their rural home near Portageville, Mo.

The television show will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Saturday on Fox.


Read the article from DAR Newspaper

Missing Mom of 10 (Geneva Adams) . . . .

may have been found. Hopefully this case will be solved and her family can have some peace. It is a shame, law enforcment, didn't take the case seriously.

Read the article on Kfvs

National Missing Persons Organizations merge to offer state-of-the-art safety education for all ages, and critical resources to families with missing

Bentonville, AR. – Let’s Bring Them Home (LBTH), a Bentonville, Arkansas non-profit offering safety education to children and families, as well as resources to families with missing loved ones, today announced a merger with the National Center for Missing Adults (NCMA), a nonprofit organization that acts as the national clearinghouse for missing adults, as well as provides services and coordination between various government agencies, law enforcement, media and most importantly, families of missing adults.

LBTH, established in 2005, specializes in safety education, while NCMA, a sixteen-year-old nonprofit, has been the primary service provider to law enforcement and the families of missing adults throughout the country and maintains a repository of information regarding disappearances of individuals who have been determined by law enforcement to be “at risk” due to diminished mental capacity, such as Alzheimer’s disease, those with physical disabilities, individuals whose disappearance is suspicious, and/or when foul play is suspected.

In addition, NCMA provides specialized training to law enforcement throughout the United States and has been acknowledged by the United States Department of Justice for resolving 99.8% of all missing adult reports during Hurricane Katrina.
According to NCMA founder, Kym Pasqualini, who headed up NCMA, the merger will provide families across the nation with quality safety education and services to families for missing adults.
“At a time when nonprofits throughout the country are struggling in a weakened economy it is important for nonprofit organizations to explore how to better diversify resources. LBTH and NCMA are a perfect match with services that complement each other,” explains Pasqualini.

"This merger will enable us to continue to fulfill our mission and broaden services."
The merger, effective immediately, will allow NCMA financial stability for the first time since 2006 when the organization experienced significant funding cuts from the government. Corporate headquarters as well as a safety education center for the newly merged organization will open in Northwest Arkansas, while the office of case management will remain in Phoenix, Arizona. Employees at both former organizations will be retained.

Amy Smith, Executive Director of Let's Bring Them Home, believes this merger will make a huge impact on safety education and on services for missing adults. "The merge of our organizations was a natural fit - like two pieces of a puzzle that fit together perfectly - all for the benefit of children and families throughout the United States."

As the newly merged organization now entitled Let’s Bring Them Home & The National Center for Missing Adults transitions, the families of missing adults can expect services to re-launch in full force beginning October 10, 2009. Over the coming months, Let’s Bring Them Home & the National Center for Missing Adults will launch expanded programming, training, and services to families across the United States.

"This organizational merger," explains Smith, "will enable us to fulfill the simple but important motto that we strive to live out daily: our passion is prevention, but our heart is with the missing."

For more information on the newly merged organization, contact Amy Smith at 479-871-1059 or via email atletsbringthemhome@gmail.com or Kym Pasqualini at 602-769-4597 or via email at k.pasqualini@missingadults.org.

For more information on the LBTH/NCMA merger visit: http://www.lbth.org or http://www.theyaremissed.org

A flower for Mary

After Four Years Amanda Jones is still Missing

How sad this case has been allowed to go unresolved.

KSDK article

Our hearts go to Amanda's family and friends.

Project Jason Retreat for Families of the Missing

Much Thanks to Kelly and Project Jason for this wonderful opportunity for the families of the missing.

Watch Video

As you can see by watching the faces in this video, (link above) the 2009 retreat was a success. Now we need the public's help to provide this service to more families.

Missing Man, Robert Peters

Thanks for all the efforts to find this man; prayers to the family.


Search starts 5th day for PB businessman

By DONNA FARLEY Staff Writer

The search for a missing Poplar Bluff businessman has entered its fifth day. Law enforcement plans to extend rescue efforts to Bollinger county today.

Robert Peters, 43, owner of Miracle Ear, was last seen at 4:30 a.m. Sunday at Hidden Valley Campground by the Castor River in northeastern Wayne County near the Bollinger County line. Peters was wearing khaki shorts, a light blue T-shirt and glasses and carrying a flashlight.

Family members believe Peters, who is insulin dependent, became confused because of low sugar levels and wandered away.

“We have to find him quickly,” his wife, Vicki Peters, said this morning. “He needs insulin to stay alive.”

Read the complete article on the DAR

Project REST for Missouri

Our thanks go to Missouri State Highway Patrol and MoDot for Project Rest (missing person posters in Rest Stops in Missouri). Thanks for doing more to help the missing in Missouri.


Mary Lee Grobe
Teresa Lynn Butler
Christina Carol Burnett-Pitts
Tony Eugene Woodworth

Features on poster link below:

Poster

Son finds comfort in charges for 1992 killing of his mother in Pike County

(P-D)By Joel Currier
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
05/31/2009

Sixteen years after his mother's mysterious disappearance, Matt Higginbotham decided it was finally time to burn some of the things she left behind.

Higginbotham's roaring backyard bonfire last June swallowed up his mother's old radio and several meticulously detailed day planners he had stored for years, hoping she would come home.

"I remember saying, 'Mom, I'm sorry,'" said Higginbotham, 41, of Dardenne Prairie. "We were never going to find anything."

Four months later, his mother's skeleton, her heart-shaped pendant and her .38-caliber revolver were found in an abandoned septic tank on a farm in Pike County.

Betty Ann Howery of St. Charles was 44 when she vanished on Feb. 20, 1992. That night, police say, she had accompanied her husband to their farm about six miles north of Elsberry, near the Mississippi River.

Higginbotham reported her missing, telling police she never would have left without an explanation.

"It just didn't make sense," Higginbotham said. "None of it added up."

Higginbotham's suspicion rang true earlier this month when Howery's ex-husband, Douglas J. Howery Sr., 57, of Springfield, Mo., was charged with her murder.

the rest of the St. Louis Post articles:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stcharles/story/EB548866DA9E0F78862575C5008089D4?OpenDocument

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Our Comments:
So glad this man finally got answers to his Mother's disappearance. What was wrong with the new step Mom? Why would she blindly accept that the old wife disappeared and not ask any questions?

From ElderAbuseHelp.Org

Saturday, May 30, 2009
EOD Reports : Exploitation is Daily Fare for Elders


EstateofDenial.com hears on an almost daily basis of new Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) cases in which probate venues and/or probate instruments (wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney) are used to loot assets of the dead and disabled/incapacitated. That is significant for a small, relatively obscure web site like EoD.

We recently added a new entry called New Jersey Corruption to the EoD Links and Sources page. This horrific story is detailed by a member of the Blasco family who says “My Father, a Vietnam Vet with a purple heart, is having his estate stolen by New Jersey’s Government Courts.”

These accounts, albeit familiar, are individually tragic and heartbreaking when taking into account the numerous lives harmed in each action. We posted another similar case out of Ohio earlier this week. Many other inquiries and pleas we receive are not published due to their sensitive nature or pending legal action.

What is most sad is while cries for help are desperately increasing, many people don’t understand the IRA issue, even more don’t bother listening and only a few care. IRA targets - those alive or with any ability to speak - regularly lament how they never dreamed such acts of looting could so overtake their lives. And routinely, these are people who completed their “proper estate planning” yet through opportunistic maneuvering by wannabe heirs and/or dishonest legal professionals, their wishes are ignored or subverted.

Another common thread is that targets or other parties at the forefront of dealing with these actions will tell of contacting all seemingly logical authorities, going through the appropriate processes and channels, doing everything that appears as a reasonable course to avoid an ugly dispute or prolonged, extensive legal battle. Despite these efforts, dead ends or directions to civil court are all that are found.

Source=>>


at 5/30/2009 11:22:00 PM

Labels: Guardianship/Conservatorship Issues, Scams, Wills

Missouri Probate Code 475.120

Missouri Probate code 475.120

Public Administrator's Office, Powers and Duties of a Guardian

Probate code 475.120 - The general powers and duties of a guardian of an incapacitated person shall be to take charge of the person of the Ward and to provide for the ward's care, treatment, habilitation, education, support, and maintenance; and the powers and duties shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

1. Assure that the Ward resides in the best and least restrictive setting reasonably available.
2. Assure that the Ward receives medical care and other services that are needed.
3. Promote and protect the care, comfort, safety, health, and welfare of the Ward.
4. Provide required consents on behalf of the Ward.
5. To exercise all powers and discharge all duties necessary or proper to implement the provisions of this section.

Lets not forget all the other Missing Persons who have not been found yet!

Vickie Sue Lour, 6-4-06, from Piedmont, Missouri

Teresa Butler, 1-25-06, from Risco, Missouri

Amanda Jones, 8-14-05, from Pevely, Missouri

Bianca Piper , 03/10/2005, from Foley, Missouri,

Christine Burnett Pitts, 12/23/1998, from Poplar Bluff, Missouri

Dana Jane Bruce, 10/04/2008, from Sedalia Missouri

Missouri State Highway Patrol Missing Persons Unit.

Missouri Missing Persons

The Missing Persons Unit provides a toll-free hotline for parents, law enforcement agencies or others to provide information about missing and unidentified persons. (800) 877-3452.

Our prayers go out to all the families of missing persons.

DAR Newspaper April 17, 2009

Publication:Daily American Republic; Date:Apr 17, 2009; Section:Front Page; Page Number:1A

Officials believe remains are Grobe’s

By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH Associate Editor

Clothing and personal items found with the human remains in an area east of Poplar Bluff have led authorities to believe with “great certainty” they belong to an elderly woman who has been missing for more than five years.

“At approximately 2:30 (p.m.) Wednesday, we were alerted by a citizen who had been riding an (all-terrain vehicle) that he had found possible human remains in a heavily wooded, brushy area in the 1700 block of B Highway,” Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs explained.

On Thursday, local and federal authorities excavated the site and found “certain personal items, as well as clothing, to indicate to us, with great certainty, this was Mary (Lee) Grobe’s remains ” Dobbs said. ,

Butler County Coroner Jim Akers agreed. Female clothing found with the remains, as well as personal items belonging to Grobe, make it “highly likely this is her, but we will not make a positive identification until the DNA” testing is completed.

Akers said the remains are being sent to the FBI’s “state-of-the art, premier” laboratory at Quantico, Va., for DNA analysis.

“The family has already submitted DNA for comparison,” Akers said. “In speaking with the forensic anthropologist, we were advised bone could be used to get midacondria DNA.”

Midacondria DNA reportedly is DNA that is not easily found as compared to DNA that can be easily found skin cells tissue and blood

Akers , said it will . take several months to get DNA results back from the FBI’s lab.

“At this time, it is still undetermined (what) the manner and cause” of death are, Akers said. “We’re waiting on the results of this to move forward.”

Dobbs said officers hope FBI officials will be able to determine a cause of death and whether there was any trauma to the body, “anything an autopsy would tell us.”

The vast majority of the remains were recovered, Dobbs said.

With the condition of the remains and items located, it is “consistent with multiple years of degradation,” Akers said.

Grobe, 74, was last seen at about 6 p.m. Sept. 27, 2003, at her residence at 1557 Highway B by her granddaughter, Amy Bridgewater.

Two days later, concerned family members entered Grobe’s residence and found her and her dog, “BB,” missing. Her purse and medication were still inside; however, an overnight bag and some winter clothing also were missing.

Since her disappearance, Grobe’s dog returned home in good condition a few days later and authorities have conducted extensive searches and followed up on numerous leads with no success.

The remains, Dobbs said, were found on another individual’s property, where the ATV operator was “apparently blazing new trails.”

The terrain, according to Dobbs, wasn’t even fit for walking.

“Our office was contacted shortly after (the remains were found),” Dobbs said. “Myself and Investigator Charles Phelps went to the location where (the citizen) had thought he found the remains.”

Dobbs said he and Phelps did a “quick grid search of the immediate area.

“That search resulted in the finding of just a few bones under the leaves and vegetation,” Dobbs said. “There was nothing readily apparent.

“I feel confident if we wouldn’t have been taken to that area and had it pinpointed to us, it would have been highly unlikely for us to find.”

At that point, Dobbs said, the scene was secured and assistance was requested from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and its local Division of Drug and Crime Control and the Poplar Bluff Police Department

“Upon their arrival, we did another small grid search and flagged several items we believed to be human remains,” Dobbs said.

The scene again was secured and assistance was requested from the FBI and it’s evidence response team, Dobbs said.

“(The site) was secured overnight, and we began excavation of the scene on Thursday morning,” Dobbs said.

Agents from the FBI’s Cape Girardeau office and its eight-man response team from St. Louis joined local and state investigators in the search Thursday

“The first task was to get all the vegetation pulled back and out of the way,” Dobbs said. A lot of limbs had fallen in the area “where we needed to be,” he said. “I don’t know how long the brush had been there,” but he suspected a lot of it had fallen during the ice storm.

After slowly and carefully removing the brush, officers flagged all relevant artifacts and remains before beginning the excavation, said Dobbs, who described the change to the area as going from looking like a jungle to farmland

The site was “about a circumference of 25 yards,” Dobbs said. “Most of the remains were contained in one, smaller area of about 8 feet in radius.”

Dobbs said there were obvious signs that animals had been scavenging in the area where the remains were found and had been digging in numerous places.

Dobbs said it is possible this discovery would not have been made had animals not been forging and moving the remains.

Officers, Dobbs said, conducted a grid search a “few inches at a time. It was plotted to where it can be recreated with computer-aided software.”

Dobbs said the site was about “50 yards to the east of the (out-of-use sewage) lagoon that was drained” in May 2005.

“Relative walking distance is approximately 400 feet from (Grobe’s) house” to the scene, Dobbs said.

While authorities completed excavating the property Thursday, Dobbs said, he and Akers are not done completely with the scene.

“We’re done with the search for remains out there, (but) there are some questions we want to get answered at the scene,” Dobbs said.

At this point, “our work as far as determining what happened and how it happened has just began,” Dobbs explained. “There are still a lot of questions we have to get answered.”

The remains, according to Dobbs, were at least “partially submerged in the soil; however it is a very low-lying area that is prone to flooding. One of the things we need to get answered is what impact last year’s record flooding had on the scene.”

Dobbs believes the area where the remains were found may have been searched before.

“I do not know if (officers) walked over the specific area, but (they have) been in that general area,” Dobbs said.

Dobbs said he can’t necessarily account for what reason or circumstances kept the body from previously being found .

The remains, Dobbs said, weren’t found on Grobe’s property, but on the second property, east of her home, “which might account for why (officers) didn’t find her.”

“It was one of the investigations I inherited when I took over as sheriff, and I did not take part in the grid search when she initially was reported missing,” Dobbs said. “Therefore, I can’t and don’t feel comfortable speculating on why or why not she wasn’t found at that time.

“I can only say that the investigation from its onset was not done the way we would do things under our present administration.”

Pictures and complete DAR News Article

KFVS TV 12 News cast

KFVS TV 12 News cast on You Tube

Human remains found near Poplar Bluff may be those of woman missing 5 years-Mary Lee Grobe

See it on:

You Tube

Elder Abuse

What is Elder Abuse?
Elder abuse of individuals in the community takes many forms, and in most cases victims are subjected to more than one type of mistreatment. In Missouri, over 50% of elder abuse reports allege physical neglect (to include self neglect); 10% allege financial exploitation; 8% allege physical abuse; and over 9% allege emotional abuse.

Abuse – the infliction of physical, sexual, or emotional injury or harm including financial exploitation by any person, firm, or corporation.
Neglect – the failure to provide services to an eligible adult by any person, firm or corporation with a legal or contractual duty to do so, when such failure presents either an imminent danger to the health, safety, or welfare of the client or a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm would result.
Eligible Adult – a person sixty years of age or old who is unable to protect his or her own interests or adequately perform or obtain services which are necessary to meet his or her essential human needs or an adult with a disability, as defined in section 660.053, between the ages of eighteen or fifty-nine who is unable to protect his or her own interests or adequately perform or obtain services which are necessary to meet his or her essential human needs.
Disability – a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, whether the impairment is congenital or acquired by accident, injury or disease, where such impairment is verified by medical findings.
Financial Exploitation - A person commits the crime of financial exploitation of an elderly or disabled person if such person knowingly and by deception, intimidation, or force obtains control over the elderly or disabled person's property with the intent to permanently deprive the elderly or disabled person of the use, benefit or possession of his or her property thereby benefiting such person or detrimentally affecting the elderly or disabled person.

The neglect

is most often attributable to the circumstances or environment of the victim – often circumstances beyond their control;
often includes significant limitations in major life activities such as walking, bathing, cleaning, preparing meals, or shopping.

The abuser

is most often a family member – adult child, spouse, grandchild, and other relative; (25% of reports with someone named as a possible perpetrator)
may be experiencing difficulties or problems due to the stress associated with caregiving; and
may be frustrated or isolated.
Interventions must take into account, wherever possible, most seniors’ desire not to sever family ties.

The victim

is most often a female (64%)
white (79%)
living alone (43%)
with spouse or relative (42%)
may suffer from some form of dementia or physical impairment, often suffering from multiple limitations which make him/her dependent on others for care;
tends to be isolated;
may suffer from more than one type of abuse or neglect;
may be reluctant to admit his/her loved one is an abuser; and
may be fearful of reporting abuse, thinking it could lead to further harm, nursing home placement or total abandonment.
These characteristics make intervening more complicated and cases more difficult.

Elder Abuse and Neglect Hotline
Division of Senior and Disability Services
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
PO Box 570
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0570

Telephone: 573-751-4842

Elder Abuse and Neglect Hotline 800-392-0210
TDD 800-669-8819 or through Relay Missouri 800-676-3777

Email: info@dhss.mo.gov

Mary Lee Grobe Remains Found

Human remains found in woods
stltoday.com

Family looking for answers in elderly woman's 2003 death By Corinne Lestch ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Skeletal remains preliminarily identified as missing woman
KFVS TV12

Remains Discovered of Woman Missing More Than Five Years
By Chris Regnier FOX2now.com

Suspected human remains found
By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH Associate Editor darnews.com
Local and federal authorities will begin searching an area east of Poplar Bluff today after suspected human remains were found near the home of an elderly woman who has been missing for more than five years.
“We’ve located what is possibly human remains within close proximity of Mary Grobe’s residence,” explained Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs.
Mary Lee Grobe, 74, was last seen at about 6 p.m. Sept. 27, 2003, at her residence at 1557 Highway B by her granddaughter, Amy Bridgewater.
Two days later, concerned family members entered Grobe’s residence and found her and her dog, “BB,” missing. Her purse and medication were still inside; however, an overnight bag and some winter clothing also were missing.
Since her disappearance, Grobe’s dog returned home in good condition a few days later and authorities have conducted extensive searches and followed up numerous leads with no success.
The possible remains, Dobbs said, were found at about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday on private property.
Dobbs said he has requested the assistance of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and it’s local Division of Drug and Crime Control, the Poplar Bluff Police Department and the FBI’s evidence response team to help in the search.
“We’re waiting for the experts in the field of human remains to show up; that’s why we’ve asked the FBI to assist us,” explained Dobbs.
At this time, Dobbs said, he does not know how long the search is going to take.
“Today basically is going to be a methodical approach with regard to processing the scene,” said Dobbs, who doesn’t know the size of the area to be searched at this time.

Skeletal remains preliminarily identified as missing woman

KFVS TV 12
April 17, 2009 11:18 AM

Skeletal remains preliminarily identified as missing woman

BUTLER COUNTY, MO (KFVS) - The Butler County sheriff has preliminarily identified skeletal remains found earlier this week as that of Mary Lee Grobe.

EARLIER STORY

BUTLER COUNTY, MO (KFVS) - According to the Butler County Sheriff, skeletal remains have been found just east of Poplar Bluff on some wooded, private property.

The sheriff has not released whether the remains are male or female.

The property next to where the remains were found is where 74-year-old Mary Lee Grobe disappeared in September 2003. However, authorities have not released the identity of the remains.

The Butler County Sheriff's Office, Missouri Highway Patrol, Poplar Bluff Police Department, and the FBI are investigating.

Our CJ Cassidy is in Butler County. Look for updates throughout the day on Heartland News and kfvs12.com.

http://www.kfvs.com/Global/story.asp?S=10195632
kfvs.com

Skeletal remains found in Butler County

Skeletal remains found in Butler County
April 16, 2009 11:43 AM CDT
April 16, 2009 11:47 AM CDT
KFVS TV12 Cape Girardeau Missouri

BUTLER COUNTY, MO (KFVS) - According to the Butler County Sheriff, skeletal remains have been found in the county just east of Poplar Bluff.

The Butler County Sheriff's Office, Missouri Highway Patrol, Poplar Bluff Police Department, and the FBI are investigating.

Our CJ Cassidy is in Butler County. Look for updates throughout the day on Heartland News and kfvs12.com.

http://www.kfvs.com/Global/story.asp?S=10195632

Where is Mary Grobe?

Please help us speak up for the missing! Change is needed in the U.S.

Missing persons voices have been silenced and sadly forgotten in the U.S. Help us speak up for them and change the way the cases are handled. Please vote so we can get more national attention for the missing.

Go to Change.org (or click on link in the title of this post)and vote on establishing a protocol for missing persons cases which utilized current technology.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/establish_national_protocol_in_missing_and_unidentified_person_cases

You may think it will never affect you but every 30 seconds another person in the U.S. disappears!

Make changes now so their case will be investigated and your loved one will have a chance to survive and/or you will have a chance to find answers.

Keep in mind also, solving more cases may prevent additional cases or at least slow this horrible increase.

Five Years of Undeserved Freedom has ended!

Bitter Sweet News for the family of Angie Yarnell. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time. Husband charged in wife's 2003 death

.............

Saturday, December 6, 2008 | 6:12 p.m. CST
BY The Associated Press
VERSAILLES — A Morgan County man has been charged with killing his wife, who has been missing since 2003.

Michael Shane Yarnell, 39, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder, two counts of voluntary manslaughter and one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michelle "Angie" Yarnell, who was 28 when she disappeared around Oct. 26, 2003.
Police, who had been looking for Michael Yarnell since 2005, arrested him Nov. 5 in Biloxi, Miss.

Morgan County Sheriff James Petty said Yarnell told police his wife died after the couple fought and he pushed her off a 10-foot-high deck at their Ivy Bend home. He then dumped her body on an island, Petty said Friday.

Sheriff's officers told Angie Yarnell's mother, Marianne Asher-Chapman, about the charges Thursday night, Petty said.

Asher-Chapman, who had pushed investigators to continue looking for her daughter for five years, told the Sedalia Democrat she didn't know how to react to the news.

"I don't know yet," she said. "I'm just kind of numb."

Yarnell told police he took his wife's body by boat to an uninhabited island off the Osage River near Ivy Bend, where he left her remains, Petty said. Yarnell led investigators to the island about four miles from the Yarnells' former home and a search was under way for the remains.

Morgan County Prosecutor Marvin Opie said Yarnell faces four different charges to allow an eventual jury to find him guilty on a lesser charge if sufficient evidence isn't available to convict him on the murder charge. If convicted of murder, Yarnell could face life in prison.

He also faces charges for forgery and tampering with evidence , which were filed in November when Asher-Chapman reported that she had received a post card that purported to be sent from her daughter on Nov. 7, 2003.

Michael Yarnell told police he sent Asher-Chapman the post card, Petty said, in the hope that it would stop the investigation and lead investigators to think Angie Yarnell was alive and headed to Texas.

Investigators found items that Angie Yarnell would have taken with her while searching the home of Michael Yarnell's former stepfather, Petty said.

That made it clear to investigators that Michael Yarnell's previous story about his wife's disappearance "didn't match up," Petty said. When Michael Yarnell was confronted with the new evidence, he confessed to killing his wife, the sheriff said.

The Columbia Missourian

......................

More News Articles

5 Years of Undeserved Freedom!

9-27-08 marked the 5 Year Anniversary of the disappearance of Mary Lee Grobe from her home in Poplar Bluff, MO. It marked the 5th anniversary of undeserved freedom for the one responsible for her disappearance and all those who helped conceal it. It also marks the 5th year of undeserved public trust and office of Sharron Payne, Mary's Public Administrator.

The picture included is that of Mary and her husband, Eugene. Mary made it very clear where she wanted her final resting place to be. . . beside her husband. Yet, those who don't respect life can't respect final wishes either.

First Annual Fundraiser BBQ & Silent Auction for Missouri Missing in Jefferson City, MO

Important Fund Raiser for Missouri Missing in Jefferson City, MO

First Annual Fundraiser BBQ & Silent Auction

proudly supported by:
Cole County Fire Protection District, Cole County Sheriff’s Office, the JCPD and JCFD

Where: Memorial Park, 111 Memorial Park Drive, Jefferson City, MO

When: Friday, September 19, 2008 • 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Silent Auction until 6 p.m.

How Much: Adults $10, Children 5-12 $5; Children under 5 FREE

Carryouts available

P.O. Box 1688
Jefferson City, MO 65102
573.999.2084
www.MissouriMissing.org

MOCHIP is a comprehensive child identification & protection program designed to provide families a proactive means of preparation should their child or teen become missing. This program is provided FREE OF CHARGE How does it work? The program consists of five major components: Digital Photographs, Digital Fingerprints, Child Information and Emergency contacts, Dental bite impression, Two (2) laminated ID cards -- combined, provide a powerful identification and recovery tool. The child’s digital photographs & fingerprints, and their vital information are given to the parent or guardian on a mini-CD computer disk. The information on the disk is "AMBER ALERT" compatible.

See you there!

We are thinking of Mary . . .

We are thinking of Mary Lee Grobe fondly today as always but our hearts are heavy because of the lack of justice in her case. Butler County, Missouri: where is Mary Lee Grobe and why hasn't this case been solved? Sharron Payne, step down and aside and allow this case to be solved! Allow the truth to come out!

http://www.marygrobe.blogspot.com/

http://nomoremissingmomsinmo.blogspot.com/

Missouri Nurse Aid Charged with Elder Abuse

Mo. nurse aid charged with elder abuse
ASSOCIATED PRESS
08/19/2008

JOPLIN, Mo. -- A former employee at a Carthage nursing home is charged with hitting a wheelchair-bound resident in the groin and forcing water into the man's nose until he turned purple.

Nurse assistant Dennis Rowe faces felony elder abuse charges. Missouri health officials said the attack took place in April 2007 at the Carthage Health and Rehabilitation Center. Rowe is scheduled for a Sept. 11 preliminary hearing in Jasper County.

A probable-cause affidavit said another male employee of the center asked Rowe how he controlled the resident while caring for him. The document said Rowe agreed to demonstrate, then began to assault the man and force water into his nasal passage.

A probable cause statement said the flow caused the man to choke and "turn purple." It said Rowe continued the assault until the other employee stopped him.

www.stltoday.com

Answers to Questions from readers

Answers to Questions from readers (Based on our heart-felt belief):

Why are you trying to put all the blame on the sheriff at the time and on Sharon Payne? Why is the family trying to put it all on our system and those who work in the system?

The sheriff at the time Mary disappeared along with his buddies, Jerry Armes and Sharron Payne contributed to the blundering of this case. If Sharron had done her job to protect Mary Lee Grobe there wouldn’t have been a case to begin with. If Bill Heaton and Jerry Armes had investigated they may have figured out what happened. Why did they allow Sharron Payne to act like an investigator? She is as dumb as dirt and a control freak. She had her own agenda which she used to convince Heaton and Armes of their next act. If Bill Heaton, Jerry Armes, and Sharron Payne hadn’t leaked information back to the criminals there may have been resolution. If Bill Heaton and Jerry Armes had allowed more intelligent, professional investigators in on the case it would have helped but instead they tried to solve it themselves.

So why do we blame the Sheriff (Bill Heaton) and Sharron Payne . . . because they are to blame.


Why isn't the family taking responsibility for Mary's disappearance?


They didn’t have to because Sharron covered for them; the sheriff (at the time) fell for it and looked the other way. Sharron blocked attempts to look for Mary Lee Grobe. She hasn’t taken a polygraph and she refuses to allow searches. She tried to block other efforts. Why doesn’t Sharron want her client found? She doesn’t want to be exposed for the hypocrite that she is and she doesn’t want her buddies to get in trouble. Yet she says she “loves” her clients. This is another one of her lies. She loves to control and ruin lives.


I just think it is a shame you talk down about Sharon Payne when the family should have been more responsible and been looking after Mary, with surviving family she should not have had to been made a ward of the court.


Keep in mind, Mary Lee Grobe, had seven children, four step children, many grandchildren and even great grandchildren. Mary had many family members that loved her and wanted to take care of her but Sharron wasn’t friends with them. Sharron was friends with the ones that wanted to do Mary Lee Grobe harm. Sharron was on a power trip and sided with the criminals. Sharron along with the criminals blocked phone calls and visits from the ones that loved Mary Lee Grobe. She ignored concerns regarding Mary Lee’s safety. The very reason Mary had a guardian was to protect her and her assets but Sharron either willingly because of her own evil intentions or by deceit was a puppet to the criminals. Sharron failed to act in Mary Lee Grobe’s best interest.


We have heard many similar stories of Sharron’s power trips that caused her clients to suffer. We can’t speak for her other clients but Mary Lee Grobe would be here today if Sharron had done her job. Figuratively, Mary Lee Grobe’s blood is on Sharron’s hands and God will judge her along with the low life’s that are responsible for the crimes against Mary Lee Grobe’s.


*******************

You Scratch my Back . . . . .

Why are the Poplar Bluff and Texas Grobes suddenly sounding off? They have done nothing for years to find Mary Lee Grobe but now they have been reawakened, why?

Why is there such mutual support between Sharron K. Payne and the Poplar Bluff, Mo and Texas Grobes? What is their objective? So far they have worked together to keep the Mary Lee Grobe case from being solved. Obviously, they feel threatened if their buddy (Sharron K. Payne) loses her position of power (Mary Lee Grobe’s Public Administrator). The position that created the environment that allowed Mary Lee Grobe to be victimized and the position that hindered the investigation. So far the system has failed the victims but has worked for the criminals. If the Poplar Bluff, Mo and Texas Grobes can keep Sharron in office, they can keep this vile but reciprocal arrangement. Each benefit greatly.

We on the other hand, want the case solved. We would of course love to have Mary Lee Grobe returned to us safely but based on the evidence we want to be realalistic. At the very, very least Mary Lee Grobe deserved to be granted her final wish to be laid to rest beside her husband. Where is Mary Lee Grobe?

Sharron K Payne

reprinted from 11/04/2007

Who is the real Sharron K Payne?

Some of Mary Grobe's family has taken polygraph & Voice Stress tests(CVSA), has Sharron Payne? What is she hiding? Who is she protecting and Why?

Which of Mary Grobe's Poplar Bluff sons refused to take the Voice Stress Test( CVSA)?

Which of Mary Grobe's son's in Poplar Bluff did NOT PASS the tests asked by law enforcement (2 polygraphs, and voice stress test CVSA)? There lies the answers to finding Mary Lee Grobe!

Which of Mary Grobe's Poplar Bluff sons was seen often in the Butler County Court house in Sharon Payne's office collecting Mary Grobe's Cash Allowance. Where did that money really go Sharron?

Who called the DNR to try to stop the draining of the sewage lagoon near Mary Grobe's old house?... Was it Sharron Payne?

Who called the Carole Sund Reward Fund to try to have the reward fund stopped?
Was it Sharron Payne ?
Was it a granddaughter in Poplar Bluff?
Was it a daughter in law in TX?

Probate code 475.120
1. Assure that the Ward resides in the best and least restrictive setting reasonably available.
2. Assure that the Ward receives medical care and other services that are needed.
Why did Sharron Payne fail to get new eye glasses and hearing aids that were needed and requested
3. Promote and protect the care, comfort, safety, health, and welfare of the Ward.
Is this why Sharron Payne does not want Mary's body found?
4. Provide required consents on behalf of the Ward.
5. To exercise all powers and discharge all duties necessary or proper to implement the provisions of this section.

When told repeatedly, Mary Lee Grobe’s life was in jeopardy; Sharron Payne did nothing to help her poor innocent client. Instead of moving her to a safe environment, Sharron issued Mary a Medic Alert button. This is a tool that is helpful if an elderly person falls and/or knows there is a danger and they can call for help. Mary Lee Grobe was legally declared incompetent and didn’t know when to push the button or what happened when she pushed the button. When a trained medical professional asked Mary what she would do if her house was on fire, Mary responded, I would call the district supervisor.” Clearly, Mary didn’t know to call fire department. Mary didn’t know whom to trust, and sometimes she didn’t recognize people from one time to the next. Mary needed help and protection—not a button.

Again we ask Sharron Payne where is her client, MARY LEE GROBE ?

Search goes underground

reprinted from October 2005

Butler County, MOSearch for Mary Lee Grobe Goes Underground

Search for Mary Lee Grobe Goes UndergroundBy: CJ Cassidy KFVS TV12
BUTLER CO., MO --More than six months after Mary Lee Grobe mysteriously disappears, investigators begin a major search behind her granddaughter's home.Police say an anonymous caller tipped them off, saying the 74-year-old's body could be found buried underneath the septic tank.
Grobe was last seen outside her Poplar Bluff home, September 27th, 2003.Police say they decided to dig after the caller reported seeing Mary Lee's son putting in a septic tank around the time she went missing.But some family members say they're even more frustrated now."Everything in this investigation has centered right here on this property," Kenny Grobe, Mary Lee's son says.
Kenny Grobe didn't think police would find anything, and about two hours into the dig, Butler County Sheriff Bill Heaton confirmed his prediction."We're down deep enough into surface that it was hard and you couldn't tell there hadn't been any previous digging as deep as went," Heaton said.
And while the Grobe family understands police have to follow up on every lead, their frustrations were still obvious, Tuesday morning."Butler County doesn't have the manpower to do anything, but then some crackpot calls in on telephone and they have to do something like this," Kenny Grobe says. "My grandmother was still here when the septic tank was dug in the first place," Amy Grobe pointed out. Most family members believe Mary Lee's still alive, but her daughter and son-in-law in Saint Louis don't seem to think so.
If you have any information, about Mary Lee, call the police nearest you. http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?s=1782904

Medic Alert Button Sharron Payne

reprinted from December 2005

As with any senseless murder, the victim’s family members are left with many unanswered questions. Why? How could he do such a thing? How can they sleep at night after what they have said and done? Today we would like to focus on just two very perplexing questions. Why would the Mary’s Public Administrator, Sharron Payne, make such a poor decision to issue Mary Lee Grobe a Medic Alert button as her only means of protection? Why have some family members and reporters been given such inaccurate information regarding the Medic Alert buttons capabilities?

When told repeatedly, Mary Lee Grobe’s life was in jeopardy; Sharron Payne did nothing to help her poor innocent client. Instead of moving her to a safe environment, Sharron issued Mary a Medic Alert button. This is a tool that is helpful if an elderly person falls and/or knows there is a danger and they can call for help. Mary Lee Grobe was legally declared incompetent and didn’t know when to push the button or what happened when she pushed the button. When a trained medical professional asked Mary what she would do if her house was on fire, Mary responded, I would call the district supervisor.” Clearly, Mary didn’t know to call fire department. Mary didn’t know whom to trust, and sometimes she didn’t recognize people from one time to the next. Mary needed help and protection—not a button.

Why would the appointed Public Administrator, Sharron Payne make such an incompetent decision? What was her motive? Who was she protecting? It was NOT Mary Grobe. Was Kenny Grobe involved in the decision? Why would Sharron value his opinion more than others? He’s not a doctor; he’s not a lawyer, he’s the one Mary was afraid of, especially when he had his temper fits.

See articles linked below:

St. Louis Post Dispatch Newspaper Article by Aisha Sulton January 04, 2004 "Why didn't she activate the medical alert button she wore around her neck?"


KFVS TV12 by CJ Cassidy http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=1465895&nav=8H3xIJoP "Something else is also bothering Grobe's family, "My mother was wearing a necklace with an emergency push button on it that would instantly dial an operator in New York if she needed help," David Grobe says. But the call for help was never made, even though the system indicates the necklace is still somewhere close to home."

Barb Grobe also said “ is also the FACT that she had on a medical alert necklace that would “activate an alarm or signal” if Mary went beyond a certain perimeter of her property.”

Where is this info coming from? It’s not a GPS, It had no tracking capabilities. Was it more misinformation by Sharron Payne and/or Kenny Grobe? Yes, just one more example.

What else have they failed to tell the truth about?

Missing Person Day in Missouri

Missing Person Day
DAR Newspaper
Poplar Bluff Missouri
June 17, 2008

Missing Persons Day
2 area women to be recalled at ceremony
By DONNA FARLEY
Staff Writer

Two area women will be featured this afternoon in Jefferson City on Missouri’s first ever Missing and Unidentified
Persons Awareness Day.
Mary Grobe was 74 when she went missing Sept. 27, 2003 from her Poplar Bluff home. Teresa Butler disappeared from her Risco home Jan. 25, 2006, leaving behind two young sons.
Grobe’s daughter, Joyce Caldwell, will be present for today’s ceremony in the Missouri
State Capitol first floor Rotunda.
She will join other family members of the missing and law enforcement officials to honor all of the missing and unidentified
persons in Missouri.
“The average person has no idea what it is like to go through something like this. The average person doesn’t know how many cases there are in the state and, quite honestly, how little is being done,” said Caldwell, a St. Louis resident. “We are really trying to increase awareness.”
As of June 1, there were 1,462 missing persons and at least 48
unidentified bodies in Missouri,
according to the National Crime Information Center.
Missouri Missing, a Jefferson
City-based not for profit, asked
Gov. Matt Blunt in April to declare June 17 as official Missing and Unidentified Persons
Awareness Day for the state.
Information about the missing and unidentified will be
made available to those at a ceremony this afternoon in the Capitol building. Missouri Missing also plans to offer adult
identification kits, including a
living will for the missing, DNA swabs, fingerprinting and information booklets.
Caldwell helped pass a bill that expanded the Amber Alert to include adults who go missing under mysterious circumstances. She is currently working with
state officials to pass a bill that
would prevent law enforcement from refusing to take a missing persons report and give families of the missing the opportunity to donate DNA to a database used for reference when trying identify bodies.
There are as many as 40,000
unidentified bodies nationwide,
according to the National Institute of Justice. DNA from only a small portion of those victims has been entered in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database.
“Investigators have sent me pictures of corpses and asked if it is my mother,” Caldwell said. “That is very emotional. I have to say it is not my mother, but I also have to think, ‘Who does she belong to?’”
“Science has made tremendous advances, but these are not being utilized,” she continued. “Hopefully, we can get a law passed that would make (voluntary) DNA collection a routine part of a missing persons case, like in other states.”
It has been five years since
Caldwell has seen her mother. She used to have nightmares about where her mother was, but said she has come to accept her mother isn’t in pain anymore. Caldwell takes comfort now in helping others.
“My mom made me a strong person,” Caldwell said. “I try to look at the big picture. Even if my mom’s case is not solved, it really is healing to know I can help others if they should be so unfortunate as to be in this position.”
Missouri Missing was created in 2007 by the mothers of two missing women. The organization seeks to educate families of the missing on procedure and resources available, educate the public about the plight of the missing and the families left behind and assist law enforcement by providing information, according to the organization.
Information and photos of Missouri missing persons, including Mary Grobe and Teresa Butler, can be found at their web site, www.missourimissing.org.

*****************************
Again we ask SHARRON PAYNE, Where is Mary Lee Grobe?

Family, Oh but he is family

Family

Only if you you knew how many times I heard "Oh, He s family, He would never hurt a family member"
Again we ask SHARRON PAYNE and the Poplar Bluff Grobe's, WHERE IS MARY LEE GROBE ?
*************************************************
BURLINGTON, Vt. - A body found Wednesday is believed to be that of a missing 12-year-old whose uncle allegedly planned to force her into a sex ring, Vermont State Police said.
Col. James Baker said Brooke Bennett's body was found in Randolph, where the uncle lives, about 4:45 p.m. Wednesday.
She was last seen alive with the uncle, Michael Jacques, 42, at a convenience store a week ago.


And to make it worst a another family member, Raymond Gagnon, appeared in federal court Wednesday on an obstruction of justice charge in the case. He was denied bail and was held pending another hearing on Monday.

My heart and prayers go out to the families of Brooke Bennett.

msnbc.com

Missing & Unidentified Persons Awareness Day

Special Event Announcement--Missouri Missing & Unidentified Persons Awareness Day June 17, 2008 at the Rotunda located on the 1st floor of the Jefferson City Capital Building. 1 pm to 5 pm.

Welcome to Missouri Missing. As you browse through our website, we invite you to remember there are more than 1,436 missing person cases and at least 47 unidentified bodies in Missouri today.
According to the FBI and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) there are nearly 51,000 active missing adult cases and more than 40,000 unidentified bodies in the United States and that number continues to grow daily.
It is hard to imagine what that means. It is hard to imagine the impact having a missing loved one can cause to a family.
Unfortunately, unless a person actually experiences the loss of a missing loved one, chances are they never think about how they would be affected.
Among the many things that need to be done to assist the families who suffer from the loss of a missing loved one, Missouri Missing intends to serve as an outreach service for the families while educating the public on the severity and impact of missing adults on society as a whole.
Above information from:
http://www.missourimissing.org/

Man Arrested for Elder Abuse

Man Arrested for Elder Abuse
By: Heartland News
KFVS TV12


MURRAY, Ky. - For the second time in a week a Murray, Kentucky man gets arrested for adult neglect and abuse.

This time 34-year-old William Gordon was taken into custody after his grandmother complained of abuse.

Officers discovered the elderly woman's movements were restricted by her grandson. There's no further explanation on that.

Meantime, Gordon is being held at the Calloway County Jail.

KFVS TV 12

50% of elderly American are victims of financial exploitation

Studies estimate that 50% of elderly American are victims of financial exploitation while only 4% to 15% case are ever reported. Financial swindles are one of the fastest growing forms of abuse of the elderly according to NCEA.

Mother anxiously waits for news of missing daughter

Mother anxiously waits for news of missing daughter

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Monday May 19,2008
www.stltoday.com
By Denise Hollinshed

ST. LOUIS — Tracey Allen-Williams has left her daughter's bedroom untouched for 14 months, hoping that Kelly L. Allen will one day return to use it.

The room contains reminders of things important to Allen — a cluster of photographs of the rapper Lil Wayne on the wall and some Bible Scripture on a poster above her bed — and the things of everyday life, a duffel bag stuffed with some of Allen's clothes.

"This is a good child," Williams, 43, said of the second of her three children. "She never caused me any problems. She was responsible.

"For her to come up missing and nobody knows nothing, it's kind of scary, but we are standing on faith and God to bring us through."

Allen, who would be 21 now, was last seen on March 13, 2007, when she was spending the night at the apartment of a girlfriend in the 8600 block of Frost Avenue in Berkeley.

Williams, who lives on Salisbury Street north of downtown, said she last spoke with her daughter a few days earlier.

Family members have circulated fliers in St. Louis and Berkeley, and her story was featured on "America's Most Wanted" on television. The family hired a private investigator for $1,500 who turned up nothing.

Police believe foul play may be connected to Allen's disappearance. An income tax refund check for more than $2,000 has not been cashed and she left behind all her belongings.

Allen, who attended Lafayette High School, had a job interview just before her disappearance.

St. Louis Police Detective Jerry Griffin, who is handling the investigation, says police have few clues.

But two weeks ago, an anonymous phone call to Berkeley City Hall said that Allen's body had been buried in a backyard in Berkeley.

Griffin said the yard was searched, and that a bone — possibly human — was found. It is being tested.

After Williams was told that her daughter had not returned to the Berkeley apartment, she waited two days to report the disappearance to Berkeley police. She later filed a missing person report with St. Louis police.

Griffin said that the time lag has hurt the investigation. He said police were not able to properly handle the Berkeley apartment as a possible crime scene because it had been cleaned, and all of Allen's belongings had been retrieved by her family.

Williams says she regrets waiting to report her daughter missing.

"This is one of the hardest things that I've ever had to deal with in my life," she said.

Williams works at a Hilton hotel downtown, and among her co-workers is Vera Brown, a grandmother of 4-year-old Cermen Toney Jr.

He disappeared in November 2005 in State Park Place along with his baby sitter, Anquiaette Parker, 19. Their bodies were found in March in a cistern off Collinsville Road in Madison County. The former owner of that land has been charged with their murders.

Griffin said police want to do voice-stress analysis tests on Allen's boyfriend, the woman who has the Berkeley apartment, and that woman's boyfriend.

He also would like to talk to the person who called Berkeley City Hall about the buried body.

But now, he said, police have little to work on.

Anyone with information in Allen's disappearance is asked to contact Griffin at 314-444-2545 or CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS.

dhollinshed@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8319

www.stltoday.com

New Arrest in Kennett Cold Case

Kennett, MO
New Arrest in Kennett Cold Case

Posted: April 24, 2008 05:38 PM CDT

Updated: April 24, 2008 07:37 PM CDT
KFVS TV 12

By: CJ Cassidy

KENNETT, Mo. - An arrest could help heat up a cold case almost 40 years in the making.

That case revolves around a double murder in Dunklin County from 1970.

In January of last year, we told you investigators submitted DNA evidence to try to find out who shot and killed a St. Louis couple near Campbell.

The prosecutor says the details will come out in court.

As it stands, police rearrested the same suspect from all those years ago. Now he's behind bars facing first degree murder charges on both killings.

The names Alan Bradford and Mary Lou Seutter won't ring any bells for most people in southeast Missouri. Same goes for Theodore Kleine.

KFVS
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?s=8223814

Bodies Identified in Missing Persons Case

Bodies Identified in Missing Persons Case

KSDK TV 12
(KSDK) -- Illinois State Police have tentatively identified the remains of two individuals that were found in a cistern in Collinsville on Wednesday.

The remains were identified as those of 19-year-old Anquiaette Parker, and her 4-year-old cousin, Cermen Lemont Toney, Jr., or "C.J." as he was known. The pair disappeared back in November 2005 when Parker, who was pregnant at the time, was babysitting C.J.

NewsChannel 5 has also learned that two persons of interest were taken into custody, with charges expected to be filed on Friday.

State Police have not said what evidence was uncovered, but they are telling us it has been sent to a state police crime lab, and it is likely some D.N.A testing will take place.

A source close to the investigation confirmed human remains were found during digging on Wednesday.

Police said a tip from a new property owner led them to their dig site, behind a home, right next to Fairmont Park Race Track, where investigators were still working to uncover evidence Thursday afternoon.

Police said the property owner called them when he found something he thought would be of interest to investigators.

What that was, police won't say, but they said he found it while clearing brush and outbuildings on his newly purchased land in the 9200 block of Collinsville Road.

Police said they've had their eye on the property, which they've searched dozens of times, and the two men who used to live on the property, who they've interviewed multiple times, ever since the missing pair disappeared.

Greg Fernandez is a retired Illinois State Police Lieutenant. He was one of the lead investigators in the missing persons case.
Fernandez says, "We did over 25 searches by land and air, and we had horses and bloodhounds but never could find a body."

Anquiaette Parker's car was found not far from the dig site at a veteran's hall shortly after she disappeared.

At this point, police weren't commenting on any possible motive in this case, but a source close to the investigation tells NewsChannel 5 that police "believe there's indication why this happened."

Greg Fernandez says, "I am sad for the families but at least they get to come home for a proper burial."

Murder Victim's Family Prays for Justice

Murder Victim's Family Prays for Justice

KFVS TV12 Cape Girardeau Missouri
Posted: March 14, 2008 04:12 PM CST
By: Crystal Britt

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Three weeks ago Friday, police found 20-year-old Chabreshea Egson shot at her sister's home in Cape Girardeau. She died minutes later at the hospital. Her suspected killer is still on the run. Now the family's grief has turned to frustration.

"Somedays I can go ahead and go on, and somedays I can't eat. It's going to be a long time," said Trisie Egson, Chabreshea's Mother.

Trisie Egson's doing everything she can to keep her daughter's memory alive.

"(She was) fun loving, a beautiful little girl, always full of jokes and everything. Just a beautiful child. I miss seeing her face everyday," said Egson.

The family's nightmare began before dawn on February 22, 2008. When police arrived, officers found 20-year-old Chabreshea Egson shot inside a home on North Spanish Street in Cape Girardeau. It's a scene Egson's mother wishes she could get out of her mind.

"They told us she got shot in the shoulder. They wouldn't let us get close to her or nothing. They built a barricade around us. So, we figured something was really serious, but not that serious," said Egson.

At first, police had no suspects. Later that day, officers issued a warrant for Tambra Turner's arrest. At the time they just wanted to question Turner about some property damage at the victim's home hours before the shooting. Egson was apparently seeing Turner's estranged husband. It quickly turned to an arrest warrant for murder.

Three weeks later though, Tambra Turner of Sikeston is no where to be found. It's believed Turner has left the state. The FBI is now involved. Meanwhile, officers with the Cape Girardeau Police Department say they just continue to follow up on leads hoping to get a break.

The victim's family shares that hope. "I wish they would catch her (Turner), would make me feel a little better. Knowing she won't be able to do that to nobody else," said Trisie Egson.

She misses her daughter so much. "Knowing I'll never be able to see her again...hold her or kiss her."

While still grieving, she's focusing her attention on Tambra Turner, hoping someone out there turns her in. "I just want justice to be served," said Egson.

There's a reward for information leading to Tambra Turner's arrest. Crimestoppers is offering $1,000.

KFVS TV 12

Google: "Tambra Turner of Sikeston"

Financial Elder Abuse

From elderabusehelp.org

Financial Elder Abuse

Elsie Dawe

Financial abuse is often accompanied by other forms of abuse, such as emotional abuse, physical abuse, or denial of rights. Three components are necessary for financial abuse to happen:

• Need or greed. The abuser is under financial pressure.
• Opportunity. The abuser has access to funds or property.
• False sense of entitlement—“I deserve it. I am owed.”

If you fall victim to this type of abuse, your comfortable future can vanish in the twinkling of an eye.

Be very careful to whom you give power of attorney and what conditions you attach thereto, because given to the wrong person(s) with no checks in place, it is a recipe for disaster.

Some seniors will sell virtually everything they have and give the proceeds along with most of their savings to their children so that they can finally get their share from the government in the form of the supplement and also watch their children (and grandchildren) enjoy the money, believing that their children will take good care of them.

Yes, often with broken hearts, they watch their next of kin enjoy their hard-earned money while they live in the cheapest nursing home with nary a penny to spend.

It’s not for nought that the Bible says that money is the root of all evil.

www.elderabusehelp.org

Again we ask "Where is Mary Grobe?"

Financial Abuse of an Elderly Person by a Caretaker

Butler County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency secretary faces Second Degree Murder Charges and Financial Abuse of an Elderly Person

KFVS TV12, Posted Jan 23, 2008
By: Ryan Tate

Poplar Bluff, MO
Emergency Management Secretary Faces Murder Charges

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. - A Butler County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency secretary faces Second Degree Murder Charges and Financial Abuse of an Elderly Person by a Caretaker of a man in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, back in October of 2004.

Susan Foushee, 57, heads to trial in September.

According to Butler County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency Director Rick Sliger, "Experienced Works" helped place Foushee in the job. "Experience Works" is out of Buffalo, Missouri, and according to their Web site, the company helps seniors get good jobs in their local communities. Sliger says "Experience Works" pays Foushee for the work.

"She answers phones and files papers. It's benign work," Sliger said.

"I hope she can clear this up still work here. She helps me out a lot, and I'm happy to have her," Sliger said.

Foushee began work at the Butler County Emergency Management Agency in January 2007, according to Sliger.

Prosecutors also charged a second woman, Cynthia Dewberry, with the same crimes as Foushee. Dewberry pleaded guilty to Manslaughter II and two counts of Financial Exploitation of a Elderly Person by a Caretaker.

KFVS TV 12

Again We Ask Butler County Missouri "Where is Mary Lee Grobe?"

No body has been found

No body has been found
Man held in disappearance of N.Y. woman

www.msnbc.com
updated 2:55 p.m. CT, Tues., Jan. 15, 2008
MIAMI - Detectives on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of killing a New York woman who has been missing for more than seven months, authorities said.

Kendrick Williams, 32, was arrested in New York City after forensic tests on his car linked him to the victim, police said.

Williams was expected to be charged with second-degree murder in the death of Stepha Henry, who disappeared in May, authorities said. No body has been found.

complete aticle.....

www.msnbc.com

*************************************

Again we ask the Poplar Bluff Grobe Family: Where is MARY LEE GROBE?

Was Mary Lee Grobe a VICTIM OF GUARDIANS?

Again we ask Sharron Payne where is your client, MARY LEE GROBE ?

Remember there is no Statute of limitations on Murder!

**************************************

VICTIMS OF GUARDIANS

VICTIMS OF GUARDIANS

Again and again and again We Ask Sharron Payne: Where is your client, Mary L Grobe?

VICTIMS OF GUARDIANS
(And Other Fiduciaries)

Who the Money Tree?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NO LONGER THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
OF THE "JUSTICE" SYSTEM!


NATIONAL AND WORLD MEDIA ARE NOW ABUZZ WITH HORROR STORIES ABOUT THE WEALTHY - Astor, Evans, Helmsley, Phillips - AND NOT-SO-WEALTHY WHO HAVE BECOME VICTIMS OF GUARDIANSHIP (CONSERVATORSHIP IN SOME STATES) AND HAVE HAD THEIR ESTATES DEPLETED OR TOTALLY WIPED OUT AS A RESULT.

The Terri Schiavo case was all about unlawful "guardianship," with continuing coverup all through the courts. It is one of the very worst examples of what corrupt judges and unethical lawyers can do with the power of life and death in their hands.

DID TERRI HAVE TO DIE SO HER HUSBAND COULD INHERIT THE REST OF HER DAMAGE AWARD?

THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT, ISN'T IT?


$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

These big-name well-publicized cases are finally shining the spotlight on little-known problems in these areas and getting the attention of Americans on this issue. Many lawyers write articles suggesting advance directives, including a Durable Power of Attorney ("durable," meaning it remains in effect after a person becomes incapacitated).


Question: But what if you wind up in front of a corrupt judge who ignores the grantor's wishes?
Answer: He can override any legal document executed by the AIP ("alleged incapacitated person.")

(Note: The person is only "alleged" to be incapacitated until they are legally adjudged to be incapacitated;
then they are described as the "ward." They are actually wards of the State.

Question: Aren't there any safeguards against that?
Answer: That's up to your state legislators and prosecutors. An honest judge will hold a full evidentiary hearing to determine the validity of the prior Durable Power of Attorney - the issue being whether the AIP was incapacitated at the time of execution. A corrupt judge will not hold any hearing; he/she will just ignore the Power, and sometimes invalidate (with a stroke of the pen) even a Last Will and Testament, putting all sorts of liberties in the hands of the fiduciaries.


Question: Why would a judge do that?
Answer: By unlawfully overriding the powers granted, he can then put his academic or political buddies into the guardianship, to make-work and feast on fees.


Question: What is the quid pro quo; i.e., what's in it for him/her?
Answer: That we will not know until the prosecutors start prosecuting judicial corruption in a meaningful way.


Question: Do you know what your rights are?
Answer: IF YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE GUARDIANSHIP PROBLEM IS NOT CONFINED TO ANY ONE STATE;
the UNLAWFUL PROCEEDINGS and resultant FEEDING FRENZIES
are rampant all across the country - anywhere there is money to be made!


Who gave lawyer-guardians a "License to Steal"?
The legislators did!
And they gave them a shocking list of powers -
including life/death decisions!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE PROBLEM WITH GUARDIANSHIP -
(This site was launched due to an unlawful guardianship experience in NY State,
but is fairly typical of corrupt guardianships/conservatorships across the country.)
Some people have described it as a "bounty hunting" operation, with headhunters running computer searches for financial and personal data on potential victims who wind up in a hospital and transfer to a nursing home (whether by reason of illness or even just a fall on the sidewalk). The nursing home lawyer or someone else then petitions for a guardianship. The assigned judge then distributes his patronage to his pals, in the form of fiduciary appointments as guardian, court evaluator, counsel to the AIP, etc. Would it shock you to learn that there is no requirement in New York for mandatory counsel to represent a person believed to be incapacitated? It won't when you read on. Many adjudication "hearings" are held which are totally sham, replate with constitutional due process violations, and conducted in complete contravention of statutory protections promulgated by the states, and practice rules issued by the courts.

Who's supposed to watch the guardians?
The judges.
Who's been watching the judges?
NO ONE!

**************************************

Thank You:
http://www.victimsofguardians.net/
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/ip/gfs/fidcommreport.html

It's happening more than you know!

WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE -- Most people couldn't imagine stealing from their parents. The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department says it's happening more than you know.

Fifty-year old Cynthia Blackmon pleaded not-guilty in Milwaukee County Court to 21 counts of elder abuse. She allegedly stole a total of $116,000 from her 79-year old mother, writing unauthorized checks and using fraudulent credit cards for two years.

Elder abuse, both physical and financial, has risen 78-percent in Wisconsin since 2000. Baby boomers are living longer with more money saved for retirement. They rarely suspect their own family members or caregivers would steal from them, so the crimes are rarely reported.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department formed an elder abuse unit in January of 2007. It has investigated almost 50 cases. It works with and gets many tips from The Milwaukee County Department on Aging.

FOX NEWS

ElderAbusehelp.org

*****************************************

Mary Lee Grobe, the ultimate in Elder Abuse!

Case.net, 36th Judicial Circuit (Butler & Ripley Counties)
***Grobe
***Bridgewater
***Walker

Missing or Murdered

...Jasmine Haslag from Cole County MO

...Michelle “Angie” Yarnell from Morgan County MO

...Cheryl Ann Scherer from Scott City MO

...Teresa Butler from Risco MO

...Amanda Jones from Jefferson County MO

...Vicki Lour from Wayne County MO

...Christine Carol Burnett-Pitts from Poplar Bluff MO

...Mary Lee Grobe from Butler County MO

Kidnapper Devlin gets extra 170 years in prison

Kidnapper Devlin gets extra 170 years in prison

Man who abducted, abused two boys gets final sentence for pornography

www.msnbc.com

Thank You to all levels of law enforcement for getting Michael Devlin off the street for ever and ever.

Sociopath, Very well said by "Michelle Says So"

Thank You Michelle, Very well said.

www.michellesaysso.com

DREW PETERSON--POSTERBOY FOR SOCIOPATHS

Who are Sociopaths?

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

Pathological Lying

Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Incapacity for Love

Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily

Other Related Qualities:

1) Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them

2) Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them

3) Authoritarian

4) Secretive

5) Paranoid

6) Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired

7) Conventional appearance

8)Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)

9) Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life

10) Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)

11) Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim

12) Incapable of real human attachment to another

13) Unable to feel remorse or guilt

14) Extreme narcissism and grandiose

15) May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

*************************************

Stacy Peterson and Mary Lee Grobe, Both still missing and a sociopath family member involved.

How luck led investigators to serial killer

How luck led investigators to serial killer

By Christine Byers
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
12/12/2007

Five women, all murdered more than 25 years ago. A sixth who was raped. Four suspects that led nowhere. And a DNA sample not good enough to match anyone in a database of prisoners.

Cape Girardeau Detective Jimmy Smith was at a dead end, his cold cases falling in a deep freeze.

About 45 miles away in Carbondale, Lt. Paul Echols was celebrating, having just linked Timothy Krajcir to the murder of Deborah Sheppard, a 23-year-old college student who was strangled in 1982.

Echols had no idea that the case he just closed had more twists and turns ahead. Nor did he have any idea that he was on the path of a serial killer.

Solving the Sheppard killing was making big news back in August, and Smith was captivated when he saw the mug shot of the 63-year-old suspect as it flashed across his television screen. Sheppard's hands were tied behind her back, the report said, jogging Smith's memory of an unsolved rape case he had been reviewing in the past six months.

The next morning, at 7:15 Aug. 31, Smith called Echols — the date and time courtesy of Echols' journal...

...complete article
stltoday.com

Cape Girardeau & Carbondale Cold Case Murders solved!

It took a long time but thankfully the Cape Girardeau, MO police department didn't give up. Also, they were smart enough to use DNA evidence and to cooperate with other police agencies to solve some terrible crimes that have gone unresolved for too many years.

How wonderful that Cape Girardeau took these crimes seriously and endeavored to solve them. We thank you.

For all involved in Mary Lee Grobe's disappearance, time used to be our enemy but now it is our friend. We are waiting on you.

___________________

Nine Cold Cases Solved After Serial Killer Confesses
By: Heartland News

KFVS TV12 By Heartland News

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Nine cold cases are now solved after the confessions of a serial killer.

A serial killer roamed the Heartland in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

He killed six women in the region. Plus, authorities say he's confessed to three other murders for a total of nine.

Timothy Kracjir, 63, originally of Pennsylvania ended up in southern Illinois after getting out of prison.

While working as an EMT and ambulance driver, Krajcir admits driving over to Cape Girardeau in 1977 and killing three women.

After another brief stint behind bars, Krajcir came back and killed three more women, two in Cape, and one in Carbondale, where he lived.

Among the victims: Mary Parsh and her daughter Brenda were found shot to death at their Cape Girardeau home in August of 1977. Then 21-year-old Sheila Cole was kidnapped in Cape and shot in the head twice at a rest stop along Route 3 near McClure in November of 1977.

The fourth victim, 57-year-old Margie Call was strangled to death at her home in Cape in January of 1982. The fifth victim, 65-year-old Mildred Wallace was shot to death at her home on William in June of 1982.

Monday morning, Timothy Kracjir went before a Jackson County judge and admitted killing 23-year-old Deborah Sheppard in Carbondale in 1982. In return, the judge gave Kracjir the maximum sentence allowed, 40 years.

Now that he's confessed to killing five more women, Kracjir will soon be back in court.

Cape County Prosecutor Morley Swingle says he's started the paperwork to bring Krajcir over to Missouri to face a judge on five counts of murder and three counts of rape.

The rape charges involve victims Margie Call, Mildred Wallace, and an unnamed rape victim who was also attacked in 1982.

There were dozens of family members at Monday's press conference, in part to thank police for never giving up the hunt.

Don Call's mother Margie, was murdered in 1982. Over the years he stayed in contact with police, hoping this day would come.

Family members say they felt relief knowing that finally, they had some closure. Two weeks before Christmas, it was a bittersweet gift.

Click here to learn more about the victims from the five homicides Krajcir was charged with Monday. KFVS TV12

Mary Parsh
Brenda Parsh
Mildred Wallace
Deborah Shappard
Sheila Cole
Margie Call


Click here to learn more about the Deborah Sheppard case.

Krajcir Sentenced to 40 Years for Sheppard Murder

MSNBC.com

Bonnie's Blog of Crime

SeMissourian.com News

156 Miles From Poplar Bluff

156 Miles from Poplar Bluff by Scott Faughn

Thank You Scott for speaking up about the Corruption in Butler County

Who does not want Mary Grobe found and WHY?

http://scottfaughn.blogspot.com/

Where is Mary Grobe ?

Elderly Abuse by Guardians

Here are a few good web sites about Elder Abuse by Guardians.

National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse

Abusive Guardianships of the Elderly

Bloggers Against Abuse September 27th, 2007

Elder Abuse Help

Missing Pregnant Woman's Ex-Husband Dies

Missing Pregnant Woman's Ex-Husband Dies

created: 11/24/2007 7:11:02 PM
updated: 11/24/2007 7:14:24 PM
KSDK TV 5

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Family members of a missing pregnant woman say her ex-husband has died, leaving the future of the couple's 7-year-old daughter uncertain.

The parents of Amanda Jones say Jeffrey "Scott" Jones died Friday of unknown causes.

Amanda and Scott Jones married in 1999, separated in 2000 and divorced in 2002. Amanda Jones maintained custody of their daughter.

The 26-year-old woman went missing more than two years ago -- on August 14th, 2005. After Amanda Jones went missing, her daughter went to live with
her father, Scott Jones, and his wife.

Amanda Jones' parents have sought visitation rights in court. At the time of her disappearance, Jones was just days away from
giving birth to a son she planned to name Hayden Lucas.

No charges were ever filed and Amanda Jones' body has not been found.

KSDK TV 5

Conviction without finding the missing persons body.

Authorities have arrested 3 men in connection with the death of U.S. teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, prosecutors said Wednesday. They are charged with involvement in Holloway's death,

although no body has been found.

Holloway's mom said: "The family is always hopeful when a step in the right direction is made in the case."

************

Corpus Delicti:

It is a common misconception that you cannot prove murder without a body. This misconception is the result of a misinterpretion of the legal term corpus delicti. Many people think this term means the body of a murdered person; in fact, it means the body of evidence to prove a crime occured. Although it is difficult to convict someone of murder without the body of the victim, it happens.

************


Kenny Grobe
Ginny Grobe
Sharron Payne
Amy Bridgewater
Tara Walker
Amanda Grobe
David Grobe
Dale Grobe

WHAT REALLY HAPPEN TO YOUR
MOTHER
MOTHER IN LAW
YOUR CLIENT
YOUR GRANDMOTHER

AGAIN WE ASK, WHAT REALLY HAPPEN TO MARY LEE GROBE?

The search for Stacy Peterson begins at home

By Clint Van Zandt
MSNBC
updated 3:59 p.m. CT, Mon., Nov. 5, 2007


We have also seen a new breed of methodical killers — men who may have thought long and hard about how to make their wife or girlfriend (or Mother) disappear without a trace. Some may have put their plan into action. Meanwhile, for the missing, the investigation continues.

Complete Story...

www.msnbc.com

..............................

Corpus Delicti

..............................

This list is for cases where the defendant was convicted or pleaded guilty or no contest to causing the missing person's death, (without a body). Insanity pleas are included here as well, since an insanity plea does not dispute the defendant's actions, only his or her responsibility.

Corpus Delicti

Good Job Peggy & Marianne--Missouri needs this!

Grassroots group seeks to build awareness of missing persons

By Ra'Vae Edwards
News Tribune
Two Mid-Missouri women who share a common bond - both have daughters who are missing - have formed an organization to help others in situations similar to theirs.

Missouri Missing still is in its beginning stages, but Peggy Florence and Marianne Asher-Chapman say they are dedicated to creating awareness about missing persons cases.

Since Florence's daughter, Jasmine Haslag, disappeared, she's worked with Chapman to build an organization geared to help families in a multitude of ways.

“One of the main things I want this organization to do is to provide support for those who are going through this,” Florence said. “Before Jasmine went missing, I never thought about missing persons or how serious it is. And I think that is true with a lot of people. Unless it happens to you, you don't think about it.”

Creating awareness and providing education about missing persons in Missouri are key to helping solve many of the cases, Chapman said.

“We need to create awareness as to the extent of the seriousness of missing persons,” Chapman said. “The first 24 to 48 hours after a person goes missing is very crucial.

“But if that person is an adult, we make the assumption they have just left, and that isn't always the case. Each case should be dealt with individually, based on that person's history.”

Chapman's daughter, Michelle “Angie” Yarnell, has been missing since Oct. 25, 2003. Since her disappearance, Chapman has made appearances on the Montel Williams Show and her daughter's case has been mentioned on several nationally syndicated shows.

“Each missing-persons case should be dealt with as serious as possible,” Florence said. “We know that there have been a lot of adults who go missing and then return after they were just in hiding because they were mad or whatever, but not every case is like that.

“If you look at the statistics right now, there are more than 800 persons in Missouri who are missing. Those people are someone's daughter, mother, brother, father, sister and in some cases, grandparents. Improvements need to be made, and that is one of the many things Missouri Missing will be working on.”

Overnight results are not expected, Florence and Chapman agree, but it is not something either of them plan on giving up.

“I will never quit looking for my daughter,” Chapman said. “And I feel very strongly about this organization. I don't want to see other people go through what we have been through and if there is anything we can do to help, we certainly will.”

Chapman and Florence are scheduled to meet with state legislators and members of the Missouri Highway Patrol on Tuesday at the Capitol to discuss changes in legislation.

Chapman can and Florence can be temporarily reached via e-mail at missourimissingpersons@yahoo.com. A website and contact information are in the works.

http://www.newstribune.com/articles/2007/11/12/news_local/049localnews03.prt

Our prayers Go to the Ford family. . . & all families of the missing!

Uncommon bond: Mother of missing local woman addresses gathering in memory of slain girl

By Ra'Vae Edwards
News Tribune

Since the disappearance of her daughter almost five months ago, Peggy Florence has worked diligently to form an organization to reach out to all people in Missouri who suffer the loss of a missing person.

On Sunday, Florence drove to Stella to gather with supporters to pay tribute to 9-year-old Rowan Ford, who was reportedly raped and killed by her stepfather and his friend last week.

At the request of Ford's family, Florence spoke to the many supporters who gathered at the Stella Baptist Church. She offered gratitude and thanks for the outpouring of support to Ford's family.

“Having the community support that you have here is wonderful,” Florence said. “It is important for all families who have missing loved ones to have this type of support. Your community deserves to be rewarded for all you have done.”

If all communities would rally in support of all missing persons, Florence said, it would not only fill a need for families who are suffering a tragic loss, but might also assist law enforcement in investigating the whereabouts of the person reported missing.

“When your loved one goes missing, it is one of the hardest things to deal with,” she said. “Knowing they are out there somewhere, knowing they are in possible danger and they need your help is the worst feeling.

“Combine that with knowing you can't help and I don't believe there is anything worse. Not having to deal with it alone is very helpful.”

Although her trip to Stella was not planned, nor was her speech, Florence said she made the trip because she understood what Ford's mother, Colleen Spears, suffered through for nearly a week of not knowing where her daughter was.

“I know in part what Colleen is going through,” Florence said. “Although we haven't located my daughter yet, I am there myself. It's been a long five months without her and I wanted Colleen to know that she isn't alone.

“There are many missing people out there and their families need to know they have our support.”

Florence said she made the trip to let Colleen Spears know she is being supported both at home and from afar.

“All of the members of our organization sent their condolences to her,” Florence said. “And she needed to know we will all be here for her through this hardship.”

An official memorial service for Ford will be held at the Baptist Church in Neosho on Wednesday.

http://newstribune.com/articles/2007/11/12/news_local/049localnews02.txt

Guilty of Elder Abuse

Guilty

Wappapello woman pleads in mom’s death

By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH
Associate Editor DAR Newspaper, Poplar Bluff, MO.

IRONTON — A Wappapello woman pleaded guilty Thursday afternoon in Iron County to a manslaughter charge in connection with the January 2006 death of her mother.
Theresa L. Cespedes pleaded guilty to the Class C felony
of first-degree involuntary
manslaughter before Circuit Judge William Camm Seay, according to Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca
Burns, who filed an amended
information with the court prior to Cespedes’ plea.
The amended information alleges on Jan. 29, 2006, Cespedes “recklessly caused the death of Eula Mae Hendon … by failing to seek medical attention.”
Hendon, 64, was found dead Jan. 29, 2006, at the rural Wappapello residence she shared with her daughter and three grandchildren.
Authorities reported Hendon, at the time of her death, was malnourished and the living conditions in her bedroom
were filthy.
An autopsy showed Hendon died of pneumonia and hardening of the arteries. Medical records reportedly indicated Hendon had not received medical treatment since 2003.
According to Burns, Cespedes was sentenced to seven years in the Missouri Department of Corrections, with suspended execution of the sentence and placed on five years’
supervised probation.
“Special terms and conditions are to be set by Probation and Parole,” Burns said.
The 40-year-old entered her plea during what was supposed to be a pretrial motions hearing in her case.
Cespedes, who has been in jail since her February arrest, was supposed to stand trial Dec. 4 and 5 on the Class A felonies of second-degree murder
and first-degree elder abuse and
the Class C felony of felonious restraint.
“I made the offer (Wednesday) night; the defense was agreeable” to the plea, said Burns, who feels it was a “successful resolution” to the case.
Hendon’s grandchildren, Melissa Ann Thompson, David J. Cespedes and Jose M. Cespedes Jr., pleaded guilty in April to a Class A misdemeanor of third-degree elder abuse in connection with her death.
The trio was accused of intentionally failing to “provide care, goods and services to Eula Mae Hendon, by failing to seek medical attention between July 7, 2003, and Jan. 29, 2006, thereby causing (their grandmother) physical or emotional distress.”

DAR Newspaper 11/10/2007

Stricter screening needed to detect elder abuse

Stricter screening needed to detect elder abuse

Directly asking older adults about their care misses many signs, study says

Reuters News Service
updated 8:20 p.m. CT, Tues., Sept. 4, 2007
NEW YORK - Screening elderly adults for signs of abuse may catch many more cases than otherwise would be, a new study suggests.

Israeli researchers found that while 6 percent of older adults in their study admitted to being abused by a family caregiver when asked directly, many more had evident signs of abuse or were at high risk of abuse.

The findings suggest that older adults should be routinely screened for signs of abuse, or risk factors for it, when they enter a hospital or a community service, the study's lead author told Reuters Health.
The study, which is published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, involved 730 men and women age 70 and older who were hospitalized in one of two major Israeli medical centers. All were living at home, but relied on a family member for help with day-to-day living.

When asked directly, just under six percent acknowledged that they'd suffered some form of abuse from a family member. The types of abuse ranged from physical and verbal abuse to neglect to financial exploitation.

But when the researchers used two additional methods of detecting potential abuse, the results were significantly different. When nurses and social workers assessed the patients after they entered the hospital — interviewing them and conducting physical exams — they found evidence of abuse in 21 percent.

These signs included suspicious bruises and burns; angry or indifferent behavior in the caregiver; and evidence that the patient was being neglected at home, such as poor hygiene or dehydration.

What's more, the third measure of abuse — which looked at risk factors for abuse — indicated that one-third of patients were at high risk.

Risk factors for abuse included problems such as emotional instability and poor family relationships, in both caregivers and elderly patients.

msnbc.com 9/04/2007

*****************************

Where is Mary Grobe?
Why is Mary Grobe still missing?

Sharron K Payne

Who is the real Sharron K Payne?

Some of Mary Grobe's family has taken polygraph & Voice Stress tests(CVSA), has Sharron Payne? What is she hiding? Who is she protecting and Why?

Which of Mary Grobe's Poplar Bluff sons refused to take the Voice Stress Test( CVSA)?

Which of Mary Grobe's son's in Poplar Bluff did NOT PASS the tests asked by law enforcement (2 polygraphs, and voice stress test CVSA)? There lies the answers to finding Mary Lee Grobe!

Which of Mary Grobe's Poplar Bluff sons was seen often in the Butler County Court house in Sharon Payne's office collecting Mary Grobe's Cash Allowance. Where did that money really go Sharron?

Who tried to stop the draining of the sewage lagoon near Mary Grobe's old house?... Was it Sharron Payne?

Who called the Carole Sund Reward Fund to try to have the reward fund stopped?
Was it Sharron Payne ?
Was it Amy Bridgewater?
Was it Barb Grobe from Frisco Texas?

Probate code 475.120
1. Assure that the Ward resides in the best and least restrictive setting reasonably available.
2. Assure that the Ward receives medical care and other services that are needed.
Why did Sharron Payne fail to get new eye glasses and hearing aids that were needed and requested
3. Promote and protect the care, comfort, safety, health, and welfare of the Ward.
Is this why Sharron Payne does not want Mary's body found?
4. Provide required consents on behalf of the Ward.
5. To exercise all powers and discharge all duties necessary or proper to implement the provisions of this section.

When told repeatedly, Mary Lee Grobe’s life was in jeopardy; Sharron Payne did nothing to help her poor innocent client. Instead of moving her to a safe environment, Sharron issued Mary a Medic Alert button. This is a tool that is helpful if an elderly person falls and/or knows there is a danger and they can call for help. Mary Lee Grobe was legally declared incompetent and didn’t know when to push the button or what happened when she pushed the button. When a trained medical professional asked Mary what she would do if her house was on fire, Mary responded, I would call the district supervisor.” Clearly, Mary didn’t know to call fire department. Mary didn’t know whom to trust, and sometimes she didn’t recognize people from one time to the next. Mary needed help and protection—not a button.

Again we ask Sharron Payne where is her client, MARY LEE GROBE ?

Remember Sharron Payne, there is no Statute of limitations on Murder!

St. Charles man accused of grandpa attack

St. Chaarles Missouri man accused of grandpa attack
By Joel Currier
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

10/30/2007A St.Charles man is back in jail on suspicion of swinging a cabinet door toward his grandfather.

William C. Shannon, 18, was charged today in St. Charles County Circuit Court with third-degree elder abuse, a misdemeanor.

Police say Shannon attempted to strike his 65-year-old grandfather with a kitchen cabinet door late Monday night at their home in the 3400 block of Wilshire Avenue in St. Charles.

The charge is a violation of Shannon's five-year probation stemming from a guilty plea in September to a felony charge of elder abuse. In March, Shannon struck his grandfather on the arm with a metal pipe because he wouldn't give him money to buy a cell phone.

Shannon's probation was suspended today, and he was being held at the St. Charles County Jail on a $10,000 cash only bail.

www.stltoday.com

google "elder abuse"

www.ElderAbuseHelp.org

What would Vernon Eugene Grobe have said and done?

Picture from 1989 of Mary Lee Grobe and her husband, Vernon Eugene Grobe. Picture in the shade of the big oak tree along with a grandson.

We are thinking of Vernon Eugene Grobe today and wondering what he would have done and/or said to the ones responsible for his wife's disappearance. He never had much in the way of material things but he had his dignity and his reputation. How disappointed he would have been with the greed displayed.

It is not too late to speak up and tell the truth.

Summer Shipp's Remains Found

Our love and prayers go to Summer's family during this difficult time.

My Fox News 4

JACKSON COUNTY, Mo. -- Thursday, police announced they have picked up a few more items in the search for evidence in the death of Summer Shipp. Investigators still need to analyze those items to determine if they are evidence in the case.

The remains of Summer Shipp were discovered Sunday when fisherman found her skull floating in the Little Blue River. Shipp had been missing for three years.

Investigators have brought out a team of 100 searchers, some on horseback. They've also brought in back hoes and sand trucks to dam part of the Little Blue River, to provide better access for excavation. And, they are planning to drain part of the river to search for evidence.

While law enforcement scoured a two to three mile stretch of woods, friends of Shipp put up a small memorial nearby.

"Every time we looked for the Porter children we also searched for Summer," friend Christine Stevens said. "We've got a nut out here somewhere, he needs to be captured."

The day after two fishermen found Shipp's skull, FOX 4 learned that a hunter has approached investigators about something he saw three years ago that's always haunted him. Investigators aren't saying exactly what but we learned it had something to do with chasing a man off from his hunting camp

"Someone did come forward, contact some of the Sheriff's deputies here on scene and said that he saw something and it wasn't specifically at this location but it was at another location having to do with the river," Rhonda Montgomery with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department said.

"Hopefully they can find some evidence to really get some closure on this," friend Janice Cogburn said. "She'll never have closure until we know what happened and when we can get this person behind bars where he belongs.

The discovery of Shipp's remains may refocus attention of Jeff Sauerbry. Three years ago police searched his house after dogs followed Shipp's scent to his door.

He was never charged but spent a year in federal prison for a parole violation and was released last December. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Shipp's family released a statement on Tuesday night, after officials confirmed that the remains were Shipp's.

"There are no words to express the feelings and emotions the Shipp family is experiencing after the recent news of the positively identified remains of our wonderful Summer," the statement on the website, Friends of Summer, said. "The family needs some time to absorb this. We dearly appreciate all the emails and phone calls received, and please keep them coming! They are so very comforting. Your emails to the family can be sent to friendsofsummer@gmail.com and for any other inquiries, please contact the Independence Police Department at 816-325-7330."

The fishermen who made the initial discovery said they saw an object floating in the Little Blue River, retrieved it and saw it was a skull. They immediately called 911 from their location near M-78 and 7 Highways.

Independence Police said this case has always been a tough one for investigators.

"It does strike us right in the heart, but it is some form of resolution," Tom Gentry with Independence Police said. "So, it's up to us now. In fact, there's probably more work ahead of us than behind us."

Shipps' daughter, Brandy Shipp, waged a tireless campaign to find her mother after she disappeared three years ago. The search for Shipp garnered plenty of publicity, and her family raised $100,000 in reward money.

Brandy Shipp now lives in Amsterdam.

National Center on Elder Abuse

Who Are the Abusers?

It has been estimated that roughly two-thirds of all elder abuse perpetrators are family members, most often the victim’s adult child or spouse.

********************************************************

Major Types of Elder Abuse

Elder abuse is a growing problem. While we don't know all of the details about why abuse occurs or how to stop its spread, we do know that help is available for victims. Concerned people, like you, can spot the warning signs of a possible problem, and make a call for help if an elder is in need of assistance.

Physical abuse

Sexual abuse

Emotional or psychological abuse

Neglect

Abandonment

Financial or material exploitation

Self-neglect

********************************************************

Is Elder Abuse a Crime?

Most physical, sexual, and financial/material abuses are considered crimes in all states insofar as these acts violate statutes prohibiting crimes such as assault, battery, rape, theft, etc. In addition, depending on the perpetrators' conduct and intent, and the consequences for the victim, certain emotional abuse and neglect cases are subject to criminal prosecution.

State criminal statutes, adult protective laws, and federal statutes such as Medicare define and establish penalties for abuse, neglect, and exploitation of vulnerable adults. Prosecution of perpetrators is rare, however, and may be hampered by several factors including victims' fear of retaliation, hesitancy to prosecute family members, or lack of capacity to describe the crime or perpetrator.

While there has been some increase in cases prosecuted (particularly in the area of nursing home abuse largely due to aggressiveness of Medicaid Fraud Units), justice for elder abuse victims requires continued specialized training for police officers and other first responders, district attorneys, victim/witness professionals, lawyers, and the courts.

********************************************************

National Center on Elder Abuse

********************************************************

If you suspect elder abuse, neglect, or exploitation, call
1-800-677-1116.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or the local police for immediate help.

Missouri man charged in mother's death

Missouri man charged in mother's death

ASSOCIATED PRESS
10/17/2007
Stltoday.com

PATTON, Mo. (AP) -- A southeast Missouri man knew his elderly mother was dying and had stopped breathing but still went to bed without seeking help, authorities said.

Eric Lichte, 58, of Patton, faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, tampering with physical evidence and elder abuse in the death of his mother, 83-year-old Wanda Lichte.

Authorities said Eric Lichte moved back to Missouri from Colorado about 10 years ago and moved in with his mother to help care for her.

He told police his mother's breathing was shallow in the early hours of Oct. 11. About 3:30 a.m., she stopped breathing. Still, he decided to go to bed without contacting police or emergency crews, according to a probable cause statement.

Lichte called a funeral home about six hours later to report his mother's death.

"The fact he would go to sleep at that point rather than calling family members or calling for medical assistance at any time that night is something we've noted as a concern," Bollinger County prosecutor Stephen Gray said.

Sheriff's Sgt. Eric Sarakas said authorities who went to the home found the deceased woman lying on her bed with "arms folded as if she was in a casket for viewing, and she was fully dressed in neat clothing. Her hair appeared to be neatly combed." A plastic cover had been placed on the bed in place of sheets.

An autopsy showed Wanda Lichte died of neglect -- she was malnourished and dehydrated. She also had large bedsores, authorities said.

Eric Lichte told police his mother had diabetes and Alzheimer's disease but had asked that he not notify doctors. He said he was "taking care of her the best he knew how," the probable cause statement said.

"There's just not a good reason to let a family member suffer when there's professional help available," Gray said.

Lichte's attorney did not return a phone call seeking comment.

stltoday.com

Bollinger County Man Charged with Elder Abuse

Patton, MO
Bollinger County Man Charged with Elder Abuse
Oct 17, 2007 06:19 PM CST
By: CJ Cassidy, KFVS 12

PATTON, Mo. - A Patton man faces charges in connection with his 83- year-old mother's death.

Eric Lichte, 58, returned home after bonding out of Bollinger County Jail Wednesday.

He faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, elder abuse and tampering with physical evidence.

According to court records, Eric Lichte's mother passed away around 3:30 a.m. October 11th, but he told police he didn't call anyone for help because he figured it was too late.

So he went to sleep for an hour and called a funeral home much later.

That's not the only thing raising questions among investigators and neighbors.

"I was very surprised. He was always a nice gentleman," said Bud Becker.

Becker lives across the road from Eric Lichte, and says he's horrified to hear some of the details involving Lichte's mother's death.

According to court documents, investigators found Lichte's 83-year-old mother, Wanda, dead on a bed covered with plastic, not sheets. Her arms were reportedly folded as if she were in a casket, and her body neatly dressed, her hair neatly combed.

Becker says in 18 years out in Patton, he got to know his other neighbors, but not the Lichtes.

"They were people who stayed to themselves. They never came out much, never said much to anybody. They would come out at night, wouldn't come out much during the day, even to get their mail, even to mow their grass," Becker said.

Court papers point to disturbing details, like the the County Coroner finding large open bedsores on Wanda Lichte's body. They state you could even see her joints and ribs in places because she appeared to be malnourished.

Eric Lichte allegedly told police his mother suffered from both Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, but he didn't take her to the doctor because he wanted to honor her wishes.

That's something social workers say is quite common in cases of elder abuse, but doesn't always hold up in court.

"If the person has verbalized or put in writing their wishes to be honored, lot of times through a living will, when it's medical it will address that. But if it's a family member who told their son or daughter they don't want anyone coming to help, usually. That's because they're afraid of being put in a nursing home," said Bonnie Eulinberg with the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services.

Eulinberg says she deals with hundreds of cases of elder abuse in Southeast Missouri every year and ignorance and neglect are most often to blame.

If you suspect someone you know of being an abuser or you think someone's being abused, call 1 (800) 392-0210.

It's anonymous, and could help save someone's life.

Eric Lichte, meanwhile, appears in court again in December.

KFVS TV12

Patton Man Charged in Death of His Mother

Patton man charged in death of mother

Wednesday, October 17, 2007
By Candice Hale ~ The Banner Press
semissourian.com

PATTON, Mo. -- A Patton man has been charged in the events surrounding the death of his mother.

Eric Lichte, 58, faces charges of tampering with physical evidence, involuntary manslaughter and elder abuse.

Sgt. Eric Sarakas of the Bollinger County Sheriff's Department and Bollinger County Coroner Charles Hutchings went to the Lichte residence Thursday to investigate the death of Wanda Lichte, 83, also of Patton, according to a probable-cause statement filed Friday.

The statement read that upon their arrival to the residence, Lichte said his mother had shallow breathing the night before and that she had stopped breathing around 3:30 a.m. Thursday. He told the deputy he went to bed at 4:30 a.m. and called Liley Funeral home about six hours later to report his mother's death.

"The fact he would go to sleep at that point rather than calling family members or calling for medical assistance at any time that night is something we've noted as a concern," said Bollinger County Prosecuting Attorney Stephen Gray.

According to the statement, Wanda Lichte was found lying on her bed, "arms folded as if she was in a casket for viewing, and she was fully dressed in neat clothing. Her hair appeared to be neatly combed."

Sarakas stated the bed had a plastic cover in place of sheets.

Once her body was examined at the coroner's office, the statement said, she was found to have large, open bedsores and appeared to be malnourished because her joints and ribs were visible.

Lichte was arrested Thursday afternoon, at which time he was questioned by Sgt. Stanley Petton of the Bollinger County Sheriff's Department.

According to the statement, Lichte said his mother asked him to take care of her about 10 years ago, when he sold his house in Colorado and moved in with her.

Lichte said in the interview that his mother was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease but that he had not taken her to see a doctor in two years. According to the probable-cause statement, he had not notified any doctors of her diabetes and Alzheimer's because he was honoring his mother's wishes.

The statement also said that the funeral home reported that Lichte asked that his mother not be embalmed, and that Lichte said he spoke to other members of his family and that none of them would be attending the funeral, so a graveside service would suffice.

"It's obvious he didn't want the full extent of her condition to be known," Gray said.

Sgt. Phil Gregory of the Bollinger County Sheriff's Department contacted one of Lichte's brothers in Hawaii, and according to the probable-cause statement, he said he hadn't spoken with his brother and that he would be attending the funeral.

An autopsy was performed at the Mineral Area Regional Center by Dr. Russell Deidiker. According to the probable-cause statement, Wanda Lichte's death was ruled a homicide through neglect. Deidiker's report read that she was malnourished and dehydrated.

Gray said families must be able to recognize there are times and situations in which a hospital or nursing home might be the best way to care for someone.

"There's just not a good reason to let a family member suffer when there's professional help available," he said. "He really should've gotten professional help some time ago to avoid this kind of situation."

In the probable-cause statement, it was noted that Lichte said he "was taking care of her the best he knew how."

Lichte is in custody at the Bollinger County Jail, Gray said.

Southeast Missourian Newspaper

Sounds like the Scott County Sheriff is taking missing persons cases more seriously! That's commendable as more should be done in Missouri.

http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?s=7144754

Searching for a Loved One
By: Holly Brantley

A missing loved one is enough cause for concern, but that may not be the worst part. Some run into more red tape than help, while searching for someone who's vanished.

For example, Tonya Rider, a Washington state woman disappeared on her way home from work. Amazingly, police found her alive Thursday night eight days later. Her husband, Tom Rider, tried to file a missing persons report, but questions of jurisdiction, and doubts about his story slowed things down.

Too many Heartland families know what it's like to search for a missing loved one. Some of those stories have happy endings. Many remain unsolved and some say it's impossible to find closure even when the case is solved.

One of those families is that of Ralph Lape. Their life was turned upside down back in July of 2002. Lape's sister, daughter, and family members searched for him with no idea of his fate. They spoke with Heartland News about the emotional process.

"I remember thinking, I don't believe I'm doing this," said Diane Miller, Lape's sister. "He'll call, he'll call tonight."

Miller, and Lape's daughter, Megan recall the anxious days after he disappeared.

"When he didn't show up for the closing of his house, I thought probably something is wrong," said Miller.

Before they learned his fate, they worked to try and find him. It took nearly a month before they would discover Lape was kidnapped and murdered.

"The police were great," said Miller. "They met us at his house and asked a lot of questions. When you get to that point, you just want to do anything to find them."

Lt. Jerry Bledsoe of the Scott County Sheriff's Department explains what to do if your loved one is missing. First, you file a missing person's report. Then, that person's name goes into a statewide and national data base to search. In Scott County, they begin searching immediately.

"We don't wait 24 hours anymore," said Bledsoe.

Diane Miller offers this advice to other families should they ever be faced with the search for a loved one.

"Keep busy," said Miller. "You have to do as much as you can. Look everywhere. Talk to everyone."

Lt. Bledsoe says they never give up on a missing person's case. Many will remember Cheryl Ann Schere who went missing in 1979. Bledsoe says they followed a lead on that story just this week.

Reflections

Reflections—4 years without answers and without justice!

Mary Lee Grobe was ripped from the people who loved her 4 years ago today. We have yet to see justice—we have yet to have resolution.

We hope the guilty ones stop for a moment today and reflect on what they have done. God already knows who was responsible on 9-27-03 but the rest of us need resolution. Even murders can be forgiven but not until they admit what they have done and try to correct the wrong as best they can. Those that helped cover and conceal are just as guilty in God’s eyes. All need to come clean. Soap won’t clean what you have done. Mary Lee Grobe’s blood cries out and you can’t wash it off until you tell the truth. How can you call yourself Christian until you do as Christ would?

Our questions to you the one responsible include: What did she do to deserve this in your eyes? Who else deserved this in your eyes? Was it worth it? How can human life be worth such a trivial amount of money? You had most of the small amount of money spent before she disappeared; but how long did the remainder last? One month? Two months? Three? Couldn’t you have gotten a part-time job to earn that amount? Isn’t your dignity worth something? What will you do to supplement your income now? How can your family stand you? How can they protect you? Why would they want to? How can they restfully sleep at night? Doesn’t it occur to them that if you think you can make money off it; their life is at risk also?

Why didn’t she (in your evil eyes) deserve a proper burial? It wouldn’t have cost you anything because she paid for the burial policy out of her own money. Didn’t you know where she wanted to be buried once she died? She purchased the headstone with her own money, didn’t she? Why did you have such disrespect for not only her but her husband, Vernon Eugene Grobe? You know Vernon wanted Mary to be taken care of, didn’t you? Why did you display such disrespect to her children and grandchildren? Why did you deprive them of a proper mourning period and arrangement?

For all those duped. . . has your brain kicked in yet? Have you looked at the evidence around you? How is it humanly possible to be so gullible? Hate people if you must for whatever trumped up reason that makes you feel good but use your brain—look at who benefited from her disappearance. Look who had opportunity. Who failed to look for her once she went missing? If it has dawned on you that you were duped; you are probably embarrassed right now but the embarrassment isn’t going to go away just because you continue to bury your head in the sand. The embarrassment will go away and forgiveness given once you speak up and bravely step forward.

There’s no more reward money, you missed that, but doing the right thing is priceless. Doing the right thing is what Mary Lee Grobe deserves!

Missouri needs DNA matches to solve the many missing person's cases.

We need DNA matches in MO--it is crazy that we are not doing this already. Time to wake up Missouri Law Makers and Law Enforcement. And they can't use the excuse that it is too costly as this is a federal program without charges to the state. All family members of the missing should contact local Law Enforcment and ask them to submit DNA.

Times Herald-Record on Line.

Times Herald-Record
September 23, 2007
Middletown — Three years ago, city police hiked into the woods east of Dolson Avenue where a man sat alone on a make-shift recliner.

He was wearing blue jeans when they found him, blue jeans with a gray button-down shirt over a white shirt. Nearby were a pair of size 9 black sneakers and a fleece jacket with "Rockland County Grandparents Association" printed on it.

He'd been dead a long time, and if anyone knows his name, they've never come forward to say so.

EVERY YEAR, THOUSANDS DIE and join the ranks of the unidentified dead. A survey of nearly 2,000 medical examiners and coroners across the country found nearly 13,500 sets of unidentified human remains on record. There might be more because not everyone keeps the records the same way or at all, according to the survey released in June by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some have estimated the number closer to 40,000.

"We refer to it as a mass disaster over time," said George Adams, program coordinator for the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas.

Adams knows why identification is important. He can hear it in the voices of those looking for lost relatives and read it in the e-mails sleep-deprived parents send him at 3 a.m. The family and friends of the missing seek answers. They depend on a mixture of investigators and scientists for the closure only information can bring, even if that gives them a body to bury.

The key to identification, Adams said, is feeding a national database called CODIS — the Combined DNA Index System. Once a profile is entered, the system can sift it through the database for possible matches. CODIS will continue to search every month automatically. But CODIS can only work if it has DNA samples to sort. To make a match, it needs two samples: one from the body and one that can positively identify the person. That second sample could come from the person or from a biological family member. Unfortunately, Adams said, there have been many cases in which someone has found a body but scientists couldn't identify it, because they didn't have that second sample.

"It's very, very simple, super simple," Adams said. "We need to get the family sample from anyone who has a missing person."

The family sample is one part of connecting the gap between the missing and the unidentified. Another is the sample from the body. That usually has to come from law enforcement, coroners or medical examiners. Sometimes, the sample never makes it to the lab.

"It's not unusual for a new sheriff to come in and say, 'Guess what I found in my evidence room; I found a skeleton,'" Adams said.

It's impossible to tell how many bodies and their DNA profiles have disappeared over the years into evidence lockers, the ground or cremation fires. Recent efforts have sought to change that.

The National Institute of Justice helps fund the Center for Identification and has opened federal resources, such as CODIS, to all jurisdictions across the country. The center even provides collection kits and analyzes them for free.

Adams said more agencies take advantage of the service as they learn how DNA analysis can focus or redirect investigations. Scientists at the center have discovered bodies thought to be women that are actually men and found dental records aren't always correct.

"Don't dispose of a body, don't bury a body unless you've saved an appropriate sample," Adams said.

NEW YORK AGENCIES use the New York state police laboratory in Albany for similar investigations. Mike Brownstein, identification officer for Middletown police, said little has changed in the collection processes on the ground, but the science in the laboratories has made DNA much easier to use in police work. For example, he can send smaller samples than before — important in cases where little is available.

There wasn't much tissue left on the man found in the woods east of Dolson. A Broadloom City employee found him in a place where homeless people had often walked or camped. Police said it looked like the man just sat down one day and never got up. Middletown detectives sent his femur to the state police lab to be entered in CODIS. Every month, the system searches his profile against those entered into the CODIS missing persons database. So far, the system hasn't identified the man.

The director at Calvary Cemetery in New Windsor recently looked up the man's plot for a reporter. Orange County Social Services Department paid the $1,600 to have the man cremated and buried. He lies below a covering of grass and earth, next to the ashes of another unidentified body. No marker says he's there. No relatives visit his grave. He's buried up on a hill close to the road, so he'll be easy to dig up if anyone ever learns his name.


Looking for someone?
Family members searching for a missing relative should submit a DNA sample for entry in the Combined DNA Index System, recommends George Adams, program coordinator for the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas. Laboratories such as the one at the University of North Texas can process the samples and submit them to CODIS, but they require the samples to come from agencies such as law enforcement or coroner. Adams recommends relatives of missing persons contact their local law enforcement agency.

Man to pay dead woman's parents $500,000

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
09/14/2007
St Louis Post Newspaper

KANSAS CITY — A man who left his girlfriend's body to decompose in his Jeep Cherokee must pay her parents $500,000 for interfering with their rights to properly bury her, a Jackson County jury has ruled.

In 2005, the man, Matthew C. Davis, 42, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years in prison for abandoning a corpse and 15 more for three unrelated drug charges.

Police found the decomposed body of Amber McGathey, 22, in Davis' Jeep on June 6, 2004. Prosecutors believed McGathey died of a drug overdose four days earlier, when a witness saw a man wheeling a shopping cart with what appeared to be a body in it.

On Wednesday, the jury ordered Davis to pay $250,000 each to Boyd McGathey, of Parkville, and Debra Augustine, of Waterloo, Ill. They had sued under a rarely used legal doctrine called "interference with the right of sepulcher and burial."

Rooted in English common law, the legal principle has seldom been used in Missouri and generally only in fights with funeral homes over mistakes, lawyers said.

Davis, who lived on a trust fund income of about $8,000 a month, told another person that McGathey had died of a drug overdose, according to court records. The medical examiner found opiates in her body and no other obvious cause of death.

Boyd McGathey has said Davis lied to the family while they were searching for Amber, saying she had left with a girlfriend.

The parents said they wanted their daughter to at least be buried in a closed casket in a new dress and with her grandmother's ring on her finger but couldn't because of decomposition.

The parents' attorney had asked jurors for $1 million in actual damages for each parent plus punitive damages.

The mother, Augustine, thanked jurors after the verdict and said she was pleased.

"It's just a little more punishment for him," she said.

Defense attorney Patrick Peters had argued that Davis, who was on drugs, faced a tough choice after finding a body at his home. He didn't bury it or throw it in the trash so the parents would never know what happened, Peters said.

Stltoday Newspaper

Wynn murder case to be featured on Forensic Files

Publication:Daily American Republic; Date:Sep 16, 2007; Section:FRONT PAGE; Page Number:1A

Message in a Bottle

Wynn murder case to be featured on Forensic Files

By MICHELLE FRIEDRICH Associate Editor

On May 7, 1992, a Poplar Bluff woman was found dead in her Cherry Street apartment. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.

For nearly 14 years her death remained unsolved, but advancements in DNA technology ultimately lead to the arrest and conviction of her suspected killer.

Viewers tuning into “Forensic Files” on Court TV at 8pm

Wednesday Sept.19 will see an episode entitled “Message in a Bottle.”

That episode is set in Poplar Bluff and depicts the life and death of Laura Ann Wynn as well as the investigation into her death and the 2006 trial of her suspected killer, Samuel Andrew Freeman.

Freeman, now 41, of Jefferson City was tied to the crime scene through DNA analysis of evidence seized more than 13 years earlier. A Ripley County jury convicted Freeman, a sergeant first class in the Missouri Army National Guard, of first degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Authorities had alleged Freeman was embarrassed when the 31-year-old confronted him in front of other patrons over a pool game on the night of May 6, 1992, at the VFW on South Broadway.

Authorities believe he waited for Wynn to arrive at her 623 Cherry St. apartment after the VFW closed. There, he allegedly used one of Wynn’s nylon stockings to strangle her.

“We were looking at some of these old cases and happened to pick up on that there might be some forensic evidence that might be available now that wasn’t available back then,” explained Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley. “ … If it had not been for that evidence, this case would still be unsolved.”...

Complete Article with pictures

Missing Daughter in a morgue--her Mom didn't know for 19 months. She searched the internet for unidentified bodies to find her daughter.

This story is so sad: Why are we allowing something like this to happen in the our Country? How can lawmakers ignore this? Do they think something aweful like this could never happen to them or anyone they love? No one deserves this--the pain of having a missing loved one--then the pain of knowing that there are thousands of unidentified bodies with no one to connect the dots. We need to pass legislation to help and we need to use DNA to solve these missing person cases sooner.



http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/matsu/story/9301436p-9215933c.html


Palmer woman's daughter disappeared for 19 months
Photos of bodies on Web sites left mother with nightmares

Weir's hands frame a portrait of her daughter that was made when Bonnell was 16 years old. "I'd like to get her story out so that this doesn't happen to anyone else," Weir said recently. (EVAN R. STEINHAUSER / Anchorage Daily News)

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Mary Weir is the mother of Samantha Bonnell, who lived in California after leaving Alaska in 2005. Police reports there show that Bonnell was struck and fatally injured by cars on Interstate 10 in Montclair in September 2005. Her body went unidentified for a year and a half. (EVAN R. STEINHAUSER / Anchorage Daily News)

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By ANDREW WELLNER
awellner@adn.com

(Published: September 14, 2007)
PALMER -- The phone call came Sept. 24, 2005.

Mary Weir's daughter, Samantha Bonnell, had left Alaska for California earlier that year, just two or three days shy of her 18th birthday.

Now, Samantha's boyfriend was calling. He told Weir he and her daughter had had a fight at a movie theater in Montclair. Samantha had run off. Had Weir heard from her daughter?

She said she hadn't.

It was the last she heard of Samantha for almost six months. And it would be a year and a half before she found out what had happened that night.

Her daughter died crossing a busy highway on foot. Her body ended up in a San Bernardino County morgue, one of hundreds of unidentified corpses waiting for family members or friends to find them, claim them and take them home, according to deputy coroner David Van Norman.

Even after all this time, her mother still doesn't know exactly what led to Samantha's death. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department announced this week it had ruled out foul play, according to coroner's spokeswoman Sandy Fatland.

As authorities tried to piece together the girl's last minutes, Weir searched the Internet, scanning Web pages devoted to unidentified bodies for her missing daughter.

The search left her skeptical of -- and at times angry at -- the system that allows a body to go unidentified for so long.

"For the last 19 months I've been searching every Internet Web site I can find with unidentified bodies," Weir said in April. "It is, it's not something I would want anybody to have to go through,"

Though she said a handful of Web sites post photos of the actual bodies, photos that left her with nightmares, most show artist renderings or computer composite images instead.

But they still contain stories of what happened to the person. That, in some ways, is almost worse than the photos, Weir said.

"Before I knew what she was doing, she was staying up all night long while I slept, going through sites on the computer," said Weir's husband, Paul Weir.

"I thought as long as I kept it secret I wasn't looking for a dead body," Mary Weir said.

NO KNOWN ADDRESS

Samantha was an avid reader who wanted to be a corporate lawyer, her mother said. As a girl, she read law books and the entirety of Shakespeare before she left elementary school.

But her daughter was also a free spirit, Weir said. She got into the Valley meth scene in high school and was impossible to keep home. Though they'd fought in the past, it was strange Samantha hadn't called. The longest she'd stayed out of contact was six weeks.

Soon after Samantha's boyfriend called, Weir tried to file a missing persons report. She said she got the same response from all the agencies she called in California -- without a last known address she couldn't file a report. And besides, Bonnell was 18. It's not illegal for an adult to be missing, Weir said she was told.

Then, in February 2006, Bonnell's suitcases showed up, inexplicably, under a carport in Hanahan, S.C.

"I was like, 'Oh my God, she's still alive. There's hope. There's hope,' " Weir said. "But it just turned into another dead end."

The police in Hanahan called Weir asking if she knew her daughter's whereabouts. Weir told them the story and they told her to file a report with Alaska State Troopers, just to get the information into the system.

So finally a trooper, Sgt. Kathy Peterson -- now a lieutenant-- took the report.

Weir said she kept looking.

Nearly a year after they were found, Bonnell's bags arrived from South Carolina. Inside, Weir found one sock she'd bought her and a shirt that might have been hers. Otherwise, the contents belonged to someone else, probably a man, Weir said. She still has no idea how the bags ended up in South Carolina or who was using them.

In April she found a composite photo on a Web site, doenetwork.org.

"I looked at it and I said I think that might be her," Weir said.

April 1 she e-mailed the Web site to Peterson and asked that she check with San Bernardino County, where Jane Doe 17-05 was in cold storage. Peterson said she'd look into it.

More than two weeks later, on the 19th, Weir called San Bernardino herself.

"I said, 'I don't even know if I can do this but I think this is my daughter. I want to check it,' " Weir said.

Within 24 hours she'd sent them Samantha's dental records and been told they matched. In less than a week, she'd sent the coroner the originals and it was confirmed.

The young woman's body in that California cemetery belonged to her daughter.

SHE RAN AS IF BEING CHASED

Then more details of Samantha's death emerged.

Five months later, her mother says she's numb to the details but her words stall when trying to recount them.

The California police reports show that, within an hour of when Weir got that call in 2005, her daughter was hit by at least two cars on Interstate 10 in Montclair, Calif., Weir said.

"I don't even want to think about what kind of a mess it made," she said. "I'm afraid to ask."

The spot on the highway is close to a theater. Witnesses said Bonnell ran across the highway, as if being chased, Weir said. She was not carrying identification.

"No personal belongings whatsoever except for the clothing on her back," Paul Weir said.

"Nothing, not Chap Stick or lip gloss," Mary Weir said.

Once Samantha was identified, Weir talked to coroners in California. They told her they had kept Samantha's body in cold storage longer than most because she seemed like the type of person who had people who cared for her.

The only people at the burial were coroner's staff.

Weir said that at first she was planning on leaving her daughter there. But then the coroner's office told her she was in the county cemetery, in a grave used to store unclaimed bodies.

They told her "right now she was in there by herself," Weir said, "I said, 'She's in there by her ... what?' Well, they stack them up to five deep."

She arranged to have Samantha's body flown to Oregon.

WHAT TOOK SO LONG?

Though she was noticeably more subdued during an interview this month, in April Weir was visibly angry with Peterson. What did Peterson do with the information she'd forwarded and why did she have to track her daughter down on her own? What took so long?

Earlier this month Peterson explained that law enforcement generally wants reports filed closer to where the person went missing.

"You don't have any idea where to start in another state," she said. "The reason I took this case is because she had already indicated she had tried those avenues and was unsuccessful."

Peterson said she did what she could, then forwarded the case to the state's Missing Person's Clearing House. Those folks have in-state cases to deal with that they prioritize before moving on to others, she said.

What angered Weir the most, she said, is her perception that she sent Peterson a link to Samantha's doenetwork.org page and the trooper did nothing with it.

Peterson said she did do something -- she sent it to the clearinghouse. But she didn't feel right asking Weir to work directly with them as she'd been bounced around so much already.

Weir this summer started working to get legislation passed to make it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to take missing persons reports, even for people over the age of 18 missing out of state. She's been talking to legislators and, really, anybody she can buttonhole.

"You're not safe standing next to me at the grocery store," Weir said. "I've become the very thing I never wanted to be -- an activist."

She gets e-mails from people with missing children.

And she hasn't stopped looking at unidentified bodies on the Internet. There's one case she thinks she can solve -- a woman found wearing a necklace from a fraternity or sorority.

"I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to put a name to somebody," Weir said.

On Mother's Day, Samantha was buried in Rainier, Ore., where a lot of Weir's family lives.

The funeral was well attended. There was a collection box for donations to doenetwork.org.

Afterwards, they collected petals from Bonnell's coffin piece and spread them on the aisle at her sister's wedding.

Daughter Charged with Criminal Neglect of an Elderly Person

KSDK TV 12
Created: 9/12/2007 1:28:04 PM
Last updated: 9/12/2007 7:01:58 PM

(KSDK) - A Belleville police officer who took a woman home after she fell in a parking lot found her dead mother inside the apartment, authorities said.

Karen F. Vickers, 65, of 16 Orchard View Court, was charged Tuesday with two counts of criminal neglect of an elderly person.

A newspaper carrier alerted police after finding Vickers lying in a parking lot, unable to get back to her feet, police said. Police said she was intoxicated and confused.

The officer took Vickers to her apartment and found Beatrice Vickers, 90, dead, hooked to an oxygen hose and lying in a temporary bed in the living room. Police said it appeared she had been "neglected for some time" and "dead for several hours."

After being taken to an area hospital for evaluation, Vickers was released into the custody of Belleville police Tuesday afternoon.

She was being held in the St. Clair County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bond.

KSDK TV12

Score One Huge Point for the Wonders of DNA Match

Criminals Take Note: There is no Statue of Limitations on Murder!

From KFVS In Cape Girardeau, MO


Police Announce Arrest in Cold Case
By: Carly O'Keefe & Associated Press

CARBONDALE, Ill. - Carbondale Police investigators announced an arrest made in a 25-year-old murder of an SIU student Friday.

They've arrested 62-year-old Timothy Krajcir in the 1982 strangling death of Deborah Sheppard. On April 8, 1982 Sheppard, then 23, was found in her Carbondale apartment naked with the door ajar and the telephone line severed. Sheppard was a senior marketing major from Olympia Fields when her naked body was found on the floor of her apartment in Carbondale.

Police and the Jackson County Coroner initially did not suspect foul play. Her family did not believe a 23-year-old girl died of natural causes under such suspicious circumstances. The family had her body flown to Chicago to undergo an autopsy by the Cook County Medical Examiner. He found she had been beaten on the head and strangled.

The break in the 25-year-old case when Carbondale police checked a piece of evidence collected back in 1982 to the Illinois state police crime lab. The evidence was analyzed for DNA and a match was found in the state police DNA database.

After 25 years, there was a solid suspect. Krajcir's been an inmate in the Big Muddy Correctional Center in Ina since 1985 and is being held as a sexually dangerous person. Officers interviewed Kritcher in prison and police say his statements plus the DNA gave officers enough evidence to finally make an arrest.

On the Southern Illinois University campus a student footbridge stands as a memorial to Susan Schumake. She was a 21-year-old SIU student found raped and strangled near where the bridge now stands on August 17, 1981. Her case went unsolved for more than 20 years, but due to DNA technology her killer was finally brought to justice in March 2006.

The murders of the two SIU students, both from Chicago suburbs, took place only eight months apart, but took decades to solve.


http://kfvs.com/Global/story.asp?S=7011109

Mary's Birthday

If given the chance, Mary Lee Grobe, would have enjoyed her 78th birthday today, 8-22-07. We hope Kenny Grobe and Sharron Payne think of her today.

We hope someday the guilty ones in the Mary Lee Grobe case will finally come clean so there can be resolution and forgiveness.

We hope to help other families of the missing so this situation will not be repeated.

Missouri has too many missing people, most of which are women.

Mary Lee Grobe's Favorites (continued)

Without money, opportunities, and/or a social network; Mom learned to love the simple things of Southeast Missouri. The beautiful Hibiscus blooms vibrantly along ditches and areas with plenty of water. She loved them!

Mary Lee Grobe's Favorites (continued)

Mary Lee Grobe loved her grandchildren and she enjoyed watching and playing with them. She is pictured here with one of her grandchildren.

Mary Lee Grobe's favorites (continued)

Mary Lee was a good grandma; she loved spending time with her grandchildren. Below is a picture at the zoo.

Mary Lee Grobe's favorites (continued)

This is Mary Lee and her beloved BB when BB was just a puppy.

Too many missing women, too few answers, Part 2

COMMENTARY
By Clint Van Zandt
MSNBC
Updated: 4:05 p.m. CT July 23, 2007
Part 2

Lisa Stebic’s husband refuses to cooperate with police

Meanwhile investigators in the Plainfield, Ill. continue to look for Lisa Stebic, the 37-year-old missing mother of two that was last seen by her estranged husband on the evening of April 30th. Stebic’s husband, Craig, who was to be served papers evicting him from the home they shared with their children, said he had sent their children to the store. According to one media account, he last saw her walk out of their home carrying only her cell phone and purse.

Lisa, like Paige Birgfeld, has not been seen since. One unconfirmed media report indicates that traces of Lisa’s blood was found on a tarp in the back of Craig’s pick-up truck, a vehicle friends say she never rode in. Some are aware that these same friends recalled Lisa saying that Craig said that if she ever left him, "he could make her disappear," a remark that obviously got law enforcement’s attention. Craig has steadfastly refused to allow his children to be interviewed by investigators. Now the local district attorney must decide to if there’s a need to force this issue through a grand jury investigation. One would include an interview of the children by the grand jury, something that most investigators believe would be far less desirable than an interview by a qualified child psychologist.

Amy Jacobsen, a local NBC affiliate television reporter, was fired when a rival television station filmed her in a bikini visiting poolside with Craig Stebic and his sister. Jacobsen says she was attempting to develop the story. Some called her investigative tactics unethical. Others question who was more unethical in this case: Jacobsen for her attempts to pry information from the Stebics, or the rival television station for spying on Jacobsen.

Meanwhile, Lisa Stebic is still missing.

Missing and murdered university students
Means, motive, and opportunity are always questions that need be adressed whenever there's a suspect (or the politically correct phrase, “a person of interest”). Motive is often the most challenging.

Investigators in Wisconsin continue their search for missing 21-year-old University of Wisconsin college student Mahalia Xiong, last seen on July 13 when she left her friends to drive home. Police are looking at her cellphone records and reviewing any surveillance camera along the route she should have taken home that evening.

Even though a psychic has told Mahalia’s parents that she was abducted and is currently being held captive, Mahalia’s family and friends should know that another so-called psychic told Lisa Stebic’s friends where her remains were. When that location was searched, only deer bones were found.

Mahalia Xiong is the second UW student to go missing in a month. Authorities found the remains of 22-year-old Kelly Nolan in a remote area after being led there by her cellphone. Nolan’s death is considered a homicide.

Police also continue to search for 50-year-old Francine Tate, recently reported missing. Like Nolan, Tate is from the Madison, Wis. area. She and her husband took in a transient they had just met in church. The stranger, known only as “Randy,” was traveling with his dog, “Sophie,” and was thought to be heading to South Dakota. Authorities are also looking for Tate’s missing 1997 Toyota Corolla and are checking her cellphone records for leads to her disappearance.

Prospective law school student still missing in Florida
And in yet another high profile missing persons case, Florida police has apparently run out of good leads in the disappearance of 22-year-old recent John Jay College honors graduate Stepha Henry, last seen at a club in Ft. Lauderdale on May 29. The man who took her to the club says he lost track of her that night and that the borrowed car he used to take her to the club is also missing. Although his story sounds shaky at best, police have yet to name a “person of interest” in this case.

The reward offered for the return of Stepha, all of the above women, and many other missing persons across the U.S., are still unclaimed.

MSNBC

Clint Van Zandt is a former FBI Agent, behavioral profiler and hostage negotiator as well as an MSNBC Analyst. His web site www.LiveSecure.org provides readers with security related information.

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When law enforcement fails to take missing person cases seriously, bad things happen.

Summer Shipp from Kansas City is Still Missing
Teresa Butler from Risco is Still Missing
Amanda Jones from Jefferson County is Still Missing
Vicki Lour from Wayne County is Still Missing
Christine Carol Burnett-Pitts from Poplar Bluff is Still Missing.
Mary Lee Grobe from Butler County is Still Missing.

69% of missing adults in Missouri are Woman. (NCMA)

Something needs to be done to help these Missing Missouri Mothers. Some criminals and perhaps a husband, ex-husband, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend or even a son know that in Missouri the local LE will not do everything possible to solve a missing person case. I strongly believe the criminal in Butler County involved in Mary Grobe’s case was smarter and more intelligent than the local sheriff was. We must empower LE to make the right choices and to act quickly.

Too many missing women, too few answers, part 1

COMMENTARY
By Clint Van Zandt
MSNBC
Updated: 4:05 p.m. CT July 23, 2007

Of the 51,000 adults currently listed as missing in the United States, most know the story of 34-year-old Paige Birgfeld, the Colorado mother of two who has been missing since June 28.

What makes Birgfeld’s story different is the two lives that she led up to her disappearance, one as the twice-divorced woman who sold Pampered Chef products and taught dance lessons to preschoolers, and another as a one-woman escort service who used the Internet to advertise the various personal services she offered to meet the needs of some men.

Paige, known to her escort service clients as “Carrie,” may have been attempting to rekindle her relationship with her first husband the night she disappeared. He apparently was one of the few who knew of her night time activities with other men, indicating that she had told him that she had two clients to see after she left him that evening. Her cellphone was later used within a few miles from her home, and her burned down car was subsequently found in an auto parts lot, but Paige never made it home that night and has not been seen since.

Investigators would need to consider her two former husbands and the clients of her escort service as possible suspects in her disappearance— especially the two clients she allegedly told her first husband she was going to meet the night she disappeared. She also had other business dealings, but it was her escort service clients that attracted the attention of investigators after they accounted for her two former husbands.

It is from that client list that a current “person of interest” has been identified, this after authorities searched his home twice seeking evidence that could further link him to the missing woman. 56-year-old Lester Ralph Jones has a history of domestic violence, including a 1999 arrest for kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon against his then-wife, for which he was convicted and sentenced to a five years the state prison. One media report suggests the obvious: that Jones was a client of Birgfeld's escort service. What makes him perhaps even more interesting to law enforcement is the fact that the RV repair company where he works is just a short distance from where Paige’s burned out car was found.

If you were an investigator trying to find Paige, you might also consider the possibility that one of the clients she was allegedly going to spend time with the night she disappeared could have been Jones. If evidence was developed— perhaps a record of a telephone call between Paige and Jones or an appointment noted on her personal calendar in reference to him— then she could have met him at a location convenient for both of them, like the parking lot of the auto parts facility. Somehow, though, the working theory would also need to explain how items from her purse (her video store card, her checkbook registry and checks, etc.) were found strewn along the median of a highway miles from where her car was found. Could her assailant, in that theory Ralph Jones, have thrown them out of his car after being with Paige? Or could she have sensed her peril and surreptitiously dropped them from the car that was taking her away from her home and children?

Jones, whose current wife was out of town on the 28th, is a man who chased his former wife at speeds of over 100 mph, rammed her car, ran her off the road, and forced her at gunpoint to come with him. If Jones or another client of Paige’s escort service (known to its clients as Models, Inc.) had an appointment with her the night she disappeared, it’s likely that they will be much more than “persons of interest” should they not be able to account for their activities on that night.

Meanwhile there are two children who now have no mother. They’re now with their father, Paige’s second husband. Paige’s father has been named by a judge as his missing daughter’s conservator until she returns. It's a thread of hope that her family clings to, and they continually cite the case of Elizabeth Smart as evidence that Paige could still come home.

Meanwhile up to 100 volunteers braved 95 degree temperatures this weekend as they pressed their ground search for Paige. The searchers perhaps shared the hope of Paige’s father — that she’s out there somewhere alive and waiting for help. We hope they’re right.

MSNBC

Amanda Jones' parents keep hoping

Amanda Jones' parents keep hoping
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
07/22/2007

HILLSBORO — When you're the parent of a missing person, you never give up wondering, hoping or trying to find some clue that would help.

On Saturday, police and the relatives and friends of Amanda Jones, who disappeared almost two years ago, were doing their own hoping — hoping that someone had seen something that would break open the case.

"We just need that one last bit of information," said Lt. Tommy Wright, stretching out his hand as if he were grabbing for something just out of reach.

On Aug. 14, 2005, Jones was 26 and just days away from giving birth to the son she planned to name Hayden Lucas, when she disappeared. Jones had told her mother that she was going to the Hillsboro Civic Center to meet the man she believed to be the baby's father, Bryan Lee Westfall.

On Saturday, Jones' parents, Hubert and Bertha Propst, were handing out "missing" fliers inside the main entrance to the Jefferson County Fair at the civic center, just steps away from where her car was found unlocked and with her purse inside.

Investigators and family members are hoping that someone who saw something the day Jones disappeared will see their fliers or one of two large banners funded by Eagle Bank, where Jones used to work.

Wright said that thousands would be reminded about Jones or see the plea for information for the first time. Wright said 6,000 had attended the fair Friday night.

"You never know," he said.

Wright said the banners would be moved around the county in hopes of catching the right eye.

It's the latest bid to get Jones back in the public eye.

In the spring, it was a "Finding Amanda Jones" page on the MySpace.com website.

There's still a $100,000 reward, and anyone with information is asked to call the Jefferson County sheriff's office at 636-797-5515.

Wright, chief of detectives for the Jefferson County sheriff's office, won't comment on a particular suspect. "We've looked at a person," is all he would say. But Wright said that the person had hired a lawyer and had declined to take a lie detector or voice stress analysis test.

The response to the Propsts on Saturday was mixed.

"Oh, she's still missing?" Bertha Propst said one fairgoer had asked.

Another said he'd seen her in a mall a few weeks ago, before saying he wasn't certain.

Wright said he would check that potential sighting out, just as investigators have checked out about 500 leads in the case.

Hubert Propst was tough to ignore, hitting passers-by with the question, "Will you help me find my daughter, please?"

He got a hug, a "God bless you" and nods.

rpatrick@post-dispatch.com | 314-621-5154

St Louis Post Dispatch

Google Bryan Lee Westfall

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Missouri Lawmakers: When will we make some changes for the sake of justice? Why are the hands of Law Enforcement tied in these cases. Criminals have more rights in Missouri than the victims and the victim's families. If changes aren't made, we will see more and more sad cases such as this.

More of Mary Lee Grobe's favorites

Mary Lee's Daughters--one named after her--one named after her Mother--all three very special to her.

Missing Man Found

Missing, Elderly man, Merrill Dee Silman, was found and he is okay. Found in OK.

Portageville police are looking for help in the search for a missing elderly man.

Portageville, MO
Police Search for Missing Man

July 18, 2007 04:40 PM CST

Police Search for Missing Man
By: Heartland News KFVS TV 12

PORTAGEVILLE, Mo. - Portageville police are looking for help in the search for a missing elderly man.

Police say no one's seen Merrill Dee Silman of Portageville since July 3rd.

Officers continue the search Wednesday for Mr. Silman.

Silman is a white male, 73 years old, about five feet six inches, 195 pounds. He has blue eyes, and balding, white hair.

If you have any information that could help find Dee Silman..please call Portageville police at 573-379-5500.

KFVS TV

Mary Lee's favorites

Mary Lee Grobe worked hard in her garden and always enjoyed picking her fruits and vegetables--she especially loved blackberry picking time! This time of year when I see blackberries I have to smile as the fond memories of her flood my mind.

Notice, her dog, BB in the background. She loved her also.

Thank you Project Jason and 18 Wheel Angels

Mary is on Project Jason's 18 Wheel Angels campaign. A special poster has been made for her and can be downloaded and printed for placement. More information about the program, and the link for the poster can be found here:

http://www.projectjason.org/18wheel.shtml

In addition to the campaign, Mary is also featured in a trucking publication called Through the Gears. This free magazine is distributed in truck stops nationwide.

Through the Gears is one of JB Scott's many publications. In partnership with Project Jason, they feature one missing person per month. You can pick up your free copies at a local truck stop, but if it's far from you, you may want to call and ask if they carry that magazine. These are NOT with the regular for purchase magazines.

Through the Gears has a circulation of about 150,000.

You can also see the current campaign information on this JB Scott webpage: http://www.truckjobseekers.com/Features/18_Wheel_Angel.aspx

We hope this helps in the search for Mary

We need to require DNA in missing person's cases

Kelly Jolkowski, Mother of Missing Jason Jolkowski
President and Founder,
Project Jason
http://www.projectjason.org
Read our Voice for the Missing Blog
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/


USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-10-unidentified-remains_N.htm

06/10/06

Bills would require DNA help in missing person cases

SALEM, Ore. — Their faces were everywhere — first on fliers passed out in their hometown, then on billboards and even on the cover of People Magazine and in constant rotation on CNN.

After months of searching, the bodies of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis, classmates and fellow dance squad members from Oregon City, were found in August 2002, buried in a sadistic neighbor's backyard. They would have graduated from high school this month.

Now their mothers have joined with other families across the nation who don't know if spouses and siblings are dead or alive to press for passage of laws requiring police to expand their searches in missing person cases.

Their proposal — which is under consideration by legislators in Oregon, Connecticut, Indiana and New Jersey — centers on the nearly 50,000 unidentified bodies that are held at morgues across the country while an estimated 105,000 missing persons cases remain open.

Under the bill, police would be directed to send DNA samples from bodies that remain unidentified after 30 days to a central laboratory, where they'd be entered into a national database for comparison to missing-persons cases. Families could submit their own DNA samples for loved ones who have been missing for more than a month.

Similar legislation is already in place in Colorado, Washington state and the District of Columbia, said Kelly Jolkowski, one of the founders of the Campaign for the Missing, whose 19-year-old son Jason disappeared without a trace six years ago from their home in Nebraska. Future campaigns are being organized in Missouri, New York, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she said.

"How do I know some body in some morgue somewhere isn't my son, and they just didn't get the DNA from his body, so I will never know?" Jolkowski asked. "Families can go for years and maybe forever without an answer because these processes are not in place, and they should be."

Lending her name to the bill has made some painful memories flood back, said Lori Pond. In the earliest days of her daughter's disappearance, police thought 12-year-old Ashley Pond might be a runaway and she had to print her own fliers and hand them out on the streets of their hometown.

"There are times it brings up the loss of my daughter, but I am hoping for good to come out of all of this," Pond said.

Michelle Duffy, mother of 13-year-old Miranda Gaddis, said that in one way she and Pond were lucky, since their daughters' cases drew the national spotlight and, when the girls' bodies were found, positive identification took less than 24 hours.

Hundreds of other families never get the same kind of resolution, she said.

"If the kids wouldn't have disappeared in the same way, from the same place, no one would have cared," Duffy said. "If it weren't for Miranda disappearing, you never would have heard Ashley's name and that's sad."

Without identification, Jolkowski said, bodies may be buried in pauper's graves, or cremated, lost to a family forever.

Self Defense for Missouri Women!

Most of the missing persons in Missouri are women so good idea Friends of Summer. We hope you have a great turnout.

In honor of Summer Shipp, "Ken Bu Kan-Real Karate" (www.realkarate.org) has joined forces with "The Friends of Summer" Organization (www.friendsofsummer.com) and will be conducting a self-defense workshop on Saturday, July 14 from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the YMCA, 7000 Troost, KC, MO. Together, we have held this type of training class in the past and it was greeted with much enthusiasm by all who attended.

Please help spread the word and invite your friends and family to attend!
To see the flyer with more details, click Flyer for self defense event.

On the Road to Remember--Thank you all for your support

Publication:Daily American Republic; Date:Jun 13, 2007; Section:Front Page; Page Number:1A

On the Road to REMEMBER

Families of three missing women ,

By JACKIE HARDER Staff Writer



MINER — Friends and family members of three missing Southeast Missouri women gathered Tuesday in Miner to share

stories of pain, frustration, and their hope to someday have answers.

The rally was part of the On the Road to Remember Tour sponsored by the North Carolinabased CUE Center for Missing Persons and aimed at generating new interest in cold cases of missing persons.

According to Founder/ Executive Director of the Center for Missing Persons Monica Caison this is the fourth to have the nationwide year On the Road to Remember Tour. The CUE Center for Missing Persons organization will travel about 5,100 states, featuring year more than 75 missing persons and unsolved murder cases.

STILL MISSING ...

• Cheryl Ann Scherer was 19 when she was abducted April 17 1979 from the convenience store where she worked in Scott City.

• Mary Lee Grobe was 74 when she was last seen in September of 2003 at her Butler County home.

• Teresa Butler was 35 when she disappeared Jan. 25, 2006 from her home in Risco.

“Even though it’s been 28 years since Cheryl disappeared, we just want to keep her name out there ” said Diane Scherer. “We want people to know this is still an open case and to please not forget her.”

Diane Scherer was only 14 when her older sister was abducted from her place of employment, Rhodes 101 in Scott City. Cheryl’s car, keys and were left at the scene but purse was the register.

“We continue to be hopeful this case will be solved and we ask that with information no matter anyone how insignificant it may seem to you, please contact the Scott County Sheriff Department.”

Joyce Caldwell, daughter of Mary Lee Grobe, spoke about her mother’s disappearance and how she is working to help others in a similar situation.

“It’s hard for (others) to imagine what it’s like to have a family member missing. It’s difficult to articulate and communicate. Doctors have a pain scale of 1 to 10. I would say it has to be a 10 ” Caldwell say , said. “Having someone ripped from your life and having so many unanswered questions is unbearable. ...

“Mary Lee Grobe was a legally declared incompetent 74- -old widow when she disappeared year from her home. The laws at the time did nothing to identify and protect her ” Caldwell continued. “My husband Chris and I have worked really hard, though, to turn this into something positive. We felt if we can help other families then maybe that would heal our hearts and bring us some joy. ...”

The Caldwells were instrumental in the recent of the Endangered Persons passage Advisory (SB 84) which expands the Amber Alert to include adults who go missing under mysterious circumstances.

are with Missouri legislatures to create a law that prevents law enforcement from refusing to take a missing persons report.

“We also feel that DNA could be used more in bringing resolution to many of these cases ” Caldwell said. “There are (nationwide) about 50,000 unidentified bodies. If we could find a way to utilize this technology and have families of the missing supply DNA, maybe we could have some matches and resolve some of these cases.”

Brenda Wilson spoke of her sister Teresa Butler who went missing from her home in Risco last . Butler was reported missing year by her husband, Dale, who came home after working an overnight shift at an Arkansas steel mill and found their two sons home alone. young

“She was a mother, a wife, a sister a daughter, an aunt, and a friend. Teresa was an outgoing person. She always loved life -- even when life was a struggle ” Wilson said. “Teresa was 35 when she was taken from her home and her two boys. Teresa loves her boys more than anything in life. There have been lots of leads but they have all been dead ends.

“Since Teresa has been missing, life as we knew it is over. We now look over our backs and take second looks at people that may look like Teresa. We hold our kids a little tighter and try not to take one minute for granted,” Wilson continued, wiping away tears. “Teresa’s boys need her. The youngest was 2 and her oldest was 4 when she went missing. If you know something about Teresa’s case, please
shoes -- or in our shoes. Try to imagine how her parents feel or even her two sons. Someone knows something. ... They need to make it right and come forth ...”

If you have information regarding the disappearance of Cheryl Ann Scherer, call the Scott County Sheriff’s Office at (573) 545-3525.

If you have information about Mary Lee Grobe’s case, call Butler County Sheriff’s Office at (573) 785-8444.

If you have information about Teresa Butler’s case, contact the New Madrid County Sheriff’s Office at (573) 748-2516.

Teresa Butler missing from Risco
Grobe, missing from Butler County
Scherer Cheryl missing from Scott City

(ABOVE) Family and friends of missing persons gathered Tuesday in Miner. Pictured hugging are Joyce Caldwell, daughter of Mary Grobe, and Brenda Wilson, sister of Teresa Butler. (RIGHT) Joyce Caldwell, daughter of missing person Mary Lee Grobe, releases a balloon at the CUE Center for Missing Persons rally Tuesday.

http://activepaper.olivesoftware.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=REFSLzIwMDcvMDYvMTMjQXIwMDEwMA==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin

New Missouri Law will help the Missing

Gov. Matt Blunt signed SB 84 into law today, June 21, 2007, in Jefferson City. I was there to see the signing and receive an official copy of the legislation along with the pen Gov. Blunt used to sign the bill.

http://go.missouri.gov/
press release from Gov. Blunt
Senate Bill 84

As far as the missing endangered person’s alert, I am so proud it became law. We have already seen positive resolutions and hope to see more happy endings as a result of Missouri lawmakers doing the right thing. We thank Governor Blunt, Senator Rupp, Senator Champion, Rep. Franz, Senator Mayer and all others who were instrumental to SB 84’s passage.

Missing persons tour stops in Heartland

Missing persons tour stops in Heartland
By: Wes Wallace KFVS TV12

SIKESTON, Mo. - For families of missing loved ones, not a day goes by that they're not thinking of finding them.

That includes several people right here in southeast Missouri like Teresa Butler of Risco, Mary Lee Grobe of Poplar Bluff and Cheryl Ann Scherer of Scott City.

Their family members gathered Tuesday in Sikeston.

They hope to raise awareness of their missing loved ones in hopes someone can offer new information in the cases.

Some local cases date back a few years. Cheryl Ann Scherer went missing in 1979 from a Scott City gas station.

This is part of a national rally that stopped in Miner.

The National Center for Missing Persons heads up the event which travels across the country to maker sure not case fades from memory.

This is the 4th Annual Road to Remember Tour that strives to spread the word about missing persons and help bring them home.

KFVS CH12 with Video included

Bills would require DNA help in missing person cases

USA TODAY NEWSPAPER
By Julia Silverman, Associated Press
06/10/2007

Bills would require DNA help in missing person cases

SALEM, Ore. — Their faces were everywhere — first on fliers passed out in their hometown, then on billboards and even on the cover of People Magazine and in constant rotation on CNN.
After months of searching, the bodies of Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis, classmates and fellow dance squad members from Oregon City, were found in August 2002, buried in a sadistic neighbor's backyard. They would have graduated from high school this month.

Now their mothers have joined with other families across the nation who don't know if spouses and siblings are dead or alive to press for passage of laws requiring police to expand their searches in missing person cases.

Their proposal — which is under consideration by legislators in Oregon, Connecticut, Indiana and New Jersey — centers on the nearly 50,000 unidentified bodies that are held at morgues across the country while an estimated 105,000 missing persons cases remain open.

Under the bill, police would be directed to send DNA samples from bodies that remain unidentified after 30 days to a central laboratory, where they'd be entered into a national database for comparison to missing-persons cases. Families could submit their own DNA samples for loved ones who have been missing for more than a month.

Similar legislation is already in place in Colorado, Washington state and the District of Columbia, said Kelly Jolkowski, one of the founders of the Campaign for the Missing, whose 19-year-old son Jason disappeared without a trace three years ago from their home in Nebraska. Future campaigns are being organized in Missouri, New York, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she said.

"How do I know some body in some morgue somewhere isn't my son, and they just didn't get the DNA from his body, so I will never know?" Jolkowski asked. "Families can go for years and maybe forever without an answer because these processes are not in place, and they should be."

Lending her name to the bill has made some painful memories flood back, said Lori Pond. In the earliest days of her daughter's disappearance, police thought 12-year-old Ashley Pond might be a runaway and she had to print her own fliers and hand them out on the streets of their hometown.

"There are times it brings up the loss of my daughter, but I am hoping for good to come out of all of this," Pond said.

Michelle Duffy, mother of 13-year-old Miranda Gaddis, said that in one way she and Pond were lucky, since their daughters' cases drew the national spotlight and, when the girls' bodies were found, positive identification took less than 24 hours.

Hundreds of other families never get the same kind of resolution, she said.

"If the kids wouldn't have disappeared in the same way, from the same place, no one would have cared," Duffy said. "If it weren't for Miranda disappearing, you never would have heard Ashley's name and that's sad."

Without identification, Jolkowski said, bodies may be buried in pauper's graves, or cremated, lost to a family forever.

USA TODAY

Vicki Sue Lour, Another Missing Missouri Mother

Wayne County, MO
Missing woman: one year later

June 4, 2007 06:55 PM CST


Missing woman: one year later
By: CJ Cassidy, KFVS TV12, Cape Girardeau MIssouri


Wayne County, Mo. - A $500 reward could be yours for information leading police to Vicki Sue Lour.

The 37-year-old Wayne County woman disappeared one year ago, and her family says they couldn't sit around and do nothing. So they put together any money they could scrape up for a reward.

Lour's boyfriend has always been a person of interest in the case, but so far no real suspects. Lour's family says their loved one couldn't have disappeared into thin air, so they're hoping the promise of money encourages anyone who knows anything to come forward.

Lour's family braced themselves for bad news when she disappeared last June.

They never expected to be waiting for answers one year later.

"If you had a baby you'd want to know what happened to her," Lour's dad, Fred Meinhardt said. He doesn't expect to see his child alive again, but he does hope for some answers.

"There's nothing I can do about it. It's done, but I want to know why," he said.

He and his son believe Vicki's boyfriend knows what happened to her.

"I think he's killed her and put her somewhere where nobody would find her," Fred said. His son Bob adds, "He has a very violent past against women and children."

Police say they've never had evidence to call her boyfriend a suspect, but they do say he's a person of interest.

He allegedly told police Lour checked into rehab for some drug problems weeks before her family reported her missing.

So far, investigators have no record of her doing so.

While police hunt for clues, her family concentrates on putting up posters advertising reward money and tries not to think of everything they left unsaid.

"That I care for her. We had sibling fights part of having brothers and sisters, but I never really did tell her that I care for her," Bob says sadly.

If you have any information, call the Wayne County Sheriff's Department or the Missouri Highway Patrol.

Lour has a 24-year-old daughter who now lives with the person of interest in her mother's disappearance - which her family says is strange.

KFVS TV12 June 04,2007

************


"I think he's killed her and put her somewhere where nobody would find her," Fred said.

Just like the Amanda Jones missing from Jefferson County Missouri & Mary Lee Grobe Missing from Butler County Missouri.

"I think he's killed her and put her somewhere where nobody would find her,"

Endangered Person Advisory Program

Publication:Daily American Republic; Date:May 22, 2007; Section:Front Page; Page Number:1A


Daughter of missing Butler County woman instrumental in Missouri passing the Endangered Person Advisory Program

By JACKIE HARDER Staff Writer
DAR Newspaper, Poplar Bluff Missouri


Nearly four years after her own elderly mother mysteriously disappeared, Joyce Caldwell can take a little comfort in knowing her efforts to help others in similar situations have been successful.

Last week, Gov. Matt Blunt announced the passage of Endangered Person Advisory Program that expands the Amber Alert system to include, not just abducted children, but people that go missing under “unexplained” circumstances. Missouri Sen. Scott Rupp sponsored the bill.

Caldwell’s mother, Mary Lee Grobe was 74 when she was last at her home in Butler County on Sept. 29, 2003.

Though investigators still have no answers as to what happened to Grobe, Caldwell has continued to push investigators in the case, as well as becoming an advocate for other families of missing people.

Caldwell spent the last year petitioning lawmakers and recently testified before the Missouri State Senate Judiciary and Civil Criminal Committee hearings in Jefferson City for the bill.

In addition to testifying how the law might have helped when her mother went missing, Caldwell mentioned two other local missing women in her testimony: Vicki Lour, 36, missing from Piedmont since June of 2006; and Teresa Butler, 35, missing from Risco since Jan. 25, 2006.

“Joyce Caldwell and her husband, Chris, were very instrumental in getting this passed,” Rupp said. “Their testimony was very good for legislators to hear and see how the things we do affect real lives.”

Initially, the bill was referred to as SB 67. As the end of the legislative session neared, Caldwell explained, SB 67’s language was added to another bill so it could be passed this year.

“I contacted Sen. Rupp last summer, and we began discussing it, tossing around ideas. I had read an article in AARP magazine that other states were doing this. And because there is such a growing senior population, it was something we thought was necessary,” Caldwell said. “We started speaking with the Highway Patrol and the Department of Safety. And everyone thought it was a good idea -- but would then point out that there were other groups that should be considered.”

The advisory also includes victims such as a 19-year-old kidnapping victim, a 75-yearold Alzheimer's patient who wandered off, a 14-year-old missing girl with suspicious computer correspondence or an 11-year-old Boy Scout lost in a mountain wilderness area. Currently none of these victims are covered under the standards for issuing an AMBER Alert.

The law is also intended to establish more consistent rules and procedures to aid investigators throughout the state.

The Endangered Person Advisory Program is initiated solely by Missouri law enforcement agencies using the following criteria: Is the person missing under unexplained, involuntary, or suspicious circumstances? Is the person believed to be in danger because of age, health, mental or physical disability, environment or weather conditions, in the company of a potential dangerous person or some other factor that might put the person in peril? Is there information that could assist the public in the safe recovery of the person?

The measure will go into affect this August. The bill is designed to fill a void for those missing persons whose information surrounding their disappearance fail to meet the AMBER Alert criteria, Blunt said in a statement.

"Missouri is joining a growing number of states using the AMBER Alert Program to trace missing children while the trail is still fresh," Blunt said. "The plan is ideal for law enforcement because an alert can now be used for runaways and parental child abduction cases."

The mission of the Endangered Person Advisory

Program is to develop and coordinate the efforts of law enforcement and the media in order to increase public participation in safely recovering endangered missing persons by increased communication and effective resources sharing.

The new criteria includes "unexplained" as a reason a person might be missing and opens the possibility for other factors that may put a person in danger. Original criteria permitted classifying an endangered person under suspicious circumstances only.

The Endangered Person Advisory Program is a cooperative effort between the Missouri Department of Public Safety, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the Missouri Police Chiefs Association, the Missouri Sheriffs Association, and the Missouri Broadcasters Asso ciation.

“I’m confident there will be improvements in the way missing person’s cases are handled in Missouri. For every missing person that is recovered safely, I will smile. For every missing person’s case that is solved, I will feel a sense of accomplishment,” Caldwell added. “And I certainly hope there continues to be an investigation into my mother’s case."

DAR Newspaper

Endangered Person Advisory Program now in Missouri

Office of the Governor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, May 17, 2007


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blunt Announces New Program Aimed at Locating Missing Persons

JEFFERSON CITY– Gov. Matt Blunt today announced a new program designed to fill a void for those missing persons whose information surrounding their disappearance fail to meet the AMBER Alert criteria.

"Missouri is joining a growing number of states using the AMBER Alert Program to trace missing children while the trail is still fresh," Blunt said. "The plan is ideal for law enforcement because an alert can now be used for runaways and parental child abduction cases."

The mission of the Endangered Person Advisory Program is to develop and coordinate the efforts of law enforcement and the media in order to increase public participation in safely recovering endangered missing persons by increased communication and effective resources sharing.

The new criteria includes "unexplained" as a reason a person might be missing and opens the possibility for other factors that may put a person in danger. Original criteria permitted classifying an endangered person under suspicious circumstances only.

The advisory stands to include victims such as a 19-year-old kidnapping victim, a 75-year-old Alzheimer's patient who wandered off, a 14-year-old missing girl with suspicious computer correspondence or an 11-year-old Boy Scout lost in a mountain wilderness area. Currently none of these victims are covered under the standards for issuing an AMBER Alert.

The Endangered Person Advisory Program is initiated solely by Missouri law enforcement agencies using the following criteria: Is the person missing under unexplained, involuntary, or suspicious circumstances? Is the person believed to be in danger because of age, health, mental or physical disability, environment or weather conditions, in the company of a potential dangerous person or some other factor that might put the person in peril? Is there information that could assist the public in the safe recovery of the person?

The Endangered Person Advisory Program is a cooperative effort between the Missouri Department of Public Safety, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the Missouri Police Chiefs Association, the Missouri Sheriffs Association, and the Missouri Broadcasters Association.
Governor's Office Home Page | State Government Home Page

http://gov.missouri.gov/press/MissingPersons051707.htm

Missouri Senate Bill 67

Mary Lee Grobe, Butler County
Teresa Lynn Butler, Risco
Amanda Jones, Jefferson County
Summer Ship, Kansas City

The above could be described with endearing words such as: Mother, Mom, Mommy, Grandma, Grammy, Aunt, Wife, Sister, loving, loved, dedicated, hard-working, responsible, neighborly, intelligent, funny, but unfortunately they are also labeled MISSING. They are just a few of the growing list of Missouri missing adults. They are missing from their families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. You can do something that may not help these wonderful women but could help other Missouri citizens and begin to reverse the reputation Missouri is acquiring regarding this horrible problem.

One word that Missouri law doesn’t use to describe these women and the people who love them is victim. Their status of “missing” is like being in limbo, no rights, no progress, and no closure. Common sense tells us otherwise; they are victims and Missouri lawmakers and law enforcement need to take serious steps to stay ahead of the criminals.

Missouri citizens deserve an organized, systematic, uniform, professional, and immediate response to the investigation of missing persons. We the strong owe it to the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the women, to protect them (69% of missing adults in Missouri are Woman. (NCMA). If they should be reported missing, we owe them, their families, and their friends the most professional proper investigation possible utilizing all levels of law enforcement.

The most important time for an investigation is the first 72 hours. That’s when witnesses have a clear account of what has occurred. It is vital to have as many people as possible looking for the victim. Mary Lee Grobe’s story did not make the front page of the small community newspaper for one month. Her case remains unsolved.

We desperately need SB 67 for endangered adults. Law enforcement agencies in many Missouri areas, especially rural areas, have very little training, experience, and/or resources to successfully handle missing persons cases. Having the procedures outlined will help them take needed steps faster and help solve more cases It will provide the much needed assistance so law enforcement agencies are ready to respond in the most efficient and appropriate way and bring the best resolution to a horrible situation. It can return loved ones to their families and serve to protect precious Missourians who are deserving of our help. If the person has been harmed it can bring much needed closure to one of the most painful situations imaginable. Otherwise the pain continues without letup.

Mary Lee Grobe’s name (as well as the other Missing Missouri Mother’s names) should not be forgotten! It should tug at our hearts to do better; to improve the lives of other innocent Missourians. Missouri must improve missing person’s investigations. SB 67 is a much needed step in the right direction. We would love for SB 67 to carry Mary Lee’s name for she deserves this recognition but the most important thing is that we make sure SB 67 becomes law before the list grows even longer.

Thanks to Senator Rupp for listening and sponsoring SB 67 and thank you House Judiciary and Civil & Criminal Jurisprudence Committee Chair and members.

Respectfully submitted on April 17, 2007

Missing Missouri Mothers

When law enforcement fails to take missing person cases seriously, bad things happen.

Summer Shipp from Kansas City is Still Missing
Teresa Butler from Risco is Still Missing
Amanda Jones from Jefferson County is Still Missing
Vicki Lour from Wayne County is Still Missing
Christine Carol Burnett-Pitts from Poplar Bluff is Still Missing.
Mary Lee Grobe from Butler County is Still Missing.

69% of missing adults in Missouri are Woman. (NCMA)

Something needs to be done to help these Missing Missouri Mothers. Some criminals and perhaps a husband, ex-husband, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend or even a son know that in Missouri the local LE will not do everything possible to solve a missing person case. I strongly believe the criminal in Butler County involved in Mary Grobe’s case was smarter and more intelligent than the local sheriff was. We must empower LE to make the right choices and to act quickly.

Please support Missouri Senate Bill 67 Endangered Missing Adult Alert.

And

Please support Missouri House Bill 757 The Summer Shipp Act which specifies that law enforcement officers cannot refuse a written report of a missing person.

Missouri Senate Bill 67 & House Bill 757

Missouri News

Jefferson City is starting to listen! There’s another bill that will help the missing; HB 757 which will provide guidelines for Law Enforcement so they will be better able to investigate and process evidence in a missing person’s case. Thank you Brandy and "friends of Summer" for your hard work. This bill along with SB 67 (endangered/elderly alert) will make a huge difference. It can save lives and stop criminals.

Missouri, especially rural Missouri has way too many missing persons cases. It’s time something is done about it! Contact your senators and representatives and ask them to support HB 757 & SB 67.

House Bill 757
Summary of House Bill 757

Missouri Senate Bill SB67 with summary

To look up your State Senator for Senate Bill SB67

To look up your State Representative for House Bill HB757.

New Missouri system notifies media, police of missing adults

New Missouri system notifies media, police of missing adults

By Aisha Sultan and Heather Ratcliffe
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/19/2007

A month after Mary Lee Grobe disappeared, her picture finally made the front page of the local paper in Poplar Bluff

A delay in spreading the word infuriated her daughter, Joyce Caldwell, who said police did too little to find her 74-year-old mother, a diabetic from Butler County who is still missing after three years.

"Adult cases are kind of neglected because there's still this mind-set that maybe they walked off because they wanted to," Caldwell said. "And because of that hesitation, precious time is lost."

Missouri has joined Illinois in recognizing the urgency of missing adults, supplementing the familiar Amber Alert system to embrace all ages.


The effort is lauded by advocacy groups but viewed with a little hesitation by some who fear overwhelming the public.

In January, the Missouri Highway Patrol created an Endangered Person Advisory to notify news media and local law enforcement. It has been used three times. The first was for a child, William "Ben" Ownby, missing for four days from Franklin County. The initial report of his disappearance did not meet the stricter criteria for a full Amber Alert.

"We've been working on it since the first of the year to make local law enforcement aware that it's available," said patrol Capt. Tim Hall.


John Butler, news director of radio station KMOX (1120 AM) and media coordinator for St. Louis-area alerts, said they need to be selective. "I don't think we have 'alert fatigue' yet, but it could happen if we continue this way," he warned.

At least five other states, including Illinois, have some kind of missing adult protocol, sometimes called a Silver Alert, and seven others are working on it.

The one in Illinois started last year, with approval of a bill sponsored by state Rep. Dan Beiser, D-Alton, who has two aunts suffering from Alzheimer's. State police send a message to all departments statewide when an endangered adult with dementia goes missing.

Missouri's system goes further, applying to missing persons who suffer from serious mental or physical impairment, disappear under involuntary or unknown circumstances or leave behind circumstances suggesting they might be in danger.

Although the program has been in place for several months, state lawmakers are considering a proposal by state Sen. Scott Rupp, R-Wentzville, called Senate Bill 67, to formalize it under the Department of Public Safety. Rupp said he acted on a complaint by Caldwell.

An Amber Alert begins with a bulletin on the state's Emergency Broadcast Network, usually used for severe weather, and gets immediate attention from TV and radio stations, news websites, highway signboards and people subscribed to text message and fax services.

The Endangered Person Advisory is e-mailed to media and local police departments.

Ultimately, news media will be selective about what they run, Butler said, noting that most are sensitive to situations in which a search would benefit from public help.

Patty Iverson, of the St. Louis chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, said more than 60 percent of people with dementia will wander away at some point. Often unable to give their names or addresses, they are at risk of injury or death from exposure or accidents.

Through January, police in Missouri reported 1,480 active missing-persons cases — 692 children and 788 adults. In Illinois, there were 2,960 active cases — 1,798 children and 1,162 adults.

"So many times an adult goes missing and there is never any information on the news or radio," said Kelly Bennett of the National Center for Missing Adults, in Phoenix. "Technically it's not illegal to be a missing adult. Adults can disappear if they want to."

Caldwell says alerts will bring a needed sense of urgency and coordination. In a letter to legislators, she wrote, "My mother is gone. I don't have another mother to lose. … Helping others can help mend my own broken heart."

St Louis Post Dispatch Newspaper

Amber Alert for Adults

Amber alert for adults?

Daughter of Mary Grobe is behind efforts

By JACKIE HARDER Staff Writer
DAR Newspaper

More than three years after her own elderly mother disappeared, Joyce Caldwell is spearheading a campaign to persuade Missouri lawmakers to step up efforts to find missing adults.
Caldwell’s mother, Mary Lee Grobe, was 74 when last seen at her home in Butler County on Sept. 29, 2003.
While the investigation into Grobe’s disappearance continues, Caldwell said she hopes the passage of Senate Bill 67 will help other families quickly find their missing loved ones.
“Recently and at my request, Senator Scott Rupp sponsored SB 67, which will allow the Missouri Department of Public Safety to establish rules for Amber like alerts for missing elderly and endangered adults,” Caldwell explained. “This would be a much needed step in improving the success rate of these investigations.
“I don’t have another mother to lose, but it is my hope that her case will bring awareness of the improvements needed. I hope to turn my tragedy into something positive that will help others.”
Caldwell, who lives in Wentzville, testified before the Missouri State Senate Judiciary and Civil Criminal Committee hearing in Jefferson City in favor of SB 67. In addition to explaining how SB 67 might have helped when her mother went missing, Caldwell mentioned two other local missing women in her testimony: Vicki Lour, 36, missing from Piedmont since June of 2006, and Teresa Butler, 35, missing from Risco since Jan. 25, 2006.
“It bothers me that Missouri, especially rural Missouri, has so many missing persons. Women and the elderly seem to make up the majority of the victims. I think this provision says Missouri values them no matter which county they reside in,” Caldwell said. The bill defines a “missing endangered person” as being someone whose whereabouts are unknown and who is: 1) Physically or mentally disabled to the degree that the person is dependent upon an agency or another individual; 2) Missing under circumstances indicating that the missing person’s safety may be in danger or; 3) Missing under involuntary or unknown circumstances.
The bill is also intended to establish more consistent rules and procedures to aid investigators throughout the state.
“A law like this would have helped lessen the impact this crime has had on our family. If it had been acted upon quickly, with numerous professionals and prominent media coverage, I firmly believe the case would have been solved,” she said.
Sen. Rupp said he introduced the bill with the hopes of better protecting adults, especially elderly and/or disabled people who wander from their homes or caregivers.
“Missouri needs to do all it can to ensure that missing persons, particularly those who are less able to care for themselves, are brought home as quickly and safely as possible,” Rupp said in a statement.
According to the FBI, there were 50,523 active missing adult cases in the U.S. as of July 1, 2006.
For more information about Senate Bill 67, go to www.senate.mo.gov.

DAR Newspaper Jan 31,2007

Missouri legislators vote to expand qualifications for AMBER ALERT

Missouri legislators vote to expand qualifications for AMBER ALERT

02:09 PM CST on Thursday, March 8, 2007

Lakisha Jackson, Special Contributor to KMOV.com

(KMOV) - Missouri State Legislators are expanding the Amber Alert System to protect more people.

Senators passed a new bill that will broaden the program to cover missing adults who are dependent on others.

The bill will also cover missing adults in danger.

The current system limits Amber Alerts to children under 17 years of age.

KMOV TV 4 St. Louis MO
************************************
Missouri Senate Bill 67

Missouri Senate approves alert for missing adults

Misouri Senate approves alert for missing adults

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/16856237.htm

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Missouri would have a new alert for missing adults under a measure passed Wednesday by the state Senate, while Amber Alerts would only be issued for children.

The bill passed 32-0.

Supporters said that the federal government has asked states to be more uniform in issuing alerts for missing children. The measure would also expand Amber Alerts to cover situations where authorities believe an abductor does not intend to harm the child.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Scott Rupp, said the expansion is needed to close a loophole in existing state law. It requires law enforcement officers to believe that a missing child is at risk before issuing an Amber Alert.

Under the current law, Rupp, R-Wentzville, said, "A custody battle if the child is abducted to live somewhere else, or an abduction where someone does not intend to kill or hurt the child but maybe raise the child as their own, would not trigger an Amber Alert."

The bill, which was included on the Senate's list of non-controversial consent bills, would also create a new advisory system that Rupp likened as an "elderly Amber Alert."

That alert would be trigged whenever an adult disappears and could be in danger. It would issued whenever someone goes missing who is mentally or physically disabled and requires the assistance of others. It would also be issued for missing adults who might be in danger.

The bill now moves to the House.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/16856237.htm

Tiffany Sisson

Former TV Anchor Charged With Theft

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo.
A former TV news anchorwoman has been charged with stealing more than $20,000 while she was the guardian of an estate.

Tiffany Sisson, 34, who worked for the CBS affiliate in Cape Girardeau, KFVS12, turned herself in at the Scott County Jail on Monday and was released later that day on $20,000 bond.

Sisson, of Oran, faces up to seven years in prison. She released a written statement Tuesday in which she maintained her innocence and said she eventually would be cleared of the charge. She submitted her resignation from the television station in December, and her last day was Tuesday.

Sisson is accused of appropriating more than $20,000 from an estate she manages on behalf of someone who can't. A complaint filed by Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Boyd said Sisson spent the money on trips out of state and other expenses.

Police became suspicious after Sisson filed an annual status report in November with the Scott County Probate Court. The report indicated that she had to spend more money on the individual than the $11,000 allowed by the court.

The probable-cause statement said a subsequent investigation of bank records revealed Sisson wrote 12 checks to herself ranging from $1,000 to $4,000 between June 10 and Oct. 16.

According to police, Sisson agreed Nov. 21 to make a final settlement and restitution for the unauthorized appropriations within 30 days, offering a 1998 Chrysler Sebring and a laptop computer as partial payment.

"I pray the truth will come out and prove that I have done nothing wrong," she said. "This is a family matter."

KMBC TV Kansas City Missouri:
www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/11137975/detail.html

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Missouri Casenet Case Number search:
07SO-CR00338

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Was this elder abuse?
www.dhss.missouri.gov/ElderAbuse/ElderAbuse.html

Missouri Senate Bill SB67 & Missouri House Bill HB757

Good News!

Jefferson City is starting to listen! There’s another bill that will help the missing; HB 757 which will provide guidelines for Law Enforcement so they will be better able to investigate and process evidence in a missing person’s case. Thank you Brandy and "friends of Summer" for your hard work. This bill along with SB 67 (endangered/elderly alert) will make a huge difference. It can save lives and stop criminals.

Missouri, especially rural Missouri has way too many missing persons cases. It’s time something is done about it! Contact your senators and representatives and ask them to support HB 757 & SB 67. Remember they are starting to listen.

House Bill 757
Summary of House Bill 757

Missouri Senate Bill SB67 with summary

To look up your State Senator for Senate Bill SB67

To look up your State Representative for House Bill HB757

Elder Abuse in Missouri

Family members charged in elderly woman's death
By: CJ Cassidy
KFVS TV 12
Feb 16, 2007

Wappapello, Mo. - Prosecutors charge an entire family in the death of 63-year-old Eula Mae Hendon, of Wayne County. Police say Hendon had a stroke a week to a couple of weeks before her death, but never made it to the hospital, even though she was living with her family.

At the time of her arrest, the victim's daughter told police she thought she could take care of her mother. Now her husband stands up for Theresa Cespedes, saying she loved her mother very much and would never intentionally hurt her.

Jose Cespedes says in hindsight, maybe his wife should have taken her mother to the hospital, but she may have just made a mistake. Holding several urns containing Hendon's ashes, he questions why she would keep them if she didn't care about her mother.

Theresa Cespedes faces second degree murder, felonious restraint and elder abuse charges. Her two sons and daughter face elder abuse charges, as well, after emergency responders found their grandmother dead in a chair at their home in January 2006.

"Hendon was unable to use parts of her body, after her stroke. They neglected to get medical help, and when we asked why they didn't call ambulance service, there was no good reason other than she thought she could take care of her herself," Wayne County Sheriff Phillip Burton says.

Investigators paint a grim picture. They found vomit on Hendon's bed, and blood on her head. Besides urinating on herself, investigators also say Hendon had bugs crawling on her face and head.

An autopsy report also reveals Hendon was dehydrated and starving. Still Jose Cespedes has a different explanation. "She not like to eat a lot; she like to smoke a lot and drink coffee. That's why she's so skinny," he says.

Cespedes also claims his sons are mentally disabled and prays a court finds them innocent of the charges against them. Police say Theresa told them she didn't want to take care of her mother and children anymore; but her husband says she might have just been overwhelmed with everything.

Court documents indicate Theresa collected Eula Hendon's social security check every month, and Jose Cespedes says that money went towards taking care of her mother's needs.

He also tells Heartland News he plans on asking his daughter to turn herself into police when he talks with her.

KFVS TV 12 http://kfvs.com/Global/story.asp?S=6097474

Elder Abuse and Murder in Wayne County Missouri

GOOD JOB AND THANK YOU TO:

Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Burns for bringing charges of elder abuse and murder.

Missouri State Hwy Patrol Sgt. Don Windham for the probable cause affidavit.

Wayne County Sheriff Dept for getting the Missouri State Hwy Patrol Division of Drug and Crime Control involved.

Michelle Friedrich, Associate Editor, Daily American Republic Newspaper (DAR) for reporting elder abuse in Wayne County.

If you know of an elder who is being abused, or even if you are not sure, but you suspect abuse, call 911 or your local police department NOW. Your call can be anonymous, and you may save a life!


DAR Newspaper Article Wednesday February 14,2007 "4 Facing Elder Abuse, Murder Charges" in Wayne County Missouri by Michelle Friedrich:


GREENVILLE-Eula Mae Hendon, 64, was found dead at the rural Wappapello residence she shared with her daughter, Theresa L. Cespedes, and grandchildren, Melissa Ann Thompson, David J. Cespedes and Jose M. Cespedes Jr., on Jan. 29, 2006. Hendon's death was investigated by the Wayne County Sheriff's Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Burns charged Theresa Cespedes, 39, Friday with the Class A felonies of seconddegree murder and first-degree elder abuse and the Class C felony of felonious restraint.

Burns also charged Thompson, 22, David Cespedes, 19, and Jose Cespedes, 18, with the Class A felony of elder abuse.

The complaint on file with the court alleges Theresa Cespedes “knowingly restrained Eula Mae Hendon … unlawfully and without consent so as to interfere substantially with her liberty and exposed (Hendon) to a substantial risk of serious physical injury.”

Complete DAR Article:

Elder Abuse

National Center for Elder Abuse

Missouri Dept of Health & Senior Services 24 hour Hotline 1-800-392-0210

*****************************************************

What is Elder Abuse?

Where is Mary Lee Grobe?

Elder abuse of individuals in the community takes many forms, and in most cases victims are subjected to more than one type of mistreatment. In Missouri, over 50% of elder abuse reports allege physical neglect (to include self neglect); 10% allege financial exploitation; 8% allege physical abuse; and over 9% allege emotional abuse.

Abuse – the infliction of physical, sexual, or emotional injury or harm including financial exploitation by any person, firm, or corporation.
Neglect – the failure to provide services to an eligible adult by any person, firm or corporation with a legal or contractual duty to do so, when such failure presents either an imminent danger to the health, safety, or welfare of the client or a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm would result.
Eligible Adult – a person sixty years of age or old who is unable to protect his or her own interests or adequately perform or obtain services which are necessary to meet his or her essential human needs or an adult with a disability, as defined in section 660.053, between the ages of eighteen or fifty-nine who is unable to protect his or her own interests or adequately perform or obtain services which are necessary to meet his or her essential human needs.
Disability – a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, whether the impairment is congenital or acquired by accident, injury or disease, where such impairment is verified by medical findings.
Financial Exploitation - A person commits the crime of financial exploitation of an elderly or disabled person if such person knowingly and by deception, intimidation, or force obtains control over the elderly or disabled person's property with the intent to permanently deprive the elderly or disabled person of the use, benefit or possession of his or her property thereby benefiting such person or detrimentally affecting the elderly or disabled person.
The neglect
is most often attributable to the circumstances or environment of the victim – often circumstances beyond their control;
often includes significant limitations in major life activities such as walking, bathing, cleaning, preparing meals, or shopping.
The abuser
is most often a family member – adult child, spouse, grandchild, and other relative; (25% of reports with someone named as a possible perpetrator)
may be experiencing difficulties or problems due to the stress associated with caregiving; and
may be frustrated or isolated.
Interventions must take into account, wherever possible, most seniors’ desire not to sever family ties.

The victim

is most often a female (64%)
white (79%)
living alone (43%)
with spouse or relative (42%)
may suffer from some form of dementia or physical impairment, often suffering from multiple limitations which make him/her dependent on others for care;
tends to be isolated;
may suffer from more than one type of abuse or neglect;
may be reluctant to admit his/her loved one is an abuser; and
may be fearful of reporting abuse, thinking it could lead to further harm, nursing home placement or total abandonment.
These characteristics make intervening more complicated and cases more difficult.

DAR NEWSPAPER POPLAR BLUFF MISSOURI

Publication:Daily American Republic; Date:Jan 31, 2007; Section:Front Page; Page Number:1A


Amber alert for adults?

Daughter of Mary Grobe is behind efforts

By JACKIE HARDER Staff Writer

More than three years after her own elderly mother disappeared, Joyce Caldwell is spearheading a campaign to persuade Missouri lawmakers to step up efforts to find missing adults.

Caldwell’s mother, Mary Lee Grobe, was 74 when last seen at her home in Butler County on Sept. 29, 2003.

While the investigation into Grobe’s disappearance continues, Caldwell said she hopes the passage of Senate Bill 67 will help other families quickly find their missing loved ones.

“Recently and at my request, Senator Scott Rupp sponsored SB 67, which will allow the Missouri Department of Public Safety to establish rules for Amber like alerts for missing elderly and endangered adults,” Caldwell explained. “This would be a much needed step in improving the success rate of these investigations.

“I don’t have another mother to lose, but it is my hope that her case will bring awareness of the improvements needed. I hope to turn my tragedy into something positive that will help others.”

Caldwell, who lives in Wentzville, testified before the Missouri State Senate Judiciary and Civil Criminal Committee hearing in Jefferson City in favor of SB 67. In addition to explaining how SB 67 might have helped when her mother went missing, Caldwell mentioned two other local missing women in her testimony: Vicki Lour, 36, missing from Piedmont since June of 2006, and Teresa Butler, 35, missing from Risco since Jan. 25, 2006.

“It bothers me that Missouri, especially rural Missouri, has so many missing persons. Women and the elderly seem to make up the majority of the victims. I think this provision says Missouri values them no matter which county they reside in,” Caldwell said. The bill defines a “missing endangered person” as being someone whose whereabouts are unknown and who is: 1) Physically or mentally disabled to the degree that the person is dependent upon an agency or another individual; 2) Missing under circumstances indicating that the missing person’s safety may be in danger or; 3) Missing under involuntary or unknown circumstances.

The bill is also intended to establish more consistent rules and procedures to aid investigators throughout the state.

“A law like this would have helped lessen the impact this crime has had on our family. If it had been acted upon quickly, with numerous professionals and prominent media coverage, I firmly believe the case would have been solved,” she said.

Sen. Rupp said he introduced the bill with the hopes of better protecting adults, especially elderly and/or disabled people who wander from their homes or caregivers.

“Missouri needs to do all it can to ensure that missing persons, particularly those who are less able to care for themselves, are brought home as quickly and safely as possible,” Rupp said in a statement.

According to the FBI, there were 50,523 active missing adult cases in the U.S. as of July 1, 2006.

For more information about Senate Bill 67, go to www.senate.mo.gov.

Help Missouri Missing Adults

Help Missouri's Missing Adults

Other states have already passed elderly/endangered alerts--It's time Missouri do so.


Thanks to all those who have offered support in Mary Lee Grobe's case and/or support of the many other missing Missouri persons cases.

Senator Scott Rupp sponsored SB 67 which will allow the Missouri Dept. of Public Safety to establish rules for Amber like alerts for missing elderly and endangered adults. This would be a much needed step in improving the success rate of these investigations. It is our hope that Mary Lee Grobes case will bring awareness of the improvements needed. We hope to turn our tragedy into something positive that will help others. The link for the bill follows.

http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?SessionType=R&BillID=97

Most people we have discussed this with believe it is a great idea but last year a similar bill was tucked into a bigger crime bill and didn’t make it. If you as we believe this would be a positive change for Missouri could you please let your senator know? Something as simple as:

Dear Senator _____, please support SB67 regarding missing person advisories. Be sure to include your name and home area as it means more to them if it comes from one of their constituents.

E-Mail your Missouri State Senator

Also, if you have family or friends in any of the senate committee members district areas could you please ask them to contact their senators.

Your help is very much appreciated.

Contact information for Senator Rupp and the Missouri State Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee members listed below.

Senator Scott T. Rupp
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem02.htm
District 2, Lincoln County and part of St. Charles County
573-751-1282
FAX: (573) 526-4766
E-Mail: scott.rupp@senate.mo.gov

Senator Matt Bartle, Chair
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem08.htm
8th District, Jackson County
(573) 751-1464
FAX: (573) 751-8442
E-Mail: matt.bartle@senate.mo.gov

Senator Jack Goodman, Vice Chair
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem29.htm
29th Discrict, Counties of Barry, Lawrence, McDonald,
Ozark, Stone & Taney
(573) 751-2234
Fax: (573) 526-9808
E-Mail: jack.goodman@senate.mo.gov

Senator Chris Koster
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem31.htm
Discrict 31, Counties of Bates, Cass, Johnson and Vernon
(573) 751-1430
FAX: (573) 751-9751
E-Mail: chris.koster@senate.mo.gov

Senator John Loudon
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem07.htm
District 7 Part of St Louis County
(573) 751-9763
FAX: (573) 522-3379
E-Mail: john.loudon@senate.mo.gov

Senator Rob Mayer
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem25.htm
Discrict 25, Counties of Butler, Dunklin, New Madrid,
Pemiscot, Ripley, Stoddard and Wayne
(573) 751-3859
FAX: (573) 526-1384
E-Mail: Rob.Mayer@senate.mo.gov

Senator Chuck Graham
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem19.htm
19th District, Counties Boone and Randolph
(573) 751-2162
FAX: (573) 751-4703
E-Mail: Chuck.Graham@senate.mo.gov

Senator Jolie Justus
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem10.htm
10th District Part of Jackson County
(573) 751-2788
FAX: (573) 751-9776
E-Mail: jolie.justus@senate.mo.gov

Senator Jeff Smith
http://www.senate.mo.gov/07info/members/mem04.htm
4th District Part of St. Louis City
(573) 751-3599
E-Mail: Jeff.Smith@senate.mo.gov

Thanks to Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke

Thanks to Missouri’s Franklin County Sheriff, Gary Toelke, for his leadership in the Ownsby and Hornbeck case. This was an awesome outcome and sets an example of how everyone benefits when ALL work together. Law Enforcement of all levels cooperate and support each other, the media makes all of us aware and people speak up when they see anything that is out of line.

If Missouri’s Sheriff’s are to be successful they must use the resources that are available to them. They can’t solve crimes when they work alone because the criminals can outsmart them.

We’re thankful Missouri participates in the National Amber Alert System for children and ask they do the same for adults especially for the elderly or incompetent who need extra protection. Many states have already enacted laws to protect the elderly. Missouri, it’s time we do something to help those who need our help. There are too many missing women and children in Missouri. Something has to be done to ensure their safety.

Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby found ALIVE

Ownby, Hornbeck Found Alive

William Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck were found Friday afternoon in an apartment in Kirkwood. Ben, 13, went missing on Monday after getting off his school bus near his Beaufort, Missouri home. Sources tell FOX 2 News that the FBI stormed a house in Kirkwood and found Ben along with Shawn Hornbeck who had been missing since 2002. Hornbeck was last seen riding his bike on Oct. 6 in Richwoods, MO.

Police say they went to serve a search warrant and that resulted in the recovery.
Both boys appear to be okay. They will be checked out.

There was a tip on the truck that led them to the area.
Under arrest is, Michael J. Devlin, 41, of Kirkwood, Missouri with one count of kidnapping. He is in custody being held on $1 million bond. More charges are likely to be filed.
Shawn Hornbeck was 11 years old when he disappeared. He is now 15.

http://www.myfoxstl.com/

Where is Ben Ownby ?

Thank You FOX 2 News in St Louis MO for the info on Ben Ownby:
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=2020440&version=16&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

Stories
Search Effort Intensifies For Missing Teen
Text: Many Leads, But 13-Year-Old Boy Still Missing
Ben Ownby - Descriptions, Contact Numbers, Stories, Links
Complete Wednesday Morning News Conference
Ben's Description, Contact Information
Links
National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
More Local Stories on myFOXstl.com
Galleries
PHOTO GALLERY: Ben Ownby

Missouri Sheriffs & Public Administrators need supervision

The first Sheriff involved with the Mary Lee Grobe investigation was Bill Heaton. His friend, the Public Administrator is Sharron K. Payne. The two of them along with some of Mary Lee Grobe's Poplar Bluff, Missouri family ran the investigation in the first few months after her disappearance. It is a common know fact that the first 72 hours after a crime are critical in an investigation; the professional investigators had to wait 15 months before they were given the case. Heaton is the reason this case hasn't been solved.

Why didn’t Heaton ask for professional help from other law enforcement agencies?
Why did he chase off the professional help (the Missouri State Highway Patrol) he had?
Why did he lie about it afterwards?
Why did he leak confidential information about the case to the Poplar Bluff family and why did he allow Poplar Bluff family members and the “one elected County Official” to run the investigation early on?
Why did Heaton allow her (Sharron K. Payne) relative to use county equipment, to pretend to work for the Prosecuting Attorney office, and gather information illegally?

Missouri Sheriffs and Public Administrators need supervision! Missouri is one of the few states without it and Missouri has one of the highest missing person’s rates. Missouri has a black eye from Sheriff’s like Heaton whose law enforcement savvy has been described as “back woods barbaric”.

Elected Official Who Tried to Stop Search

Who were the family members and the elected official who tried to stop the search for Mary Lee Grobe and why wouldn’t they want her found?

Dobbs said “There were family members and even one elected official who tried to get that (draining of the out-of-use lagoon near Mary Lee Grobe’s home to search for her body) stopped,” Dobbs said. “In this case, they were more concerned with family grudges than actually seeing the truth.” (DAR newspaper 11/29/2006)

As far as the family members who were involved, it had to have been the same ones who created a false trail for the first inept sheriff so they could lead him away from the real crime scene. It surely was the same family members who moved in on Mary Lee Grobe’s property once she disappeared. Those same family members are the ones who now had all her belonging for themselves and/or sold them in a yard sale so they could pocket the money. Surely it was the same Poplar Bluff family members who visited Sharron K. Payne’s office to get money from Mary Lee Grobe’s account. The same Poplar Bluff family members who have done nothing to find Mary Lee Grobe; the same family members who tried to stop the Carole Sund/Carrington Reward Fund; the same family members who edited copy written news articles so it would say what they wanted it to say; the same family members who use intimidation and threats to get people to shut up.

Notice, the only family members who are trying to help in the search for Mary Lee Grobe are the ones from out of town, not the ones from Poplar Bluff and Qulin.

Of more importance though what elected official would stick her neck out to keep Mary Lee Grobe from being found and why?

The answer is Sharron K. Payne, Butler County Public Administrator because she doesn’t want Mary Lee Grobe found! The above mentioned evil scheming is just one of many things she has done to mislead investigators, to interfere with the investigation and to help conceal the crime. When you see Sharron K. Payne, ask her when she is going to tell the truth about Mary Lee Grobe and help finally solve this case.

Are there other cases like this in Butler County where Sharron was “helping”? Why is Butler County allowing this?

Butler County will make national news someday for all this!

57th Wedding Anniversary

Today would have been an important day in Mary Lee Grobe’s life. It would have been her 57th wedding anniversary to her husband, the late Eugene Grobe. Mary Lee Grobe wanted her final resting place to be beside her long time companion. Where is Mary Lee Grobe?

After Three Years, No Answers in Grobe Case

Our Thank You to those who are trying to find answers for the Mary Lee Grobe Case.

We would like to give a heart-felt thanks to Jackie Harder and the Daily American Republic for your efforts to tell Mary Lee Grobe’s story. Mary was a hard-working dedicated, loving woman who deserved our love and protection. Butler County citizens deserve to know what happened to one of their finest citizens.





Mary’s Poplar Bluff family let her down. Butler County let her down. Finally when it seemed the Courts would step in and protect Mary Lee Grobe, Sharron K. Payne let her down in the most detrimental way. Why didn’t you listen, Sharron?



We thank the Butler County citizens and ask them to please remember Mary Lee Grobe. We ask the Butler County Sheriff’s Department to remember Mary Lee Grobe. Please don’t even think of letting Mary Lee Grobe down again. Mary Lee Grobe had so very little and never complained. She had only one wish or request and that was to be buried beside her husband. How can some people be so heartless to a sweet elderly woman?

See article below by Jackie Harder from the Daily American Republic of Poplar Bluff, MO on 11-29-06

...............double click to enlarge article..............

We agree that adequate law enforcement can serve as a deterrent to crime. We strongly believe the reason Missouri has so many missing persons cases is because of rural sheriff’s like the ones that existed in Butler County, Missouri when the crime occurred back on 9-27-03. A criminal mind would look for opportunities and that is what happened in Butler County. A criminal would naturally look for an area where the sheriff wouldn’t or couldn’t investigate. Yet, Missouri law doesn’t allow for sheriff or Public Administrators supervision. Word spreads, the criminal tells his criminal friends, and the number of missing Missouri persons continues to increase.

Sharron K Payne

Who is the real Sharron K Payne?

Some of Mary Grobe's family has taken polygraph & Voice Stress tests(CVSA), has Sharron Payne? What is she hiding? Who is she protecting and Why?

Which of Mary Grobe's Poplar Bluff sons refused to take the Voice Stress Test( CVSA)?

Which of Mary Grobe's son's in Poplar Bluff did NOT PASS the tests asked by law enforcement (2 polygraphs, and voice stress test CVSA)? There lies the answers to finding Mary Lee Grobe!

Which of Mary Grobe's Poplar Bluff sons was seen often in the Butler County Court house in Sharon Payne's office collecting Mary Grobe's Cash Allowance. Where did that money really go Sharron?

Who tried to stop the draining of the sewage lagoon near Mary Grobe's old house?... Was it Sharron Payne?

Who called the Carole Sund Reward Fund to try to have the reward fund stopped?
Was it Sharron Payne ?
Was it Amy Bridgewater?
Was it Barb Grobe from Frisco Texas?

Probate code 475.120
1. Assure that the Ward resides in the best and least restrictive setting reasonably available.
2. Assure that the Ward receives medical care and other services that are needed.
Why did Sharron Payne fail to get new eye glasses and hearing aids that were needed and requested
3. Promote and protect the care, comfort, safety, health, and welfare of the Ward.
Is this why Sharron Payne does not want Mary's body found?
4. Provide required consents on behalf of the Ward.
5. To exercise all powers and discharge all duties necessary or proper to implement the provisions of this section.

When told repeatedly, Mary Lee Grobe’s life was in jeopardy; Sharron Payne did nothing to help her poor innocent client. Instead of moving her to a safe environment, Sharron issued Mary a Medic Alert button. This is a tool that is helpful if an elderly person falls and/or knows there is a danger and they can call for help. Mary Lee Grobe was legally declared incompetent and didn’t know when to push the button or what happened when she pushed the button. When a trained medical professional asked Mary what she would do if her house was on fire, Mary responded, I would call the district supervisor.” Clearly, Mary didn’t know to call fire department. Mary didn’t know whom to trust, and sometimes she didn’t recognize people from one time to the next. Mary needed help and protection—not a button.

Again we ask Sharron Payne where is her client, MARY LEE GROBE ?

Remember Sharron Payne, there is no Statute of limitations on Murder!

Guilty Verdict Without a Body

Man convicted of first-degree murder in death of former S.J. woman
By Linda Goldston
Mercury News

An Auburn man was convicted today of killing former San Jose resident Christie Wilson.

After two-and-a-half days of deliberation, a jury in Sacramento County Superior Court found Mario Garcia, 54, guilty of first-degree murder.

Wilson, 27, disappeared after walking out of Thunder Valley Casino on Oct. 5 last year.

Her body has never been found.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/16069451.htm

http://www.findchristiewilson.com/

Google Christine Wilson

http://christiewilson.blogspot.com/

Finally, in the case of Christie Wilson, justice has been served.

Amy Grobe Bridgewater Why?

Mary's story is one that demands attention-she's the kind of victim that touches lives and tugs at people's hearts. She could have been anyone's dear grandmother or mother. She was a good person who did good things to others her whole life.

Once again, here's another blog (copy below) by Mary Lee Grobe's oldest granddaughter, Amy Grobe Bridgewater. Amy doesn't seem to want this crime solved does she? Rather than posting truthful, helpful comments, she seems to be saying "stop searching for answers if you know what is good for you", doesn't she? Amy was reportedly the last to see her grandmother. Amy moved in on her grandmother's property right after she disappeared. We love Amy, but we think she knows more than what she has told the investigators.

Why is Amy Grobe Bridgewater impersonating other people (even her own grandmother) while writting things like this on her AOL Journal:
http://journals.aol.com/maryleegrobe/Missing/

Daughter of Mary,
open your eyes.
Set free his hand,
for it's not wise.

Gaze deep within,
past the darkness,
beyond the sin.
The guilt is burnished,
upon your skin.

Turn from the shadows,
face to the light.
The weight of your sorrows,
you carry in spite.

Hatred grows deep,
your mind proves ill.
Your Mother weeps,
you continue still.

Do not walk with him,
lost child of hope.
Souls get burned
smell the smoke?

Your lashing tongue,
viewed from your stage.
But a forked one
is not all the rage.
*
*
* * * *
*
*
*
Written by maryleegrobe . Link to this entry Blog about this entry Notify AOL

http://journals.aol.com/maryleegrobe/Missing/

http://search.aol.com/aolcom/search?invocationType=_tbd_&query=mary%20grobe%20site%3Ajournals.aol.com

Man Charged With Stealing From His 97-Year old Mother

GRANITE CITY, Ill. (AP) -- A 66-year-old Metro East man is facing felony theft charges after prosecutors and relatives say he stole more than $47,000 from his mother.

Madison County prosecutors charged Donald Gargac yesterday with felony theft and three counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person.

Officials and members of Gargac's family say he took the money from three bank accounts belonging to his mother, Elizabeth, who died in March at the age of 97.

The thefts allegedly took place from December of last year until Elizabeth Gargac's death. She had given her son power of attorney over her finances.

Court records show she had intended her estate to be split between her children and grandchildren.

Another son, who was to be the executor of that estate, said there's nothing left.

KSDK TV 12 St. Louis MO
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=107286


*******************************
Mary Lee Grobe had every thing taken away until there was nothing left to steal. Then did the Poplar Bluff Grobe's get rid of her too???

THANK GOD for the Granite City Prosecutors!

"Madison County prosecutors charged Donald Gargac yesterday with felony theft and three counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person."

And some Poplar Bluff / Butler County gov't leaders want Mary Lee Grobe to be FORGOTTEN

Again I ask: WHERE IS MARY LEE GROBE?

Anquiatte Parker & Cermen Lamunt Toney Jr.

Nov 06,2005

Anquiatte Parker & Cermen Lamunt Toney Jr.
may be gone,
but are not forgotten!

1 year ago today.

Initially it was believed that Parker abducted Toney, but authorities announced that foul play was suspected in both disappearance after Parker's black 1995 Ford Crown Victoria with Illinois license plates numbered 8286727 was found abandoned in a parking lot in Fairmont City, Illinois. It was found on November 10, four days after Parker and Toney were last seen. There were no clues as to their whereabouts in or around the vehicle, but a witness reported seeing a man wiping its door handles. The man is described as Caucasian, between 40 and 50 years old, with dark hair, and a thin moustache. He was approximately 5'11 tall and 170 pounds, and was wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeved denim shirt over a blue t-shirt, and a blue basecall cap. A composite sketch of him is posted below this case summary. He is considered a person of interest in Parker and Toney's disappearances.

Investigating Agency

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

East Saint Louis Police Department

618-482-6767

OR

Illinois State Police

618-346-3701

POLYGRAPH

Polygraph: Cape's New Weapon to Fight CrimeBy: Tiffany Sisson

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO --Until now, a number of police shared polygraph machines with Southeast University, the Missouri Highway Patrol, and the Perry County, Missouri Sheriff's Department. Cape's police department now has a new polygraph. Tiffany Sisson sat in the hot seat to find out how this completely digital technology picks out moments of truth.

Yellow walls, a white chair, countless cords tied into technology, everything about the examination room speaks volumes about the word intimidation. "Your heart starts racing, your hands get sweaty, your breathing changes. These are all the things that we monitor here," explained Detective Don Perry. Perry recently returned from train at the Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center near Annville, PA. It lasted 12 weeks.

With Tiffany in the hot seat, and Perry's finger on the keyboard, we get ready to unlock the truth. The polygraph test starts with a test. Perry writes a series of numbers, leaving out one. "Write the number 3 for me," asked Perry.

Perry wants Tiffany to lie about writing that number. It's a way of letting the computer know what's a lie and what's the truth. "The machine shows what your general nervous pattern looks like," explained Perry.

The polygraph records breathing changes, electrical impulses, and heart rate. While Tiffany is nervous about the test, she's not facing any consequences of getting caught. "That fear of detection will make physiological changes in your body because of that fear," said Perry.

The test are primarily used to weed out the good people. Cape County Prosecuting Attorney, Morley Swingle said, "I'd rather resolve a case with a polygraph, than find out an innocent man was charged with a crime."

The test are not admissible in court.

KFVS TV 12 Cape Girardeau Missouri by By: Tiffany Sisson
http://www.kfvs.com/Global/story.asp?S=5618408&nav=menu51_2

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Most of the law enforcement communities highly trust polygraphs and other means to determine if someone is telling the truth. They use the results to help them determine which direction to focus their attention.

We thank KFVS12 and Tiffany Sisson for running the informative spot about polygraphs and I believe they should be admissible in court. The research about them indicates they are highly reliable so why not use them as part of the evidence against a criminal or the defense of an innocent person.

Why do the criminals in this country have more rights than the victims? Why do we reward criminals with freedom just because they know how to beat the current system? Criminals know how to cover and dispose of evidence to keep from being arrested. Of course the ultimate judge knows exactly what happened.

Which of Mary Grobe's son's in Poplar Bluff did NOT PASS the tests asked by law enforcement (2 polygraphs, and voice stress test CVSA)? There lies the answers to finding Mary Lee Grobe!

L: Theodore Thompsom, R: Vernon Eugene Grobe, 1940

Today we are thinking of Mary Lee Grobe’s late husband who would have celebrated his birthday today. Vernon Eugene Grobe was born 10-29-1922 and married Mary Lee Cardwell on 12-17-1949. Although he wasn’t a perfect husband or father; he had a commendable sense of justice and tired to be honest and upright in dealing with others. He loved his wife and certainly wouldn’t have let things get to the point they did on 9-27-03. If for some reason vile humans curtained his directions he would have seen to it that justice was done for what happened to his wife even if it was a horribly painful thing to face.

Incidentally, Kenny Grobe’s wife (Ginny) had her birthday on 10-28. Can’t help but wonder what would she have to celebrate? She is another year older, but another year closer to the ultimate judge and yet she remains silent.

Please don’t forget Mary Lee Grobe and don’t allow this to happen to some other innocent victim. Allow Mary Lee Grobe to have her heart felt wish to have her final resting place beside her husband.

How can people be so heartless?

Son Arrested for Murder of Father 6 Years Ago

Son Arrested In 2000 St. Charles Murders
created: 10/26/2006 12:10:30 PM
updated: 10/26/2006 12:11:49 PM

KSDK - St. Charles County authorities have arrested a suspect in a six-year-old murder case.
Authorities say they arrested Nathan Dale Speaks Thursday morning.
He's the son of one of the men found dead in March of 2000.Roger Dale Speaks and William Hamilton were both found shot to death in Speaks' home.
A grand jury indicted Nathan Dale Speaks Wednesday on two counts of murder in the first degree.

KSDK TV 5 St Louis MO
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=106313
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It took 6 years for justice to be served!
Remember there is no Statute of limitations on Murder!

06BT-CV00516 - ASSET ACCEPTANCE

06BT-CV00516 - Missouri Casenet - ASSET ACCEPTANCE

October 25,2006

Grand-Daughter, Where is your Grandmother, Mary Lee Grobe?

National Center for Missing Adults

National Center for Missing Adults needs your help!

The National Center for Missing Adults ( NCMA) has helped many families of missing adults in Missouri and Nation wide, Here are a few of the Missing Adults from Missouri:

Christina Carol Burnett-Pitts Poplar Bluff MO
Mary Lee Grobe Poplar Bluff MO
Teresa L Butler Risco MO
Amanda Jones Hillsboro MO
Shirley McKeown Kansas City MO
Anthony Medearis Bismark MO
Nicole Gray St. Ann MO
Others from Missouri

NCMA now needs your help, TAKE ACTION NOW, its easy as 1,2,3.

Let Congress know that missing adults matter!

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

http://www.ncadv.org/

http://www.mocadsv.org/

http://www.mocadsv.org/Members/SouthEast.aspx

http://www.familycounselingcenter.org/

http://www.semoctc.org/

http://www.sboard.org/SHELTERS/MO.HTM

Google: Domestic Violence Shelters Poplar Bluff

Butler County Sheriff Dept

City of Poplar Bluff Police Dept

Careful What You Say...Because Your Voice Doesn't Lie

Greene County, AR -- Heather Flanigan Reports
Careful What You Say...Because Your Voice Doesn't Lie
October 20, 2006 - Posted at 6:31 p.m. CDT

GREENE COUNTY, AR -- Law enforcement agencies have been using the polygraph test for years as an investigative tool. The invasive test measures respiratory activity by placing rubber tubes across the examinee's chest. "Sweat gland" activity is recorded by placing two small attachments to the fingers or palm of the hand and cardiovascular activity is recorded by a blood pressure cuff. But the test does not recognize voice analysis.

A different test can tell if you're lying...just from the way you answer a question.

John Slater worked in law enforcement for 18 years before he retired. The former commander of the Criminal Investigation Division of the White County Sheriff's Department now works as an instructor for the National Institute for Truth Verification....teaching others how to find the truth.

"It's an investigative tool, it's not going to make the final determination of anything but as I said earlier, it has the flashlight effect...it gives you the sense of direction to go," said Slater.

His weapon...the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer. It's used by more than 1500 agencies nationwide, including the military, NASA and insurance companies.

"With the polygraph, you have three answers that you will get either a deceptive response, or a non deceptive response or an inconclusive. With the CVSA, there's deception or no deception, there are no inconclusive at all. When we test, we'll know at that point whether there is deception or no deception, whether the person is being honest with us or not," said Slater.

Complete News Aricle by Heather Flanigan KAIT TV K8
http://www.kait8.com/global/story.asp?s=5564341&ClientType=Printable

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Thank You Heather Flanigan and KAIT TV Ch 8 for the informative spot about Computer Voice Stress Analyzer or aka CVSA.

Which of Mary Grobe's son's in Poplar Bluff refused to take a CVSA? and why would he refuse?
Which son did show a deceptive response on the CVSA?
Which daughter, who lives near St. Louis, did not show any deception on the CVSA?

Why do the criminals in this country have more rights than the victims? Why do we reward criminals with freedom just because they know how to beat the current system? Criminals know how to cover and dispose of evidence to keep from being arrested. Of course the ultimate judge knows exactly what happened.

Why is Mary Grobe still missing after 3 years?

Thank You KFVS TV 12

Thank you KFVS Ch 12 TV in Cape Girardeau, Missouri for keeping the names out of the Heartland women and children who are still missing. Teresa Butler, Shawn Hornbeck, Mary Lee Grobe, Sonya Bradley, and Sandra K Travis are all missed by the families that loved them and all deserve to have their cases solved.

KFVS TV 12 Article about Teresa Butler

Missing woman's husband's world is caving in
By: CJ Cassidy, KFVS TV 12

RISCO, Mo. - It's been almost nine months since Teresa Butler simply disappeared. Her husband reported the 35-year-old missing when he returned home from his overnight job, back in January.

Now Dale Butler has even more problems, and he's turning to you for help. "My little one says daddy our house is broke. I say daddy don't have no money to fix it," Dale Butler says. He says his world began crumbling around him when his wife disappeared in January.....

Complete News Article on KFVS TV 12
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=5553162&nav=8H3x

Accusations of financial wrongdoing against public administrators is an old story in Buchanan County.

After Controversy and Transition, Focus is on Rebuilding Trust (10/1/06)
Public administrator’s office has history of abuse
Alyson Raletz, Courthouse Reporter

Charlie Lau, the newly appointed Buchanan County public administrator, heads back to the office on Fourth Street recently after going to the bank. (TODD WEDDLE/St. Joseph News-Press)

Accusations of financial wrongdoing against public administrators is an old story in Buchanan County.

About 20 years old.

A judge authorized two search warrants last month for former Public Administrator Bonnie Sue Lawson's office after a St. Joseph detective asserted money had been taken from at least three of her clients' accounts without authorization or court orders. Federal, state and city authorities continue to probe her records, but no criminal charges have been filed.

She submitted her resignation Aug. 21 - one.

Ms. Lawson unseated another public administrator caught up in missing funds speculation in the 1996 Democratic primary. The incumbent, Ron Rosenauer, that year had to repay $1,725 after his office had double-billed the county 19 times for services to disabled people - two.

And in 1987, former Public Administrator Terry Rumery pleaded guilty to stealing and official misconduct after he confessed to embezzling more than $40,000 from estates under his supervision - three.

Mr. Rumery took office in 1984, but resigned in 1986 before serving about six months in the Buchanan County Jail. He was placed on five years probation and ordered to pay restitution. His secretary also later received a county jail sentence for stealing from the office.

Mr. Rumery now lives in Chillicothe, Mo., and declined a News-Press interview.

"You're kidding," Cape Girardeau County Public Administrator Phyllis Schwab said after learning Buchanan County's history.

Ms. Schwab called Buchanan County's interim Public Administrator Charlie Lau shortly after the Aug. 29 appointment and advised him to change the office to a salary-based one. Ms. Schwab in 2001 opted for her office to move from a fee-based system - in which she personally would've reaped the fees from handling client accounts - to a salary-based system, where the county receives the fees.

That was the first year the state gave public administrators the option, but Ms. Lawson decided to keep the fee-based office. Ms. Lawson was Buchanan County's highest-paid official in 2005, as her gross compensation totaled $145,554.07.

"It puts a better light on our office," Ms. Schwab said. "Then it doesn't matter how many clients we have ... and it takes away a lot of the questions about the fees."

Mr. Lau heeded her advice and chose to take a fixed salary over collecting fees from clients. As a result, no Buchanan County public administrator ever can return to the old system, according to Buchanan County Clerk Pat Conway.

"Maybe that will take away the perception people might have. ... Clients wonder how their accounts are being handled," Mr. Lau said. "We've lost the integrity and trust in this office - and we aim to get it back."

Ms. Schwab explained public administrators can face many temptations, or "questionable situations." As an example, she said public administrators legally don't have to secure witnesses during property inventories.

"They're an independent officeholder and have had tremendous leeway on the operation of the office, unlike some of the other offices in the courthouse," Mr. Conway said of Buchanan County public administrators. "Everyone who has access to leniency or latitude in their office, I don't think it reflects the individual or the office. I think you can have problems occur anywhere."

Presiding County Commissioner Tom Mann said the county doesn't have the authority to set up the checks and balances necessary to oversee the office and plans to approach lobbyists for the next legislative session.

http://www.buchanangop.org/
Community,News Archive.

Shawn Hornbeck Gone 4 Years But Not Forgotten

Shawn Hornbeck is an 11 year old boy from Richwoods, Missouri who vanished while riding his bike on October 6th, 2002 and has not been seen since.

http://www.shawnhornbeck.com/

http://www.shawnhornbeckfoundation.com/

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/hornbeck.htm

Financial Wrongdoing in Buchanan County MO

FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT
NEW: 20-year history of financial wrongdoing in Buchanan County

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) _ Buchanan County makes changes after three public administrators in 20 years are caught up in financial wrongdoing investigations.

The latest is Bonnie Sue Lawson. She resigned August 21st after a St. Joseph detective asserted money had been taken from at least three of her clients' accounts without authorization or court orders.

An investigation is under way. But no criminal charges have been filed.

Public administrators take charge of the estates of people who have died or are too young or sick to handle the responsibility. But the elected officials do so only if no one else is available to do the job.

To reduce the risk of future problems, Buchanan County has dropped its fee-based system in which the public administrator reaps the fees from handling client accounts.

The county has adopted a system in which the public administrator is paid a salary and the county receives the fees.

KAIT-Ch 8 ABC Jonesboro AR
http://www.kait8.com/Global/story.asp?S=1986497&nav=0jsf

KSHB TV NBC Kansas City MO

Topix.net Buchanan County MO News

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We wonder how much money Sharron Payne, Butler County Public Administrator, made using poor Mary Lee Grobe as her excuse. Everytime we called (even though Sharron wouldn't pick up the phone when we called and certainly wouldn't return our calls) Sharron charged Mary Lee Grobe's account. Everytime we sent her a letter (even though Sharron didn't write a letter back in response to our questions) she charged Mary Lee Grobe's account. But of course Sharron wouldn't spend any money on her poor client who desperately needed nutritious food, dry shelter, glasses, and a hearing aid. Sharron ignore us and she ignored Mary Lee Grobe's needs.

We hope that someday Public Administrators will have adequate supervision and this much needed oversight will weed out the criminals.

Thank you KTVI Ch2 Fox News

Thank you Fox KTVI Ch 2 News for the short spot on Mary Lee Grobe still missing from Poplar Bluff Missouri on the 3 year anniversary of her disappearance.

It's people like you that do make a difference-Thank You

3 Years of Freedom

Wednesday September 27, 2006
3 Years of Freedom!

Today marks the three year anniversary of the disappearance of Mary Lee Grobe from her home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. She was completely denied her freedom three years ago. Her wishes were coldly ignored. Her family was torn apart.

Today also marks the three years anniversary of undeserved freedom of the man responsible for all this grief!

The Truth is Sometimes Painful!

“Help me remove my rose-colored glasses”

Anne Bird loved her brother, Scott Peterson, very much. She faithfully stood by him and defended him while the evidence that he was guilty of the murder of her beautiful wife and son continued to accumulate. Others could see the facts but she was in denial. The book, BLOOD BROTHER 33 Reasons My Brother, Scott Peterson, is Guilty by Anne Bird has some very thought-provoking comments we would like to share.

“The problem was really quite simple: I still refused to accept the possibility that Scott was guilty. Dr. Tucker’s job, as I saw it, was to help me remove my rose-colored glasses. Until I was finally able to remove fact from fiction, I wouldn’t find my way back. She was eager to help me find my way, but she never forced it: She wanted me to get there on my own.” states Anne. Page144

On page 174, Dr. Tucker told Anne, “Tell yourself the truth,” and suggested Anne put her thoughts down on paper. Anne compiled the list of 33 reasons.

After much thought, Anne states, “I had gone from doubting his guilt to suspecting him of premeditated murder. If that seems like a leap, take another look at the list. And think about the damaging evidence that came out in the trial.” Anne told Dr. Tucker, “I want to do the right thing. Some day my children are going to grow up and ask me what happened, and I’m going to want them to know that I behaved morally, that I was a decent human being and did the right thing. Laci and Conner did not deserve this. The Rochas did not deserve this. And the Petersons did not deserve this.” P. 180-1

Mary Lee Grobe did not deserve this! The Grobe family, The Cardwell family, The Collins family,The Frisco Texas Grobe family, The Caldwell family, The Williams family, And the Poplar Bluff Missouri Community did not deserve this. No one deserved the pain this has caused!

Now, you can do something to help! Remove the rose colored glasses! Put the coward behind bars before he strikes again!

Make sure years from now people, especially family, will say you behaved morally and you were a decent human being and did the right thing.

Butler County News

Butler County News

Victims of Crimes of
Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault
HAVEN HOUSE
1-800-491-1138 or 573-686-4873
Offers -
24-Hour Hotline, Support Groups, Advocacy, Information & Referrals, Shelter
All services are FREE and CONFIDENTIAL!

Why so Many Missing From Missouri?

Why so many missing from Missouri?

Abigale Lynn "Abby" Woods from Lonedell, Missouri, 09/15/2006
***Abby found alive and well on 09/19/2006***
Amanda Jones from Jefferson County, Missouri, 08/14/2006
Bianca Piper from Foley, Missouri, 03/10/2006
Shawn Hornbeck from Richwoods, Missouri, 10/06/2002
Christian Ferguson from St. Louis, Missouri, 06/11/2003
Cermen Lamunt Toney Jr from East St. Louis, Ill , 11/06/2005
Anquiatte Parker from East St. Louis, Ill , 11/06/2005

We know of two other wonderful persons who are missing:
Mary Lee Grobe from Butler County, Missouri, 9-27-03
Teresa Lynn Butler from Risco, Missouri, 1-25-06

And there are many, many more. We don't hear much about them on the news. Many people have forgotten them but not the people who loved them. Missouri has a real problem. When is someone going to take steps to protect Missouri Citizens and hold the criminals accountable for their evil deeds?

Missouri Casenet, Butler & Ripley Counties

http://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/base/welcome.do

State of Missouri
Office of the State Courts Administrator

36th Judicial Circuit (Butler & Ripley Counties)

Freeman, Samuel A.
36R010501328-02
Defendant

Guilty, Murder 1st Degree { Felony A RSMo: 565.020 }

09/09/2006
Docket Entry:
Jury Reached Final Verdict
Docket Entry:
Jury Verdict - Guilty
Text:
Jury returns verdict of guilty to charge of Murder 1st Degree with punishment of life imprisonment without eligibilty for probation or parole. Court orders defendant held without bail for formal sentencing on 11-16-06 at 3:00 p.m. Court requests Probation and Parole prepare PSA report
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Poplar Bluff Missouri
DAR Newspaper
Sunday Sept 10,2006
By: Michelle Friedrich

Assistant Attorney General Kevin Zoellner said "For 14 years, Mr Freeman got away with this crime, He married, helped raise children. For 14 years, he had his freedom." "Laura Wynn didn't get married, have kids. She didn't get the 14 years this man got. Today his freedom ends"

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Chipman Murder Trial Delayed Yet Again

Chipman murder trial delayed yet again
Thursday, September 7, 2006
By SACHA CHAMPION Statesman Staff Writer

BLOOMFIELD -- She was raped and murdered. The culprit then burned her body to conceal evidence linking him to the crimes.
And now more than a year later, the Acorn Ridge teen accused of raping and murdering 12-year-old Miranda Celeste Dowdy of Poplar Bluff has been granted yet another continuance and isn't scheduled to appear in court until November.
"We really want to get something going on this because this has been dragging on for a while," said Welborn. "Sometimes it seems things are going really slowly, but it's going as fast as it can."
Welborn said last month that 19-year-old Steve Chipman had requested that a psychiatric evaluation be done and that some delays were occurring while awaiting those test results.

Complete News Article:
http://www.dailystatesman.com/story/1167286.html