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.