"A mother from Queens has suddenly vanished and her family is fearful of what might have happened to her.
Monique Vereen is concerned over the fate of the aunt she lives with, a 36-year-old hairdresser named Jamaica Smith, who took her daughter to school, then vanished.
"It's creepy for somebody to just drop off their daughter and then you don't see them no more?" said Vereen.
It's been a week now, Vereen said, since then. Last Wednesday morning, Smith took her 6-year-old daughter to school on a bus, the Laurelton School, PS 156. The child showed up safely, but Smith has not been seen since.
Family members say they've heard talk that there was a man seen in the neighborhood around the school, speaking suggestively to women, including Smith.
"As far as I know there was a guy that was giving girls compliments in the neighborhood," said Vereen. "I guess he made compliments when she was walking by or something, that she was pretty, and stuff like that."
From the school, Smith was to walk a few blocks to the home of her recently deceased mother to meet a carpet installer, but she never showed up.
The family suspects foul play.
"Her daughter was her right hand, she would never leave her daughter, never. To drop her off at school and not go back for her?" said Vereen.
While it's unclear what may have happened to her, parents at the school expressed concern.
"The children are in danger if something like that happened," said parent Arlene Clemmings.
For now, the family is hoping that the hundreds of fliers they have posted all over the area will lead someone with information to come forward. A police source said while detectives have no evidence to go on, they are not ruling out an abduction.
The following article shows the connection from domestic abuse to missing mother. Maybe not physically missing, however, she is missing from the lives of her children. Her children are, in most cases, left behind to deal with the aftermath for the rest of their lives.
The cases listed below are just a tiny example of an ever increasing list of women (and men) who are taken down by the manipulative, angry, and deadly abuser.
Just two weeks before she was killed — run over by her estranged husband in his car — Walz had obtained a protective order from a court in Cincinnati ordering him to have no contact her — even with her permission.
But Paul Walz spent most of the evening drinking with his estranged wife on the night she was killed, Boone County sheriff's spokesman Tom Scheben said.
Paul Walz told police the two had just left a party when she opened the door to his car and leaned out to vomit. She fell out and suffered fatal injuries when he ran over her, police say.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter, drunken driving and violating a protective order, and a trial is set for Jan. 18, 2010.
Deputy sheriffs in Hamilton County, Ohio, had charged Paul Walz two weeks before his wife's death with domestic violence and felony assault for allegedly running over her foot with his car. A protective order issued on May 25 ordered him to have no contact with her.
AMY DAVIS, 29, Jeffersonville, Ky., May 29
Amy Davis' family knew that her relationship with her ex-husband, Tony Patterson, was rocky, but they say they never suspected it would end violently.
She had taken out an emergency protective order against Patterson, but only because Amy's daughter — one of three children she'd adopted with Patterson before the two divorced — had told her that her ex-husband had made inappropriate sexual comments.
“It wasn't about violence to her,” said Davis' father, Ralph Davis.
Amy had a new fiancé, William Cain, and was seven months pregnant. Her My Space page noted that thought she was “stressed” she was “ready to enjoy my weekend” with Cain and the children.
Patterson couldn't accept the fact that she had met another man, Ralph Davis said.
“He kept calling her at all hours of the night,” he said. “She would change her number, and he would still get a hold of it.”
Nine days before she and Patterson were scheduled to appear in Montgomery County for a hearing on the protective order, Patterson forced his way into her mobile home southeast of Mount Sterling, shot and killed Cain, then chased Amy Davis into the yard and shot her dead, before killing himself.
“This just blindsided everyone,” Ralph Davis said. “He was always making threats, but we didn't think he would deliver on them.”
DANA GABRIELLE MCDONALD, 26, Louisville. Feb. 20
A therapist and nurse at the Home of the Innocents, Dana McDonald had been living with 29-year-old Michael Elery for about two months when they got in an argument two weeks before Christmas last year.
He refused to leave, so she called police, at which point he warned her that he would beat her up when he got out of jail, she said in a petition for a protective order.
“I think Michael will harm me,” McDonald wrote. “I want Michael to stay away.”
After hearing Elery's side of the story, a judge issued a domestic-violence order for three years, ordering Elery to stay 1,000 feet from her, and away from guns.
On Feb. 20, 2009, Elery was picked up in Harrison County, Ind., on a charge of public intoxication and told police he had assaulted his girlfriend in Louisville, according to court records.
McDonald was found dead of blunt-force injuries and multiple stab wounds in the apartment and Elery was charged with murder. He has pleaded not guilty and his trial is set for Aug. 27.
TASHA DYE, 35, Westport, Ky., Nov. 19, 2007
Tasha Dye was scared. Her estranged husband, Charles “Chuck” Dye whom she was divorcing, had threatened her and her family, she said in a petition for a protective order on Oct. 25, 2007.
That day, he had come to the home they had shared near the Ohio River, knocked on the door, and then barged in when she said to go away, she said. She locked herself in a bathroom and called 911, and he fled when he realized she'd called police.
But she had taken out a protective order against him in the past, and knew that other women had as well. “I am fearing he will do something to hurt me and my family,” she said in her petition.
Family Court Judge Tim Feeley had issued a domestic-violence order, instructing Dye to stay 500 feet away from Tasha and her mother, Carolyn Schildknesht, 55. There was no restriction placed on firearms.
The next month, three days after their divorce was final, Chuck Dye, 51, came to mobile home that Tasha Dye was sharing with Schildknesht, chased his ex-wife into the front yard and shot her in the head before killing himself.
“I really don't know what more could have been done to protect her,” said Joe Wells, her divorce lawyer. “The DVO was in place. All the boxes were checked like they're supposed to be.”
But Oldham County Police Detective Paul Kerr, who investigated the murder-suicide, said a GPS monitoring system — like the one proposed by House Speaker Greg Stumbo — may have saved Tasha Dye's life.
Although Chuck Dye lived close to his ex-wife — and could have beaten police to the scene if they had been alerted that he was approached her — Tasha Dye also would have gotten notice and would have had a chance to flee, Kerr said.
He said Chuck Dye would have been a perfect candidate for electronic monitoring.
“We knew him for years,” Kerr said. “We knew he was a violent person.”
A waitress and mother of three children, Theresa Hicks once tried to get Robert W. Casey out of her life, then let him back in.
On Sept. 30, 2006, after Casey, a disabled former gas station worker, smashed the window of Hicks' van, cutting her and two of her children, she won an order requiring him to stay away from her for two years.
“He threatened my life,” she told District Judge John McCarty.
But four months later, she asked to have the order “completely dropped.”
McCarty refused to do that, ordering Casey to continue in anger-management counseling, and to refrain from further violence or harassment. At Hicks' request, though, he dropped the no-contact order, and the couple reunited.
“He persisted until she came back,” said Jennifer Anderson, Hicks' sister.
On Oct. 17, 2007 — a week before the protective order was to expire — Hicks and Casey went out drinking, got into a fight, and Hicks was pushed, fell or jumped from a moving vehicle, police said.
Hicks died of multiple blunt-force trauma and Casey was charged with murder, drunken driving, violating a protective order and assault of another person earlier the same night.
Casey eventually pleaded guilty to violating the order and second-degree manslaughter, and was sentenced to 10 years. His public defender, Lelah Rogers, declined to comment.
Anderson said her sister was “miserable” in her relationship with Casey.
“She didn't want to go back to him,” Anderson said. “She began living with him to get him to leave her alone.”
There are many strategies that are available that may have been able to save the lives of these women.
Our country's attorneys, judges, advocates and citizens must start practicing better procedures to help victims of abuse stay alive.
Obviously an Order of Protection is nothing but a paper trail of future abuse
Kelly Currin Morris has been found after she allegedly went looking for the family dog a year ago, September 3, 2008. As the year wore on, and searches conducted, we watched the pain of this family who over and over again, went back out into the rural fields and woods of Stem, NC, knowing that one day their searching would end. That day has come, Kelly has been found, and now the family is making arrangements to lay her in her final resting place.
At a time of Thanksgiving, I'm sure the family is thankful for the fact that Kelly is no longer missing, but I'm also sure that it's a bittersweet time knowing that she will never sit at her place at the table.
"It's like a brick is lifted off your chest," Hollis(Wanda Hollis, Kelly's mother) said. "You don't know what it's like until you go through it. It's unbelievably deep."
Saturday, November 28, a public memorial service is planned to honor the life of Kelly. A fund is set up in lieu of flowers for her daughters.
As each of us sits with our families, thankful that we can reach out and touch each other this Thanksgiving Day, please take a moment during your grace to ask for a blessing for these young daughters.
Two little girls, like so many others out there, will spend the rest of their lives re-living losing their mother.
These are the surviving victims of a trauma that runs deep and lasts a lifetime. May we someday find a way to outstretch our hands of hope to these little (and big) children, help them find a way to find a "piece of peace" in their day.
Sphere: Related Content
While going through the myriad of missing persons posts on the Facebook newsfeed yesterday, I happened to see a picture and link put up by Kelly Jolkowski of Project Jason. The face of Christine Sheddy seemed to jump off the screen at me, I had to go to the link to read more of her and her case. In all of her pictures one thing stands out, her beautiful, haunting eyes. Her eyes draw the viewer in, seemingly asking to be found.
Christine Sheddy is the mother of three children, her two little boys, 2 and 4 were with her at the time of her disappearance from a home of friends in Pocomoke City, MD that she met through her boyfriend. According to news accounts Christine and her two children stayed behind at the home while the other couple went to pick up their own children from school. When they returned, Christine was gone, taking nothing with her, not her purse or any belongings, and her two boys were left in the home, alone.
As in so many cases of missing mothers, speculation runs rampant about the woman's character, her relationships and why she did what she did. Many times law enforcement agencies don't appropriately respond, saying that the missing adult probably just walked away, maybe just wanting to start a new life. All these familiar statements were heard by Christine's mother, Lynn Dodenhoff.
However, another familiar statement in missing mothers cases has also been said: "She would never leave her children." According to her mother, Christine was a loving mother, despite moodiness, and that she would never leave her children home alone, that was not in her character.
"All I want is my daughter so I can bring her home and put her to rest," Dodenhoff said. "I couldn't care less who was involved, I couldn't care less. I just want her home. That way her children could move on and not wonder why their mother left; because she would never leave them. It will come to an end, and we will find my daughter, and justice will be served. I have full confidence that will happen."
As with many police departments, it's been reported that the agency involved was not seriously investigating this missing mother, speculating that her lifestyle choices put her into a certain category and that they were uncooperative in organizing searches and coming forth with information. Key evidence tends to go cold very quickly in missing persons cases and if not thoroughly investigated, quickly the trail often leads to dead ends.
Certain protocals that every police department must follow are being introduced in a new bill, HR 3695, The Help Find the Missing Act (Billy's Law) that if passed will mandate that all information be entered into National data bases in a timely manner, thus speeding up the process for family members who are reporting a missing loved one. I urge every citizen to write and support this important legislation.
Missing persons are victims and oftentimes, missing adults, especially, are not given proper attention. Many, many families are finding that rather than idly sit by and wait for word, they must find the strength to take on several tasks that will help lead them to real evidence. Our society and citizens must wake up and realize that it takes us all to help find the missing.
November 13 was the two year anniversary marking the day that Christine Sheddy vanished. Small searches for her were conducted and earlier this year a large scale search was organized, yet turned up no positive results on her whereabouts. Her children deserve answers.
Missing Person: Christine Sheddy
Date of Birth: 12/22/80
Missing Since: 11/13/07
Missing City: Pocomoke
Missing State: MD
Age at time of disappearance: 26
Gender: Female
Race: White
Height: 5 ft 4 in
Weight: 100 lbs
Hair Color: DK Blonde
Hair (other): Short
Eye Color: Blue
Complexion: Fair
Characteristics: tattoo on lower back
Clothing: jeans, white shirt
Jewelry: rings
Circumstances: Christine was staying at a friend's home and when the friends left to pick up children and then returned, Christine was missing. Christine's children were found at the house alone. Christine took no possessions with her.
Agency Name: Worcester County Bureau of Investication
Agency Phone: 1-410-352-3476
Sphere: Related Content
H.R. 3695, The Help Find the Missing Act needs the support of everyone.
Every year tens of thousands of Americans go missing, never to be seen by their loved ones again. Additionally, there are also an estimated 40,000 sets of unidentified human remains that are being held or disposed of across the country. Sadly, because of gaps in the nation's missing persons systems, missing persons and unidentified remains are rarely matched. The Help Find the Missing Act (Billy's Law) is an effort to fix these gaps. We want to help families to have the resources so that we can lessen the burden on the system as well as bringing loved ones home for a proper burial.
Sponsored by Representatives Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Ted Poe (R-TX)
This legislation is named after Billy Smolinski of Waterbury, Connecticut who went missing on August 24, 2004 at the age of 31. Billy's family knows all-too-well the systemic challenges in trying to find the missing. They quickly learned that while federal law mandates law enforcement report missing children, there are no such requirements for adults - or unidentified bodies. Compounding this problem is the fact that local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, and coroners, often don't have the resources or training to voluntarily report these cases. Finally, even when missing adults and remains are reported, the wide-range of unconnected federal, state, local, and non-profit databases to help match the missing with unidentified bodies, makes finding a match an often insurmountable challenge.
The easiest and quickest way to show your support and contact your Representatives is to go to the following and sign up. Everything else is done for you including providing a direct phone number to make a follow up call.
This story is of a mother who really didn't "go missing" but vanished right before her son's eyes. This is a story that connects the dots between domestic violence, murder, and a child who will forever be branded as the "kid whose mother got killed."
As the trial proceeds and witness after witness describe the events, a young 13 year old boy is sharing with the jury what he saw that afternoon as he was being picked up from his father's after a custody visit. To say that the "family" had a strange living arrangement is an understatement.
Micheal Lister, Anthony Lister's father, was also Tracie Raisner's EX-boyfriend. Living in the Lister home was Micheal's wife of 25 years, his current girlfriend and 6 of his children by 3 different women. Needless to say, this doesn't sound like an "Ozzie and Harriet" type of household.
Testimony revealed what Lister's own lawyers say was an ''unusual'' living arrangement at Lister's home. Staying there were Carol Lister, his wife of 25 years; Christina Murawski, his girlfriend; and six of his children by three women.
On the evening of the shooting, Lister got a call letting him know Raisner was dropping Anthony off, Carol Lister and Rivera testified. He then had Murawski get his gun, and he holstered it and went outside, they said.
Anthony Lister saw it all. At 12 years old he watched as his father gunned down his mother on a sidewalk in front of several people begging him to stop. He is the one who ran to her and cried frantically over her lifeless body. Anthony Lister will never, ever forget what he saw that day as his mother lay dead.
Michael Lister will be found guilty of something, whether it be first, second or third degree murder, or voluntary manslaughter. He will serve jail time, but it will be Anthony, now 13 and entering the turbulent teens that will be forever serving a life sentence. I doubt that after this trial we will hear about Anthony Lister again. As he continues on with his shattered life he could go down as many paths as the directions of shards of broken glass. Will he choose a path of destruction or will he choose to find strength to break the chains from the anger, sadness and defeat he must be feeling? He couldn't save his mother that day, no matter how hard he screamed for her to come back to him.
Anthony has joined the ranks of the thousands of children who have lost a parent to violence. We don't hear much about these kids, and probably don't wonder about them either. They tend to be "yesterday's news" as a more thrilling story comes to the media outlets. Have you ever thought about the scars these children carry? There is not much help available for the child victims of violence as they are shuttled through the system or through family members. They are expected to grieve, move on and get over it.
In Honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Author and Expert Domestic Violence Strategist, Susan Murphy Milano, is offering her innovative book, Moving Out, Moving On at a discount to anyone who is in a violent relationship, or knows someone who needs to safely move away from abuse.
This book is available in quantity for agencies, shelters, coalitions and any other organizations who deal with victims of abuse.
For the month of October you can order a hard copy of the book which includes a CD of all of the important forms you will need to use. The hard copy (for $15 including postage) can be ordered at the following email:
The Ebook also includes samples of forms to use, as well.
Moving Out, Moving On will not only save you thousands in dollars, it could very well save a life!
Through clear examination, simple forms and worksheets, Moving out, Moving on , logically takes the reader through all the necessary preparation and information gathering to effectively seek legal redress, protect one’s assets and credit, address considerations regarding children, define alternate living arrangements, and deal with the myriad of financial problems and concerns surrounding a divorce or break-up. Moving out, Moving on, also addresses in detail abusive relationships, domestic violence and stalking and how to safely confront these situations.
Moving out, Moving on , is more than a simple workbook, but a true plan to take control of one’s life and face the future head on. This is not just another “divorce book” written by a so called “expert.” Moving out, Moving on, is authored by a person who truly knows…Susan Murphy-Milano
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