The Last Place You'd Look

by Carole Moore

  Reflecting on his long career in private investigation, Copus estimates his success rate in finding missing persons is about 90 percent, which is a pretty good clearance rate. He’s proud of those numbers, but it’s the 10 percent he doesn’t find that haunts him.

  Middle-aged, with glasses perched on his nose, Copus speaks of those cases in vowels that wind as long and endless as a country dirt road. A product of Alabama, he resides in Athens, Georgia, a college town not far from Atlanta. After his own graduation from college, Copus made his way to the FBI, where he worked as a special agent for almost a decade, leaving, he says, when the constant transfers proved too hard on his home life. He settled into a job directing private investigations for a large law firm, but after a decade of telling other people what to do, he decided to parlay his experience into a private investigations agency of his own.

  Over the years, Copus worked his share of the private eye’s steady diet: divorces, employee thefts, evidence gathering for criminal defense attorneys; however, the missing persons cases he signed on for were the vehicles for both his greatest accomplishments and most devastating failures.

  Parental abduction cases and runaways are typical of the missing persons cases that cross a private investigator’s desk. Copus will say without hesitation that not all private investigators are equal, not all are qualified to work these cases, and it helps to know the difference between a good private eye and one who is in it for the quick bucks.

  Nationwide, it’s impossible to say how many missing persons cases are brought to the private sector, since no one even knows how many private investigators there are. Some states, including Mississippi and Colorado, lack licensing requirements. But the majority of states do regulate private investigators, if only to make them buy a license and submit to a criminal background check.

  Private investigators’ associations abound, and like state standards, association standards differ. Some seem to exist to sell gear and training to their members; others set high standards and expect their members to adhere to them. With plenty of muscle in place to enforce their rules, they also interact with state licensing agencies.

  Training and education also vary. Some private investigators come to the profession as did Copus: via the military or prior law enforcement. Others decide to become a private investigator, then buy a newspaper advertisement or invest in a Web site. Like people who call themselves “actors” after having headshots taken, it’s not technically a lie but also not the absolute truth. Many times, amateurs dabbling in the business do the most harm.

  Private investigators like Copus work a steady diet of runaway cases. They understand police will take those cases just so far; once it is clear a child has taken off on his or her own and is of a certain age, official enthusiasm levels off. It’s not because police are not interested in getting the child back to his or her parents—that’s in everyone’s best interest. A kid who returns home is less likely to be holed up somewhere with a boyfriend, turning tricks on the street, stealing, doing drugs, living homeless, or cluttering up a police blotter.

  Most departments don’t have the budgets or manpower to pursue a runaway past the state line. For the most part, they are entered into the system and local police are told to be on the lookout for them. If kids are older than sixteen, police can’t even make them go back home if they find them. All they can do is notify the parents that they are alive. A private investigator, however, does not have all those official roadblocks.

  Hired help can cross any jurisdictional boundary their client can afford, and they can pass the results of their investigations back to the client. Hiring a private investigator can be a real win-win for the clients if everything works out. But it can also lead to questions of cost and competency.

  Some private investigators are upfront about how much they charge. One who claims to specialize in missing persons advertises $850 a day for his services, more when he’s out of town on a case. Any additional expenses, including plane fare, meals, and hotel rooms, are on top of his regular fees and must be prepaid, which is not untypical.

  Copus recalls a case where the mother of a runaway paid a private investigator between $8,000 and $10,000 to find her daughter. When he took over the case, he visited the private investigator that had been hired to see what the initial investigation turned up. The private investigator had found nothing at all. In fact, she seemed to be successful only in billing her client.

  When a parent is faced with the trauma of a missing child, and the police can’t or won’t help, money becomes a small consideration next to finding that child. Driven by emotion and the need to know that they are doing something, many parents open the phone book or use the Internet to pick a private investigator. Few check on the private investigator beyond finding out whether the firm handles missing persons cases, and the parents often end up hiring individuals who lack even the basic skills to conduct a thorough search.

  The unvarnished truth about the private investigation business is that they are not all created equal. Those investigators that lack a great deal of prior legal experience must rely on their relationships with law enforcement.

  And unless investigators have a good working relationship with the police, it is doubtful they are going to get any information from them. They can tap a phone, but it’s illegal, and so are most of the methods used by the private detectives in the movies: using electronic devices to tail cars, going through mailboxes without permission, hacking into databases. What is illegal for most civilians is also illegal for private investigators.

  But it’s important to know what good private detectives know, and that is that they can also do things police cannot or will not do: They can cross jurisdictions. They don’t have to worry about evidence and courts and probable cause. They can avoid problems that occur when working with other agencies. And they don’t have to deal with the media or public opinion.

  For many, hiring a private investigator is the measure of last resort: leads have run cold, the police aren’t responsive, and the family is desperate to find their missing loved one. There is nothing wrong with bringing in outside help. A private hire can tip the balance in favor of the victim. But hooking up with someone who knows what he or she is doing is paramount to a successful conclusion.

  Those considering hiring a private eye should ask to talk to other clients, check the investigator’s record on missing persons cases, and know what is expected in return for the fee. Hiring those who don’t know what they are doing won’t make it better. It will only waste time.

  R

  Melanie Methany has been through a few rough patches in her short twenty-one years. Struggling to make ends meet, she has three young children by two different men and is no longer with either man. She enrolled in college-prep classes in hopes of going back to school to become a nurse and making enough money to pull her kids out of poverty. But the Belle, West Virginia, woman would never make it to those classes. Instead, she would disappear on July 19, 2006, leaving behind little but rumors and sorrow.

  Deborah Daniel, Melanie’s mother, says that after her daughter vanished, “psychics came out of the woodwork wanting to help.” One met the family at Melanie’s apartment and gave them a “reading.” Another Florida psychic sent Deborah and her family maps to track Melanie’s movements. Exhausted and out of options, they took a chance and followed those maps into the nearby mountains, finding nothing. In the meantime, the rumor mills worked overtime to provide fresh new torture for Melanie’s family.

  “I [sank] into a deep depression and fell into denial,” says Deborah, who also says the self-proclaimed psychics didn’t help her daughter’s case. “This all ended up being a fabrication of someone’s imagination,” she says.

  Police caution families of the missing to beware of scammers and people who claim to have a psychic knowledge of the loved one’s fate. They often pretend to have information to sell to the family—a ploy very common in international disappearances. Families, desperate to grab any st
raw, often fork over the money without realizing until it’s too late that they’ve been had. Police say trained investigators should handle leads.

  People who claim to have a psychic connection to the missing person are very often individuals who want to be involved in the case. Like rock star groupies, they are drawn to high-profile cases. Again, families are wise to hand over these individuals and their information to the authorities. They bring additional pain to people who can least afford it.

  “I have often referred to our ordeal as a never-healing wound that only scabs over. In my daughter’s case, our scab is constantly picked off with each new horrific rumor, leaving a deeper wound each time,” says Deborah.

  R

  When search-and-rescue personnel looked for Randy Spring, he was a twenty-eight-year-old hiker, out to enjoy a few days in the San Jacinto Mountains near Whitewater, California. Randy disappeared after his mother, Arlene, dropped him off with a backpack for a few days of hiking on October 10, 1988. The former army sergeant is well versed in outdoor survival skills and enjoys spending time in the wilderness. But this hiking trip was different—when Randy failed to contact his family after ten days in the woods, his mother called the police. They found nothing.

  If he is alive now, Randy is middle-aged. Arlene, now in her eighties, still mourns the son who left that October day and is afraid that she will never see him again. She has never stopped looking for her child.

  Bethanie Dougherty’s father, Terry Curtis, watched official search teams laced with volunteers comb the area around his daughter’s home in the days following his grown child’s disappearance. Bethanie has been missing from her home in rural Broome County, New York, since April 2, 2008.

  A striking redhead with long tresses and big, round eyes, Bethanie was forty when last seen. She lived with her eighteen-year-old son in a home in the hamlet of Killawog. On the night before she disappeared, Bethanie put on her pajamas and said goodnight to her son. He awoke the next morning to find her car in the driveway and her personal effects still in the house. When he returned home from school, nothing had changed. Investigators later said area residents reported hearing some screams outside at around 3:00 in the morning. State troopers called to the scene had investigated and found nothing suspicious.

  Bethanie Dougherty. Courtesy of Terry M. Curtis.

  Search teams formed across the area. The initial search covered about two hundred acres and lasted several days. Authorities used both air and land teams, as well as trained search dogs, but no sign of Bethanie has ever been found.

  “The sheriffs have told us some, but very little, about Bethanie’s disappearance. They say it is because they know very little. They have found no trace of her and no physical evidence of any kind,” says Terry.

  Benjamin Roseland disappeared from the middle of a bustling city like an icicle melting from an overhang. He stepped from a friend’s house onto the frozen streets of Clinton, Iowa, on February 9, 2008, on his way to a nearby store and vanished. His family spread out across the town and searched for Ben but found nothing. They say they are somewhat bitter that search teams were not called in to look for him right away.

  Benjamin Roseland. Courtesy of Julie Connell.

  Nineteen when he vanished, Ben has blue eyes and a mischievous smile. His face bears the scars of a car accident. His mother, Theresa, says Ben liked his job, saved his money, and has a “big personality.”

  She isn’t satisfied with the way local law enforcement has searched for her son. Instead, she says, the family relies on friends to help them look for him.

  “Thousands of flyers have been distributed throughout the neighboring communities. Local trains, barges, and city bus lines have all carried Ben’s poster in the hope that someone will give us answers. The Cue Center for Missing Persons [www.ncmissingpersons.org, a nonprofit with a good reputation for helping families search for their missing loved ones] and a local advertising agency worked together to make two billboards of Ben for our community,” says Theresa.

  Three missing persons, three very different types of searches: Randy Spring disappeared in a vast wilderness; Bethanie Dougherty in a rural community; Ben Roseland in a city. But even though the approach, equipment, and personnel may vary depending on the terrain and circumstances of the disappearance, there are two things that remain the same when it comes to physical searches of an area: in order to minimize mistakes and maximize the potential for recovering evidence, searches should be controlled by professional search-and-rescue personnel, and timing is critical. Waiting too long to search—a frequent complaint fielded in reference to law enforcement—can result in the destruction of evidence.

  Search and rescue is a skill and not everyone can do it. In Randy Spring’s case, it would have been important to use professional searchers familiar with the territory to avoid the possible tragedy of losing a volunteer to an accident. In Bethanie’s case, local volunteers had the right sort of equipment to navigate the back roads and hills—four-wheel drive vehicles and trucks. In a city-based search, the physical features surrounding the search area might necessitate the use of special skills and equipment. And in all types of search and rescue, using the right type of K-9 team can make the difference between finding a trail and missing one.

  R

  On the day after Christmas 2008, Liz Lingenfelter’s forty-nine-year-old daughter, Beverly Meadows, walked out or was taken from the Marshall, Texas, nursing home in which she lived. She never returned.

  Liz says her family tried to keep Beverly at home, but she suffered from severe medical problems they could not handle. They placed her in the home because they believed it was safe for her.

  Since Beverly disappeared, Liz and her family have become search experts. They made and distributed posters, drew maps of the area, and looked for her using the routes she would have traveled. They also posted a reward for information about her case.

  Beverly Meadows. Courtesy of Liz Lingenfelter.

  They searched the nearby motels, checked churches, abandoned houses, hospitals, jails, and morgues. They kept in touch with law enforcement. They worked with groups like the Cue Center and Project Jason. Today, they try to keep the case before the media. And they are hopeful Beverly remains alive.

  “It is extremely hard to get news out there about my daughter. For some reason most of the news reporters don’t think it’s important enough to keep reporting,” says Liz.

  For Liz, like many with loved ones or friends who are missing, keeping the buzz going and her daughter’s name and face in front of the media is both difficult and maddening. One Miami woman understands Liz’s feelings better than most.

  Frustrated with the lack of interest in the disappearance of her friend Lily Aramburo, Miami resident Janet Forte decided to take matters into her own hands and work the Internet on Lily’s behalf. Although the missing young mother still has not been found, it’s not for lack of trying on Janet’s part.

  Lily, a tiny, delicate Hispanic woman with luminous eyes, was last seen on June 2, 2007, leaving her boyfriend’s Miami condo at around 2:00 in the morning. The devoted mother of a small son, she is smart, energetic, loyal, and much tougher than her small (four foot, eleven inch, one hundred pound) frame would suggest, say her friends. Janet, who maintains a blog dedicated to the search for her friend, says Lily’s case has attracted a disappointing amount of media attention.

  But like the friend she seeks, Janet is strong and determined. She is also very, very good at finding her way around the Internet social networking maze.

  “I started with Craigslist, locally,” Janet says. She says she progressed from there to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Janet points out that even if an individual doesn’t have a lot of fancy technical knowledge or equipment, “You can do YouTube videos with a cell phone. An emotional plea can work wonders, even if it’s just ten seconds.”

  Janet’s determination has paid off. She has attracted the national media to her friend Lily’s story. But the real payoff, fi
nding Lily, has yet to happen.

  “It’s a daily struggle and a painful one,” she admits.

  Find her comprehensive blog post on how to work the social media in missing persons cases here: http://subliminalpixels.com/non-profit/50-free

  -online-resources-for-finding-a-missing-persons-using-social-media/.

  R

  Melissa Cabana doesn’t know what to think. Years after Melissa’s father, Ronald, vanished (on June 9, 2002), there has been not a single sighting of him. Like most families of the missing, she hopes for the best and is prepared for the worst.

  Melissa is the first to admit her father had problems: when he went missing, he had just been released from the hospital where he’d been confined for depression. Later police found broken glass with traces of blood in the bathroom of his small Alford, Florida, home, as well as medications for the treatment of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Melissa says her father’s reading glasses were still there, and his clothes were laid out as if he planned a trip.

  She says her dad had filed a bogus insurance claim and was wanted for insurance fraud, but the family has no idea whether Ronald Cabana took a powder to escape the consequences of his actions, suffered a psychiatric incident that led him to homelessness and life on the streets, or something more sinister.

  All Melissa knows for sure is that her father is missing and she misses him.

  Melissa’s story is far from unusual. Although the number of missing persons reports that are filed has dropped in recent years, the National Crime Information Center held 93,192 active missing persons records in 2009. Of those, more than half are for adults, ages eighteen or older.

  R

  Several hundred people shift in their seats as the annual National Conference for Responding to Missing & Unidentified Persons kicks off in Appleton, Wisconsin (www.fvtc.edu). Sponsored and administered by Fox Valley Technical College, the conference brings together an eclectic mix of criminal justice professionals, agency heads, victim advocates, and families of the missing. They are all there for one reason: to improve the way missing persons cases are handled in the United States.