Jesse 'Opie' Ross

Jesse Ross looks like the "All American" college kid, a good kid, who with red hair, freckles and an infectious smile earned him the nickname, "Opie". He excelled in his classes at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and was attending a mock United Nations conference in Chicago with 13 of his fellow students. A sponsor had just promised them a trip to Costa Rica, an exciting adventure for Jesse and his friends. Jesse Ross has a promising future ahead of him and proud parents and a family who shared so much.

On November 20, 2006, Jesse phone his mother to let her know the conference was going well and he was enjoying himself. He was the type of son that always kept in contact with his family, especially confiding in his mother, Donna.

The students were staying at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in the downtown are of Chicago close to the river. There was a dance and parties before a mock emergency meeting scheduled at 2am.

Sources say that around 2:30am Jesse got up to take a 30 minute break, walked out of a side door to a well lit walkway. Surveillance cameras recorded him leaving out that doorway. 12 hours later his roommate realized that Jesse had not returned to their room at the Four Points Sheraton but figured he must have been in someone else's room for the night,so he packed up Jesse's belongings for him thinking that the gesture would be appreciated.

Jesse was not in the hotel, Jesse was gone.

Don and Donna Ross and their son Andy are left with so many unanswered questions. Chicago police provided extensive searches of the area surrounding the hotel with no results. How can a young man simply vanish in the middle of a busy city?

Faith is the glue that holds this family together today. Hope and faith that one day Jesse will just walk in the front door.

"We pray for a sign, anything," Donna said. "We pray, 'If he is in heaven with you, that's not my first choice, but God, please give us a sign. Send me an e-mail, a phone call, something. We have to know that he's OK and with you.'

"When you lose someone you love when they pass on, you grieve and then you move on with your life," Donna said. "We are nowhere. We are still stuck in that revolving door. We know nothing more than we knew that first day."

So the search continues, hope continues, life is moving forward, but for the Ross family there is something huge missing, their son Jesse "Opie" Ross. They miss his presence, his humor, his love and life will never be the same for them until they know where Jesse might be.

The family is asking for your help. November 21st was the date of the Opiefest3 and the date that a petition and post cards were sent to the Mayor of Chicago pleading for help in Jesse's case. Please take a minute, write to the Mayor at:

Chicago Mayor's office
121 N LaSalle St. #507
Chicag, IL 60602


If you don't have the time or a stamp to mail a letter you can email your response to Jesse's family and they will make sure to send them on.


doktordsbc@aol.com



Please join us at Peace4 the Missing

Joyce Darlene Patterson

Mother is Missing - Possibly in Phoenix
August 20, 2008

To Anyone Who Reads This:

My name is Miranda Rhuda. I am 25 years old and I am from

Ohio.

In 1996, my mother Joyce Darlene Patterson, age 53, went

missing from Ohio.

Since that time, I have continually searched for her with no

assistance and no outcome. Recently, I found public records

with her name and date of birth listed online. She is in

Phoenix (somewhere). The last address given to the police

in September 2007, was 813 W. Madison Street.

This address is an industrial building which is boarded up.

I know this because a man named Jeff Knapp, who is doing

homeless ministries, has assisted me in checking it out.

I believe that she may be homeless. She may be a drifter.

In the past, she has been an alcoholic and has had very

serious mental issues. I really need to find her for family

reasons and mostly so that I can get her off the streets

and get her treatment. There is no reason for her to be

homeless and/or stealing to provide for herself. She is 5 ft.

tall, 117 lbs, brown hair, brown eyes. Her Date of Birth is

07/18/1956.

I am enclosing pictures of her. I would appreciate any help

that you may be able to give me. If you could please post this

somewhere or forward it on to someone who may be able to help me, I would greatly appreciate it.

If you or anyone else, has any information, please send me

an email at misswriter415@aol.com

Thank you and God Bless,

Miranda Rhuda


Joyce Darlene Patterson, age 52, has been missing from Ohio since 1996. She boarded a bus with a couple of individuals who offered to assist her in getting back on her feet and she vanished. She has not been seen by her family again.


In 1997, she made a phone call to her sister in Norwalk, Ohio, in a whispering tone and claimed that she was being held against her will by religious cult members. The phone call was brief and she gave no information other than she was in Arizona.


This small amount of information gave her daughter Miranda, age 14, enough information to try and start searching for her mother. Being a minor there was little that Miranda could do to try and bring her mother home. Due to her mother’s alcoholic past, there were no adults in the family to back Miranda in her search for her mother.

It has been 12 years that Miranda has been searching for her. She has written multiple letters to the Phoenix Police Department reporting her mother as missing from Ohio. Phoenix PD failed to assist her claiming that they had contact with Joyce and she was in deed not missing.

Miranda requested that Phoenix Police Department provide her with the address or phone number to contact her mother, but they refused explaining that Arizona laws states that they can not disclose that information unless the adult in question chooses to do so in their own. But how would Joyce know that her daughter is searching for her if she can not get the word out?

After many failed attempts with Phoenix authorities, Miranda took to the internet to post requests of anyone in Phoenix willing to help her locate her mother. A man named Jeff Knapp, who takes pictures of homeless individuals in Arizona, responded to her request. “He went to amazing lengths to assist me in finding my mother,” said Miranda. “It was his determination in mailing letters and flyers to officials that finally got the Phoenix PD to listen.”
November 15, 2008, Detective Eric Cosgriff with the Phoenix Police Department Missing Persons Detail contacted Miranda Rhuda and reported that he had opened a case for her mother and officially declared Joyce Darlene Patterson as a missing person.

Since that time Miranda says that she has not heard much from them. “Detective Cosgriff explained to me that they would input my mother’s information into the National Missing Persons Database so that if any officers came in contact with her, it would flag her and they would contact me to let me know she was located.

However, they still will not provide me with her information. They will give her my contact information and she can choose to contact me.”

Miranda is grateful to Phoenix PD for the steps they are taking with her mother’s case; however, she did say, “I wish they would just provide me with the contact information. I am afraid that my mother is not mentally well or is afraid to contact me due to the years that have passed without word. If this is the case, I may never be able to locate and speak to her. It is important that she knows what has happened in our family over the years that she has been gone. I need her to know that we are not angry with her and I must find her for healing to begin in our family. I need closure.”

If you can help in any way at getting the word out about Joyce Darlene Patterson, please contact Miranda Rhuda (Skinn) directly at misswriter415@aol.com Miranda is open to any suggestions and appreciates all responses provided.

Ryan M Knoedler

Obituaries




Ryan M. Knoedler KNOEDLER
RYAN M., Oct. 16, 2008. Beloved son of Jacqueline (nee Boyle) and George Knoedler, devoted brother of Kelly Fisher (Keith), loving uncle of Brianna Brinn. Relatives and friends may call Monday 11 A.M. at WACKERMAN FUNERAL HOME, 8060 Verree Rd., Fox Chase. followed by Prayer Service 1 P.M. In lieu of flowers donations in his name to Peace4missing.ning.com, 121 Lafayette Ave., Grand Haven, MI 49417 would be appreciated.

Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer & Philadelphia Daily News on 11/26/


http://www.legacy.com/Philly/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=120657426

Jeramy Burt

As I sit here this late sunday evening starring at my blank computer screen,I am wondering how to write this piece..There is not alot of information to report and so little to go on..

Jeramy Burt is a son, brother and father who is deeply sadly missed. On Febuary 11th 2007 Jeramy left his home in Boise Idaho at ten thirty in the morning to go visit a friend..He never made it to his destination. Shortly after he went missing his ex-wife recieved a text stating that Jeramy was leaving and starting a new life else where..The question then and still is, Would a loving, caring father just up and abandon his three year old daughter? I would not think so..His family says that he would never leave behind his daughter..He loved her with every fiber of his soul..Months later the car he was driving which belonged to his ex-wife was found burnt in a remote desert..After sifting through the vehichle it is obviouse that someone was trying to destroy evidence of some sort..What actually happened in that car? Or for that matter who else was in that car? Who wanted so badly to hide something? And who was so desperate to hide or destroy Jeramy Burt?

I can't even imagine what the family of Jeramy Burt have and are going through..To have your loved one torn from you and vanish without a trace..Not knowing if he is alive or not..


IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION REGARDING JERAMY BURT OR HIS WHEREABOUTS PLEASE CONTACT:
BOISE, IDAHO POLICE DEPARTMENT
(208) 373-5406 OR (208) 377-6500
OR
TEXASEQUUSEARCH.ORG
(281) 309-9500 OR
TOLL FREE (877) 270-9500

Stacey Grater

987 Days Ago Stacy Grater seemingly disappeared off the face of this earth.

However, Stacy Grater did not just vanish and nothing but her could ever soothe the aching void her disappearance has left behind.

There's been a hole in the world since Stacy Grater went Missing. A daily stark crater in the lives of the many who miss her, a gaping abyss in the life of Stacy Grater's child longing for her Mom, the cries of a niece begging for her to answer, the many friends who've been aimlessly lost since she's been gone.

It sadly appears that Stacy Grater's Missing Persons Case has been somewhat neglected by Law Enforcement. Rather than fully pursuing her case, the hole left since she's been gone has been simply walked around while information leading to potential answers of her current presence appear to have been somewhat stifled.

Today, along with all those who love her, Monday4 the Missing says - NO MORE! No More ignoring the hole in the world left without Stacy in it, No More pretending she never mattered, No More walking around the bottomless pit her loss created!

The Pain of Life without Stacy...cannot be ignored.

A Family Member of Stacy Grater is a member of Peace4 the Missing and upon her Peace4 Page she has a song which has become the inspiration behind this post...

Lyrics to Hole In The World :
There's a hole in the world tonight
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow
There's a hole in the world tonight
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow
The Eagles - There's A Hole In The World Tonight



It's time to Find Stacy Grater, it's time to fill the hole she left behind.

Please join us at Peace4 the Missing
Missing Persons Awareness and Support Network
Utilize your Blog to Help Find the Missing each Monday at Monday4 the Missing




http://mymilkcarton.org/home.php/2008/11/02/missing-stacey-lynn-grater

Stacey was last seen on February 18, 2006 at her residence in Pemberton Township, NJ. She may be in the area of Pemberton, Burlington City, or Camden, NJ.

Any further information, please contact Pemberton Township Police Department at #609-894-3308 or NJSP Missing Persons Unit at #800-709-7090.

Donna Jou

We live our lives everyday without worries or cares of the danger that lurks behind those dark corners that we know are there but choose to ignore. Thinking "that will never happen to me". But the reality of that is we are wrong.

Our lives can change just like that! In a blink of an eye. Without notice. Everyday living, normal events and routine should be anything but dangerous you would think. But it is not. Who would have thought that going to a party would change the lives of so many innocent people? And It did for Donna Jou and her family.

Donna Jou was a young lady with dreams, goals, expectations and her whole life ahead of her until she met with a man named John Steven Burgess on a website called craigslist..She was offering her services as a math tutor and John Burgess was listing rooms for rent at his home in Los Angeles. Donna did not know this man was a sex offender, he failed to register himself.

Donna being the trusting person that she is, not aware of the evil that lurks in the shadows. Met up with this man John Steven Burgess and jumped on his motorcycle to attend a party at his house for the evening on June 23 2007. She said bye to her mother without thinking twice and took off down the road.

Donna Jou has not been seen since. On June 24th the next day Nili Jou receives a text message from her daughters cell phone saying "batteries dying. In San Diego. Be home soon. I love you mommy" Was that text from Donna Jou? Her mom does not seem to think so because of the format in which the text was wrote..That very same day Donna's family report her missing to Orange county sheriffs office after she does not show up for work or school.

John Burgess roommate tell police that Donna was at the party and on July 5th Burgess was seen packing cardboard boxes in his truck and that's the last time he has seen him.

A few days later a man finds a box stuffed under some vines a mile and a half away from Burgess home, with a vanity license plate "SINJIN1" from Burgess truck, a black motorcycle helmet, rubber dish washing gloves, rope and a scrub brush. Why was John Burgess hiding these items? One can only speculate because he gives no answers to what he did to Donna or where she is..

Burgess who is now serving a three year sentence in prison on charges of failure to register as a sex offender continues to taunt the family of Donna Jou. He is the only one who knows exactly what happened to Donna and where she is but he says nothing..And why..To try to save himself? ...He keeps this all to himself because he can. Because he is selfish, uncaring, heartless, sick, disgrace to human kind, and evil. I mean for Pete's sakes he likes to touch himself in front of children and touch them..He should have been locked up and the key be thrown away from the start..Why would anyone let this sick twisted man walk the streets with our children anyway!! Or another person for that matter.

A search was conducted December 29-30 through out the Santa Monica Mountains in Malibu..And yet the question still remains...Where is Donna Jou and what happened to her?

How does one continue to draw strength to go on searching and looking for answers that never seem to be in reach..Determination, love, hope and peace. Something I myself have learned from my own experience with my missing mother.

To Nila and Reza Jou, your family and Donna are thought of greatly..Your pain, and sorrow is heard and felt by all. Even by people who have not walked in your shoes. Your Donna is touching so many lives and hearts. YOU are touching so many lives and hearts...Especially mine.

Karen Jo Smith

This story of karen Jo Smith is a story that is personal to me.. Or should I say a story that I hold dear and personal. Although I have never met Karen Jo. Nor her parents.. I do however know her step mother Patti..

I have never met Patti in person. My first encounter with Patti was through team hope over the phone.

My two month old daughter was abducted by her own biological father.. He packed up some of her clothes and nebulizer while I had gone grocery shopping..And when I returned home they were gone.. Days later she was returned back to me.. But I was suffering with panic disorders due to the stress of my mothers abduction and murder..The abduction of my daughter had triggered it.. Trying to figure out how I could cope with everything I had recieved the number for HOPE from the victims advocate of CPD.

I called Team Hope and that is when my relationship with Patti was formed.. She helped me deal with my panic disorder and we talked alot about the abductions of my daughter and my mother..And with my story she told me hers.. Which is of Karen Jo Smith..

Five years later Patti and I still keep in touch and talk on the phone.

Here is the story of missing Karen Jo Smith.

Karen Jo Smith is a sibling of a sister named Kim and a brother named Chad. A daughter to Ed and Linda. Years down the road Karens father remarried a woman named Patti who became Karen Jo's step mom..

Like many normal children Karen grew up to become an adult. Married and had children..She birthed two beautiful children. A son named Brandon and a daughter named Stephanie.

While married to Steve Halcomb it was anything but perfect.. Karen was a victim of abuse. Abused by the hands of a man who vowed to love, charish and honor her, til death due them part..

Karen left and divorced Steve. And was on her way to a better life with her two children.. A life she had wanted and dreamed of.. A life Karen deserved.. She had a loving, caring family..A supportive family.

In August of 2002 Steve Halcomb had been released from prison on parole for a drug dealing conviction.

On December 27th 2002 Karen put her two children to bed.. Brandon at the time was thirteen years of age and Stephanie eight years of age.. The next morning the children got up to find their mother was gone. Little be known to the innocent children that the night before would be the very last time they would ever touch, smell, hear or feel their mother again.

Sometime that night Steve Halcomb forced Karen out of the house. Drove her somewhere and murdered her. Karen Jo Smith's remains have never been found.. She is still out there somewhere..

For her family this is hard to live and deal with. Especially for her children. It has been eight years now. And the question still remains. Where is precious Karen Jo Smith? When will she be discovered? Will her family ever be able to lay her to rest?

Steve Halcomb was charged and convicted of her murder and serving a prison sentence of 95 years.. You might as well say he is serving a life sentence. But is 95 years in prison enough justice for the hell he has put Karen and her family through? My opinion is NO! I think he should have recieved the death penalty myself.. But that is just my OWN opinion.

This is dedicated to Patti, Ed, Brandon, Stephanie, Kim, Chad, Linda and all of Karen Jo Smiths family members.. I hope that someday you will find Karen and bring her home and give her the proper buriel she so rightfully deserves! My thoughts are with you all, Every moment of everday! Love to you all..

BRING KAREN JO SMITH HOME!

Monday 4 The Missing

My blogs here are usually about feelings of mothers of missing daughters.. However I make an exception every monday to write about one person who has gone missing and has not recieved the attention that it should or the case has gone cold or old in hopes that someone will read it and recongnize the person who is missed.. And so here is the story which I did copy and paste with the website link shown.

Does anyone know this woman Brenda? Have you seen her?

BRENDA SZABO HAS A PRICE ON HER HEAD -It's Offered By Her Children
Last heard from in 1983 when she was 34, Brenda Joan Allen Szabo had walked out of a prison yard, off drugs and on her way to Dallas with plans of a new life. Szabo was never heard from again. Now her four children, who had been adopted out in childhood and met each for the first time as adults, are looking for Mom.
Leading the search is Szabo's daughter, Elizabeth Alldridge, 33. One of her stack of leads is her mother's booking photo taken in a lineup at Frontera State prison. It's a photo of a beautiful young woman who doesn't appear hardened by what had happened to her. Alldridge has worked nonstop piecing together the puzzle of her mother's life, from 1966 when she ran away from an abusive stepfather, to 1983 when she seems to have vanished.
"I have always looked for her because I had memory of her...I feel attached," said Alldridge, a married mother of three who now lives in Las Vegas. "I've been actively searching for her since I was 18. The result of my search, so far, is that I found everyone but my Mom. Having come so far, I can't quit...I can't let go," explains Alldridge. "I love my adoptive parents, but there is not a day that goes by that I don't think of her. Is she living the good life she sought? Or is she a 'Jane Doe' buried in some potter's field?
Alldridge pieced together a 15-year period in her mother's life and it led to three siblings she never knew: Harry Allen, 38, of San Diego; Joanna Harvey, 29, of Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Debbie Zinmaster, 27, of Three Rivers, Michigan. She combed foster-care and adoption records, examined police records, spent hours on Internet, telephoned people across the country she didn't know. She even sent a blood sample to Texas in hope a DNA match would link her to a dead woman whose body was never claimed.
In 1966, at age 17, Brenda Szabo had left her firstborn, a 7-month old boy, on the steps of a New York Police Department precinct station and left town when police wanted to question her about her boyfriend's overdose, police records show. She then criss-crossed the country from New York to California, giving birth to thee more children. The fathers of Szabo's children lived tragic lives -- One died in a knife fight at a rock concert in Watsonville, California; another committed suicide; still another died from a heroin overdose; and Frank Szabo was killed in a car accident. Szabo's drug use and series of arrests began in California, in 1969. She waitressed, danced in nightclubs, sold drugs and sex, county records show. She changed Social Security numbers frequently and used a number of aliases, according to court documents and family members.
On April 17, 1972 at a Culver City, California hospital, she gave birth to Alldridge and named her Elizabeth Jeanette Bruce. When Alldridge was 4 months old, Szabo fought with her boyfriend and left her daughter in the care of a friend until an armed robbery conviction in 1973 landed Szabo back in jail; Alldridge was placed in foster care. In a 10-page letter dated January 22, 1975, written to her social worker while Alldridge was still in foster care, Szabo revealed doubts about being a mother: "I never looked at life or being a mother realistically....I have to do something for myself before I can do anything for Lisa [Elizabeth] ..I do love her."
In the early '80s. Szabo started pulling her life together. She moved to Antelope Valley, California and enrolled in a community college to take courses in wildlife and forestry, transcripts show. She was off drugs and worked as a dog groomer. But a prior probation violation came up to haunt her and she was incarcerated at Frontera State Prison until 1981. In 1983, she told relatives she was heading back to Dallas promising she would call "in two weeks." She has not been heard from since, and would now be 55. Alldridge looks at her mother's booking photo and sees calmness and hope. "She looks beautiful," Alldridge said. "Logic tells me she got a new life and does not want to look back. The mug shot says it all."
But Lori Carangelo, whose international organization, Americans For Open Records, has helped over 14,000 adoptees and parents locate each other free of charge, and whom Alldridge contacted for search ideas, believes that if Szabo is alive, she's no different than 98% of mothers who "voluntarily relinquished" children to adoption.
In Carangelo's experience these mothers didn't want to give up their children and they never forget them. They simply had no other options at the time. According to Carangelo and stats compiled from major private search-support organizations as well public Social Services agencies, only 1-2% of the mothers found by adult adoptees have refused contact. Like adoptees, many relinquishing mothers are afraid of rejection or of imposing on the 'better life' they were promised their children would have but which no social worker can predict nor guarantee. But they want to be found.
Carangelo read the many 1970s letters in Szabo's adoption file that were written by Szabo, Szabo's mother, and social workers. Szabo did not want her daughter (Elizabeth Alldridge) to be adopted. Szabo and Szabo's mother tried many times to reclaim her. Alldridge's father and his father, also cared. Dead or alive, Brenda Szabo wants her daughter to find her.
Carangelo, 60, found her own son in 1987, 18 years after she had lost him to adoption. She retired from assisting family searches except for the many incarcerated adoptees she hears from, but provides a web-site offering others free "how to" self-help information, including free downloads of the latest editions of Carangelo's books, "The Ultimate Search Book," "Chosen Children," and "Statistics of Adoption," at http://AmFOR.net.
If you have any information as to the possible whereabouts of Brenda Joan Allen Szabo, please contact Elizabeth Alldridge, (702) 480-2890 or ejay3478@aol.com.

Christina Calayca

Christina Calayca's mother Elizabeth Rutledge clutches to hope that her daughter will be found after missing for over a year.

Christina a young woman of twenty years of age went on a camping trip with her cousin and two friends August 5, 2007. She was last seen August 6 by her friend Eddy Migue as they had split up on a jog together..

An extensive search of the area was conducted and all resources were pulled out in hopes to find the young daycare worker..But the search came up fruitless, no Christine.

"I have a lot of faith up until now that she is alive," says Elizabeth Rutledge "But there's also a lot of visionaries, and the visionaries say that .." the Toronto woman pauses, bracing herself. "... she's dead and she's murdered, so I don't know where."

Elizabeth believes her daughter was abducted even though the OPP does not suspect foul play.

So the question remains. Where is Christina? Was she abducted or did she leave on her own? Will Elizabeth Rutledge get the answers that she so desperatly seeks? Will a mothers heart ever be put at ease?