McStay children identified, and (the lack of) updates on the Jamison case

Crosses erected where the Mcstays' bodies were discovered

When Joseph and Summer Mcstay's bodies were discovered, they were also discovered two children's bodies with them. Tonight tests revealed what most people have been expecting; these were the bodies of Gianni and Joseph McStay.

Investigators are obviously treating this as a homicide.

And it's always difficult to find words when one is dealing with the murder of a child. 

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, we are still in the dark as to the identities of the three bodies found near where the Jamisons disappeared. A spokeswoman on the case is saying that identification of the bones could take "anywhere from days to years."

I hope there are answers soon. Regardless of whether this is the Jamison family- and I think it's likely- these are still three people who deserve to have their identity restored to them. And their relatives and friends deserve to know what happened to them.

Jamison family found?

A post from the Jamison family's missing person's facebook page

Quick recap: The Jamisons were a family of three that vanished while looking at land in a fairly remote location in Oklahoma. The only trace of them was their dog, and their car (which contained vast sums of untouched money.) They often get mentioned in the same breath as the Mcstays.

There have been no official reports, yet, but various sources have come forth to say that three bodies have been recovered two miles from where they vanished. Two adults and a child.

More on this as it develops.

First edit: I have found an official news report. There were, indeed, three bodies found in the area today. 

Back from unintended hiatus

The location of the McStays' remains

Soon after starting this blog, I returned to grad school. It wound up being very time consuming and, unfortunately, this blog fell by the wayside. I still monitored google alerts on all the cases featured here, but I never seemed to dredge up energy to write on them.

This Friday, though, I noticed a flurry of google alerts about the McStays. I was stunned to find that they had been located. Of all the cases on here, this was one of the ones I deemed least likely to be solved. And yet here we were. This discovery has galvanized me, and I will post about recent news on the McStays and other cases featured on Disappeared.

I am currently writing up a reflection piece on the McStay case, and it should be posted soon.

My sincere condolences to the McStays' family members. 

Upcoming memorial service for April Pitzer

April Pitzer: Missing since 06/28/2004

Got a google alert just now about a planned memorial service for April Pitzer, who was declared legally dead approximately a year ago.

Something about this case kills me. The mental illness aspect hits too close to home, I guess. Once I stop reeling from that, I think about Pitzer's mother- Gloria Denton- who's had to fight for her daughter with very little assistance. And my heart breaks all over again.

Anyway, no, the memorial doesn't mean Pitzer's been found. From this brief article, I gather that it's taking place for the well-being of her family. And, yep, Gloria Denton is also going to spend her time out there doing what's she's been doing for almost a decade: searching for her daughter's body.

Searching April Pitzer's name also gives me a few fairly recent articles: There was a profile on Gloria Denton and her ongoing efforts to find answers. Investigators are also looking into violent sex offenders who lived in the same area where Pitzer vanished. (Police primarily focused on two specific men who have since passed away, and do not seem to have considered others who lived in the area.)

That's all for now. Hopefully Denton's trip in late September will uncover new leads.

Graffiti thought to be related to April Pitzer

Department of Homeland Security reopens Brandi Wells's case

Brandi Wells: Missing since 08/02/2006

As per KETV, the Brandi Wells case is being re-investigated by Homeland Security.

For those who don't remember, Wells was featured in the first season of Disappeared. She went to a nightclub in 2006 and hasn't been heard from since. A few days later her car was found abandoned on the side of the highway. For a while, police honed in on security footage of a woman thought to be her in the nightclub. This was broadcast to the public at large, before it was discovered that that footage was of another woman, and Wells arrived at the nightclub at a later time in the evening. This may have made the trail even colder than it already was.

Seven years on, we're not much closer to knowing what happened to her. A few years ago Wells's mother, Ellen Tant, received a mysterious call, where an unknown man claimed Wellswas alive in Kansas City, Missouri, and that he had her contact number. He hung up before Tant could get that information, and that seems to be the extent of leads on this case up to this date. From my limited information on this case, it seems to bear many hallmarks of stranger on stranger crime, which is a notoriously difficult type of crime to solve.

The article about re-opening Wells's case is a bit scant. We know Homeland Security is taking an interest, and we know her family thinks human trafficking is likely. (For the record, Dawn Drexel thinks something similar happened to her daughter, Brittanee Drexel.) I don't know if there is a connection between these two facts; human trafficking crosses national borders, of course, and is something Homeland Security takes an interest in. As of July 23rd, they also seem to have edited their page for the missing person form. But it's unknown whether they have evidence that Wells was trafficked and/or if that's the reason for their renewed focus on this case.

Recap of the Mcstay family disappearance, and a book review

Is this the McStay family?

My first google alert was about the McStay family just now.

I'm not terribly surprised about this. This disappearance is one I will talk about with anyone who will listen, have lost sleep over, have googled late into the night. I'm not sure what I think I'll find by googling, but this case is memorable for being baffling to an almost ludicrous degree. When one person goes missing without a trace- as so many people on this show have done- that's terrible enough. When an entire family goes missing, it seems to bend all the laws of likelihood and possibility. Seems fitting my first post should involve this case.

Anyway, my alert was to this post by Sean Munger.

It provides a good recap of the case thus far, as well as the leading theories. There's also a review of No Goodbyes, Rick Baker's book on the subject. Munger comes away with a negative impression of the book, and I'm not surprised. From what I've heard, No Goodbyes is ... not especially kind to Summer McStay. Everything about her is spun in the most negative light possible. And at least some readers have posted that the book takes a porn related spam email as evidence in McStay's inbox that she was involved in shady dealings. In that case, 90% of people with an email inbox are secretly sketchy!

I want this disappearance solved, but I'm a little wary of the tone surrounding this case sometimes. This isn't a story where there's piles of circumstantial evidence leading to to a likely culprit (such as in the case of Hatice Corbacioglu.) In this one there are many possibilities. And, well, if you pore over the minute details of anyone's life, most people will begin to look suspicious.

There's a difference between presenting information, and trying to steer an interpretation of information, and Summer McStay isn't here to defend herself.

Introduction

Brittanee Drexel. Missing since 04/25/09, from Myrtle Beach

About a year ago on Netflix, I came across an Investigation Discovery show called Disappeared, and proceeded to watch the entire series over the course of a month or two. It was a crash course in problems faced by families of missing persons, law enforcement blind spots, and the overall agony of not knowing what the hell happened. I search many of these names on a frequent basis, in the hopes of resolution.

Today I've decided to just go for it and set up a blog for this show. I have put the names of each victim on my google alerts, and will link to whatever pops up.

I hope that the friends of family of every person featured on Disappeared will one day find satisfactory information.