Searchers Find Hope At Missing Persons Bureau Clearinghouse Centralizes Information On People Who Have Disappeared
Ginny Davis has not given up on finding her sister even though she disappeared more than a decade ago.
Her hopes rise when the detective assigned to investigate Deborah Jean Swanson’s disappearance calls. It is unlikely her sister, missing from Coeur d’Alene since 1986, is still alive, but Davis can’t be sure.
“You still can’t put that hope to rest,” she said recently from her Seattle-area home.
Swanson is among more than a dozen North Idaho missing persons listed on a state Internet Web site that publicizes their disappearances. The opening of the Idaho Missing Persons Clearinghouse recently made Idaho one of the last states to organize a centralized public effort to track missing persons.
“Listening to the (families of) victims, they never give up hope,” said Dona Wood, who oversees the clearinghouse. “So I think we can’t give up hope either.”
The state clearinghouse began in July 1996 as a three-year pilot program with a $150,000 annual budget.
Wood, the Department of Law Enforcement records supervisor in Boise, is the agency’s only employee dedicated to the clearinghouse. Another employee is assigned part time to update its Web page.
The clearinghouse’s impact will be evaluated in the summer of 1999, when a decision will be made if it will remain open.
Half of all Idaho households claim to own a working personal computer, according to Media Metrix, a New York-based group that monitors audience ratings for the World Wide Web. That ranks above the national average of 44 percent.
Currently, anyone whose “personal safety is in danger” makes the agency’s Web site, Wood said. Most are categorized as “endangered” or “involuntary” missing persons. Other categories include “disability” and “juvenile.”
Several North Idaho cases are among the nearly 80 missing people listed on the site. All but one are listed as either “endangered” or “involuntary.”
They include the high-profile disappearances of a schoolteacher, an exotic dancer, a theater janitor and a woman missing from the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation.
Those victims slipped quietly out of sight. Their undisturbed belongings have provided investigators few clues.
Their disappearances have gone unsolved at least a decade.
“Missing persons cases are about the toughest there are,” said Coeur d’Alene police Capt. Carl Bergh, who heads the department’s investigative division handling two of the cases.
A black and white flier tacked to Bergh’s bulletin board reminds him daily of a case he was handed April 1, 1986. The red words “Still Missing” mark Deborah Jean Swanson’s flier.
Next to it, another flier. Sally Anne Stone, who disappeared less than two months after Swanson.
“Hopefully, some day I’ll be able to call (the families) and tell them I’ve found their daughters,” Bergh said.
Friends in St. Maries reported Swanson missing when the 31-year-old woman did not come to Easter dinner.
Swanson, a popular special education teacher, was last seen on March 29, 1986, at the Tubbs Hill trail entrance. Presumably, Swanson was going to hike or jog on the trail.
Police found Swanson’s car in a parking lot near Tubbs Hill. Her purse and shopping bags were inside.
An exhaustive search followed. Searchers divided Tubbs Hill into grids to scour the woods. Divers combed the water around the lake and under The Coeur d’Alene Resort docks. An Air Force helicopter with infrared scanning capability flew overhead.
“It still astounds me that it’s been over 12 years, and I get emotional about it,” Davis said. “It’s still hard. I just really miss my sister.”
Stone disappeared seven weeks later. The 20-year-old exotic dancer was last seen leaving an appointment with a physical therapist who was treating her for a knee injury.
Her husband reported Stone missing when she did not visit him in the Ada County Jail over Memorial Day weekend.
Officers who checked her house found nothing suspicious. Her 1974 Chevy Nova was parked out front. Several days worth of newspapers were piled on the porch.
“We still have no knowledge of what happened to Sally Stone,” Bergh said.
Notes from both investigations fill several casebooks. Detectives have ruled nothing out in either case.
The lack of a resolution in both women’s disappearance, particularly the Swanson case, for which Bergh was assigned the role of lead investigator, weighs on him.
“A case that you’re the primary investigator on you always think about,” Bergh said.
In Lewiston, police detectives have been investigating for 15 years the disappearance of three people. The man and two women were last seen at or near the Lewiston Civic Theatre the night of Sept. 12, 1982.
The bodies of stepsisters Kristina Nelson, 21, and Jacqueline “Brandi” Miller, 18, were found in 1984. Steven Pearsall, 35 when he disappeared, is listed on the state missing persons Web page.
“It is believed he is the victim of a homicide,” said Lewiston detective Lt. Alan Johnson.
Police circulated fliers shortly after their disappearance and have, over the years, searched extensively for Pearsall.
Detectives also have questioned a prime suspect about the disappearance of all three. They believe the suspect may also be linked to the disappearance of 12-year-old Christina White three years earlier from Asotin, Wash., but do not have enough evidence to charge the man.
“It’s frustrating when you know who you think is responsible,” Johnson said.
Investigators in Plummer and Moscow have experienced similar frustration in the disappearances of Tina Marie Finley, 25, and Gayla Christine Schaper, 28.
Several leads have investigators in both cases believing they are close to solving them. Both are listed “endangered” missing persons on the state Web site.
Last year, 36,939 people were reported missing nationally. Idaho authorities received 199 reports last year and are investigating 213 active cases.
A few of the occasional tips left on the clearinghouse answering machine have helped solve other cases, Wood said.
One involved a Pocatello child being returned safely from Puerto Rico. The boy’s father, the noncustodial parent, took his son from his mother, Wood said.
The state clearinghouse acted as a liaison for the local police, FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the case.
Kootenai County sheriff’s detectives still are hoping for the tip that will close their case on Dennis Wayne Jameson, who disappeared July 4, 1996.
Detectives recovered a body several months later they believe may be that of Jameson, but more than a year later they are still awaiting forensic tests from an FBI laboratory to be sure.
A lack of cooperation from people Jameson was last seen with has slowed the investigation. Information about the 36-year-old Rathdrum man is listed on the state missing persons Web site.
“The word we have is he overdosed and was dumped in the forest,” said detective Sgt. Jerry Wiedenhoff. “We’re still looking at it as a homicide until we can figure something else out.”
The feeling among investigators is in most missing persons cases at least one person holds the key to cracking the case.
“Somebody out there might have it,” Johnson said of Pearsall’s disappearance. “They just haven’t got it to us.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color)
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ONLINE The Internet address for the Idaho Missing Persons Clearinghouse is www.state.id.us/dle.htm