disabled

Sometimes people’s responses make me so sad

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Though my website is very well known in online true crime spaces, I tend to personally avoid such spaces myself. This is in part because I wish to pursue other interests on social media and don’t want my algorithm choked with missing persons stuff when I’m “off the clock” and in part because people in true crime forums can be extremely judgmental.

There are soooo many criticisms of missing people’s families, by people who have never had a missing person in their family. So many very serious accusations made based on vibes rather than evidence.

The other day I took the uncommon step of posting about a disappearance on Reddit, not in a true crime sub cause this case isn’t thought to be criminal in nature. My post generated a lot of responses and some of them just made me really sad because people were casting judgment on the missing woman’s family and it was clear that many of them simply had no idea what they were talking about.

The missing woman was a type one diabetic and disappeared without her insulin. In type one diabetes, insulin is a life sustaining medication. She wouldn’t have lasted a week without it. About three weeks or so after she went missing her parents published an obituary for her, which lamented the lack of support services available for people like her; she was autistic as well as diabetic.

Some people were suspicious that her parents decided she was dead and put out the obituary in less than a month (that’s the sort of thing I mean when I say “based on vibes”), but it made perfect sense to me: they didn’t know exactly what happened to her but they did know she did not have insulin and they knew she couldn’t have possibly survived very long without it. One person was like “The stuff about the lack of support services is a lie, there are plenty of support services for people like her!” They basically made that up. There is in fact a severe lack of support services for autistic adults nationwide, and the fact that they were insisting this was not the case was a clear indication they had no idea what it was like to be an autistic adult or a caregiver for one. Another person was like “No one just runs off into the abyss!” Um… autistic people do all the time. There’s even a name for it, “eloping.”

It is also true that the general tone of the discussion was expressing sorrow about what happened and talking of the difficulties of caring for an autistic adult. The people who were making judgmental and/or ignorant statements were mostly downvoted and criticized. But the fact that many people were making such comments still made me sad.

The missing woman’s disappearance is thought to have been a tragic accident; there’s no evidence that it was not and no evidence that her parents didn’t care about her. They’d been managing her diabetes, an indication that they were generally responsible. They made a mistake, yes, but if they had known what the result what would be they would not have made the choice they did. Disabled people should get as much freedom as they can given the limitations of their disability, and her parents appear to have made a choice that, 99 times out of 100, would have turned out just fine. But this 1 time it did not and I’m sure they will regret this for the rest of their days and already feel bad enough about it without the remarks of internet strangers adding to their guilt.

It’s possible I feel especially sensitive about this because this woman was 23, and when I was 23 I was going through some serious issues with my mental illness, in and out of psych hospitals. I was hospitalized three times in like six months. I went on a trip to see a friend one time and wound up in the hospital under psychiatric observation due to a misunderstanding/overreaction. A few months later I went on another trip to see another friend and I was raped. My parents were extremely concerned and saying maybe I shouldn’t leave home anymore and I was extremely annoyed at what I saw of them constantly hovering around me. No 23-year-old wants their parents around them all the time and I wanted to enjoy all the freedoms other young adults have. (Frankly, because of the issues in my family that I have previously mentioned on this blog, being around my family made my mental health worse.) I’m sure the missing woman in this case felt the same way. She was more disabled than I was but she too didn’t want to be around her parents 24/7.

I think a lot of people don’t like admitting mistakes happen and accidents happen and will come up with some person to blame, or some theory as to why it wasn’t really an accident, because they don’t want to think that something like that could happen to them or someone they love.

I’ve seen this tendency when I’ve posted case reports of accidental deaths to Reddit. There’s always someone in the comments being like “I don’t think that’s what happened, I think XYZ happened instead.” And I am like, Sir, you are a random Redditor and per your post history you are a carpenter and you have read all of a two-page article about this case; do you really think you know more about this case than the medical examiner who did the autopsy and the police who investigated the death?

I understand that people can’t help but form opinions and I understand they want to talk about those opinions. And I’ve probably cast judgment from time to time when I should not have. But I think of how easy it would be for the relatives of those missing/deceased people to find those posts and how hurtful it would be for them to read.

What I mean is, be careful what you say, particularly when it’s on a public forum literally anyone can read.

MP of the week: Russell Boyle

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This week’s featured missing person is Russell James Boyle, a 64-year-old man who disappeared from Alton, Missouri sometime in late June or early July 2016. The exact date of his disappearance is unknown.

Boyle is white, with gray hair and hazel eyes and a possible beard and/or mustache. He’s 5’8 tall and weighed 130 pounds at the time of his disappearance. He was last seen wearing blue jeans or blue jean shorts. He has dementia.

MP of the week: Adam Kellner

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This week’s featured missing person is Adam Christopher Kellner, a 34-year-old man who disappeared from Stevenson Ranch, California on November 8, 2007. He’s white, with black hair and brown eyes, 5’6 tall and 165 to 175 pounds. He always wears a hat, even indoors, perhaps to hide his bald patch. He may have been last seen wearing a black jacket.

Keller has schizophrenia and is considered a dependent adult as a result. Schizophrenia presents with what they call “positive symptoms” such as hearing voices (Kellner heard voices), and also “negative symptoms”, which aren’t as well known and are basically things that should be there but aren’t, like having a blunted emotional range or being mute. It sounds like Kellner had a lot of negative symptoms; the casefile says he was unable to keep a job, “had no friends and hadn’t left the house for months, except to go to doctor’s appointments.” He lived with his mother and stepfather, but his mom was away from home on a trip when he went missing.

He left all his belongings behind, including all of his hats, which is weird because he always wore a hat. He didn’t own a car or know how to drive, and none of the local bus drivers recalled picking him up. He was just gone. His mom and stepdad can’t even think of a reason why he would have left. His psychiatrist doesn’t think he was suicidal.

It’s been almost twenty years. I think probably Kellner is not alive anymore, though I’m not sure what happened to him. If he is alive he’s probably living among the homeless somewhere. He was on his meds at the time of his disappearance and considered to be stable, but people with mental illnesses can deteriorate quickly when they go off their meds, and there are many people with untreated mental illness in the homeless community.

If still alive he’d be 52 today.

MP of the week: Tristen Myers

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This week’s featured missing person is four-year-old Tristen Alan Myers, who was last seen in Roseboro, North Carolina on October 5, 2000. (My fifteenth birthday.) He’s white, with blond hair, blue eyes, a speech impediment, and scars on the left side of his neck and the top of his head. His nickname is Buddy.

Tristen “Buddy” Myers

Tristen was living with his great-aunt and great-uncle; he’d only been with them a few months. He had severe behavioral problems, bad enough that he had to be hospitalized for them, but the doctors weren’t sure what was wrong with him. He self-harmed and was aggressive to other children and to animals. He wandered away from the house with two dogs while his great-aunt was sleeping. The dogs returned, separately from each other, without Tristen. He was never seen again.

Authorities are not sure what happened to Tristen but don’t think his family was involved. They lean towards either accidental drowning or stranger abduction. He was last seen wearing black t-shirt, blue jeans and white Mickey Mouse sneakers.

If still alive, Tristen Myers would be 29 in July.

MP of the week: Garrett Hughes

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This week’s featured missing person is Garrett Thomas Hughes, a 44-year-old man missing since November 27, 2003 from Georgetown, South Carolina. He had sustained a traumatic brain injury about fifteen years earlier and had been rendered disabled; he lived in an assisted living facility.

Hughes couldn’t walk very far due to partial paralysis from his TBI. It’s not clear what happened to him but I doubt he is still alive today.

He is 5’9 and about 180-190 pounds with black hair, brown eyes and a scar on his forehead. He’d be 65 today.

MP of the week: Albert Haft

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This week’s featured missing person is Albert Charles Haft IV, last seen in Columbus, Ohio on December 12, 2014. Haft was 52 then, and would be 61 now. He has black hair and green eyes.

Haft had been staying in a transitional home after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital. He was caught drinking which was against the rules of the home, and they kicked him out. This was a few days before he was last seen. He wound up with a room in a motel, but had gone missing by morning.

His sister believes he could be dead. Certainly that’s possible, even likely by now. But I wonder if he is still adrift in the homeless community somewhere.

MP of the week: Laurel Rogers

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This week’s featured missing person is Laurel Lea Rogers, a 28-year-old woman who disappeared from Port Orange, Florida on February 1, 2010. She’s described as white, with light brown hair, blue eyes, pierced ears, several moles on her back, scars on her wrists, and scars and bruising on her arms and legs. She’s tall, somewhere bweetn 5’7 and 5’10, and weighed somewhere between 150 and 166 pounds at the time of her disappearance. The Charley Project page has a detailed description of her clothes and a photo of her wearing said clothes.

Unfortunately Laurel had a lot of problems in her life, most notably health problems which caused chronic pain. She had to take ten different prescription medicines each day, and she doesn’t have her medicine with her; without it she will eventually die. She would sometimes buy drugs on the street if her legitimate prescriptions weren’t helping out her pain.

Given her state of health, I think it’s unlikely she’s still alive, unless she’s somehow getting her medicine under another name. Which is possible I suppose. Whenever illicit drugs are a factor in a case you have to consider foul play.

I hope everyone is doing well. I’ve been really tired lately and feeling down on myself. I think I’ve got a bit of seasonal depression; I think things will pick up when the weather gets warmer and sunnier. February is such a terrible month in the midwest.

MP of the week: Kevin Lenting

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This week’s featured missing person is Kevin Edward Lenting, a 41-year-old man who disappeared from Mason County, Washington on October 3, 2009. Three days later, his truck was found abandoned at a bridge near a campground.

Lenting was having issues at the time of his disappearance: he had a history of abusing heroin, his family thinks he suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness or illnesses, and police believe he was suicidal. Yet there’s no hard evidence he took his own life. He’s just gone. If still alive, he might be among the homeless population.

Lenting is white and 6’3 with a medium to heavy build (there’s a large weight range, 185 to 240 pounds), with graying brown hair and blue eyes. If still alive he’d be 54 today.

MP of the week: Verna Richardson

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This week’s featured missing person is Verna Marie Richardson, a 48-year-old grandmother who was last seen in Fort Myers, Florida on July 7, 1990. She had begun dating a guy named Alexander Smith, but broke up with him the summer she went missing and was trying to reconcile with her husband.

Smith took her from her home on the day of her disappearance, apparently against her will. Verna was last heard from when she placed a pay phone call to say Smith had kidnapped her, tied her up and beaten her. For some reason she chose to call a friend to tell them this, instead of 911. She was never heard from again and Smith later crashed her car and was arrested for drunk driving. Richardson was gone by then, but Smith still had her purse.

I think there’s a pretty strong presumption of foul play here. I wonder where Smith is now, or if he’s even still alive.

Verna had multiple health problems, including insulin-dependent diabetes, and she needed dialysis. Even if Smith didn’t kill her, she could not have survived long without needing medical assistance.

In the unlikely event she’s still alive, she’d be 80 today. She is black, pierced ears, and she’s missing her two front teeth. She’s 5’8 and at the time of her disappearance she weighed somewhere between 180 and 225 pounds.

MP of the week: Barry Douglas

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This week’s featured missing person case is Barry Keith Douglas, a 31-year-old man who disappeared from Galeton, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1988. He was last seen walking near his home, in the direction of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. He stopped to talk to some people he knew on the way, and they were the last ones to see him.

He left behind almost everything, including his car. He apparently only took his wallet a .30-06 rifle. And he left his front door propped open with the radio on.

Douglas is described as white, 6’0 and 200 pounds, with red hair and blue eyes. He suffers from schizophrenia and one theory is that he disappeared due to developing amnesia from his illness.

If still alive, Barry Douglas would be 65 today.