A Georgia clerk is murdered

Convenience stores are easy targets for hit-and-run robbers. Because of our mobile society and the randomness of such crimes, many of the heists go unsolved. In some cases, the isolation and vulnerability of store clerks can lead to murder. The senseless shooting of Linda Raulerson comes to mind. The Lake City, Florida wife and mother was working alone in a Joy Food Store near I-10 when a robber gunned her down. More than a year later, her killer is still unknown. Now, in rural Douglas County, Georgia, another clerk has died.

On September 22, 2009, it was raining, a steady downpour that would last for days. Rivers and creeks were rising and would soon overflow, flooding hundreds of homes and businesses in the area. The deluge was so horrific that a woman would disappear when she drove her Jeep into the raging waters of Dog Creek. After two weeks of almost unabated rain, several local counties would be declared federal disaster areas.

At eleven o’clock that Monday night in Douglasville, Georgia, a robber entered the Circle K Food Store on Highway 5 near the Arbor Place Mall. He was pale, and had a slight build. He wore a baseball-style cap underneath a hoodie and his face was covered with a towel that portrayed an American flag and American Legion-type patches. In his right hand the man held a small handgun.

Because the weather had deterred most shoppers from venturing out, Maryann Humphrey, 63, was alone in the store. She cooperated with the robber, opening the cash register. Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller told reporters that “she gave him the money, but she struggled with him and he shot her.” During the struggle, Maryann was able to remove the towel, allowing the robber's face to be captured by the store’s surveillance video.

Once his face was exposed, the gunman shot Maryann in the chest. As she fell to the floor, he shot her again in the head. She was later found by a customer.

Maryann had a large extended family. Brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews lived all across the country. Born in Maryland, she had six brothers and two sisters. Twice-married, Maryann lived near her daughter and granddaughter. According to family members, she’d worked as a clerk or cashier for most of her adult life. “She was very good at her work, a job that most people wouldn’t have valued,” said Barbara Humphrey, her former sister-in-law.

Maryann loved computers, movies, and handheld games such as Yahtzee and poker.

Lt. Bruce Ferguson of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the killer looks to be between 13 and 19 years of age. He stands between five-feet-two and five-feet-four inches tall. His face is thin and bloodless, and police said he is either Caucasian or Hispanic. Because of the heavy flooding and the fact that few people were able to drive, investigators believe the teenager is from the area. “I think he’s a local boy,” Ferguson said “because you couldn’t get in here. You couldn’t leave, either, because we had our own little island. It was all shut down.”

The best clue may be the towel. Investigators determined that it can only be obtained from the Paralyzed Veterans of America by individuals who donate to the organization.

A $ 20,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the killer. As of this writing, he still had not been identified.

Gone Missing

Lindsey Baum vanished a few blocks from her home on June 26, 2009

Their faces are locked in perpetual smiles from better times. At present, sixty-three men, women, and children are pictured on the FBI’s “Missing and Kidnapped” website. Some were headline-grabbers, others barely known. Some have been missing for a few months, others for decades. Each portrait spirals back in time to tell a tale of mystery and loss.

Three months ago, Lindsey Baum, 10, left a friend’s residence in McCleary, Washington to walk home. Somewhere along the ten-minute route she vanished. Lindsey hasn’t been seen since. She’s eleven now, if she’s still alive. Police believe she was abducted.

On the night of May 25, 1996, Kristin Denise Smart headed toward her dorm on the California Polytechnic University campus. Another student walked part of the way with her. Then she disappeared. It’s been thirteen years and still there’s been no sign of the missing coed.

Three teenage girls vanished from the same area in Cleveland, Ohio. Amanda Berry, 16, went missing from her west side neighborhood in 2003. Fourteen-year-old Gina DeJesus disappeared in 2004. And Ashley Summers, 14, vanished in 2007. The local media has speculated that a serial kidnapper is responsible. Police have confirmed that they are investigating that possibility.

What happened to seven-year-old Alexis Patterson? In 2002, she walked toward her school in Milwaukee and was never seen again. Both her father and step-father have criminal records but were eliminated from suspicion by police. Alexis had had an argument with her mother before school and at first police thought she’d run way. Later, however, investigators said they suspected foul play.

The list goes on. Eight years ago, eleven-year-old Bethany Markowski disappeared from a shopping mall in Jackson, Tennessee. In 2005, 64-year-old Nita Mayo left her home in Hawthorne, Nevada and has never been seen again. In 2002, college student Rachel Cook went jogging in her hometown of Georgetown, Texas and never came home. Tionda Bradley, 10, and her sister Diamond, 3, walked to a nearby store in Chicago and vanished. It’s as if they all were lost in a black hole.

Their loved ones grieve; the public wonders how someone could just vanish without a trace; and the cops struggle to find answers. Some of the missing may never be found--others will turn up dead.

But as long as their bodies haven’t been found, there’s hope. Elizabeth Smart, Shawn Hornbeck, Shasta Groene, and Jaycee Lee Dugard are four among many who have been found alive after having been abducted.

For more information on these and other cases, go to http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/kidmiss.htm

Christians in the cross-hairs

Jeanne Assam may have saved hundreds of lives when she shot a madman who attacked the New Life Church in Colorado Springs

A Shootist Named Jeanne Assam
by Robert A .Waters

In Ecclesiastes, the poet writes: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun…” From the foundation of the church 2000 years ago, Christians have always faced violent attack.

Saul of Tarsus (who later became the apostle Paul) tormented Christians, subjecting many to imprisonment, torture, and even death. Nero used Christians as torches to light his gardens, and persecuted them for starting the conflagration that burned much of Rome to the ground. (Nero actually set the fires.) Throughout the centuries, Christians have been targets for violence.

Today is no different. Those who attack churches in the modern era may be anti-Christian zealots; they may be mentally disturbed individuals; they may carry a grudge or hatred against a particular church or certain members; or they may be disillusioned former members. For whatever reason, attacks on churches and Christians continue to this day.

When Oklahoma police recently found the mutilated body of Carol Daniels, pastor of a small church in Anadarko, Oklahoma, she was posed in a “crucifix” position. Many speculated that a serial killer was responsible. But the murder proved that there is no safety inside the church.

In Wisconsin, a disgruntled member of the Living Church of God pulled a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and blasted away. When it was over, seven members of the church were dead, including the pastor.

In Kansas, an abortion doctor was shot and killed inside the church he attended. In Knoxville, Tennessee, a psycho entered the Unitarian Evangelist Church and opened fire with a shotgun. One parishioner died, six more were wounded. At the Mount Olive Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles, a masked man entered and began blasting away with a shotgun. Two women were killed, and two others wounded.

On March 8, 2009, Fred Winters, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois, was delivering his weekly sermon when a stranger walked down the aisle. As he neared the podium, the man pulled out a pistol and fired. The minister held his Bible up to his chest, and the first bullet sent pages flying as it ricocheted into a wall. The second, third and fourth bullets felled Winters, who died at the scene. Several members of the congregation rushed the gunman and subdued him. According to reports, the shooter, Ted Sedlacek, suffered from a severe case of Lyme Disease which had altered his mental faculties.

Recently, a Kentucky minister invited his congregation to bring their guns to services for protection from random attacks. Predictably, the intelligentsia railed against him and others who would use weapons to fend off attacks in churches. In an article for the Washington Post entitled “Support Your Religious Gun Nut,” columnist Susan Jacoby wrote, “This country is in the grip of a powerful anti-rationalism that, while it is the work of a minority, is nevertheless seeping like poison into the body politic.” Calling pastors and rabbis who wish to arm their congregations “lunatics,” she suggests that “about the only justification I can think of for writing about them [the ministers who call for arming their congregants] is that the articles may alert the FBI to the clerical threats in our midst—men who use titles like ‘Reverend’ and ‘Rabbi’ to make the world less, not more safe.”

The Kentucky minister’s plea to bring weapons to church makes more sense than the intelligentsia will admit. Since the mid-1980s, concealed carry statutes have been passed in more than forty states. Permits to carry concealed weapons are now routinely granted to adults who take a course in gun safety and have no criminal record. These are among the most successful laws ever passed. There are millions of permit holders all over America. Thousands of rapes, robberies, and murders have been stopped by individuals who carry concealed weapons, and very few crimes have been committed by them.

Two weeks before Christmas in 2007, a gunman walked into the massive New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Matthew Murray had already murdered four people. According to the Los Angeles Times, Murray had once attended a training program in the missionary school run by the church. “School officials refused to assign Murray to a mission,” reported the Times, “because of an unspecified health problem that could make such work unsafe.” Murray, 21, was gunning for revenge.

Before arriving in Colorado Springs, Murray gunned down two church members in Arvada. Outside the church, he shot and killed two teenaged sisters who were getting out of their car. The gunshots were clearly audible in the auditorium and parishioners began to scamper for cover. As Murray walked into the sanctuary holding a semiautomatic rifle and carrying 1,000 rounds of ammunition, Jeanne Assam hid and pulled out her pistol. “I just prayed to the Holy Spirit to guide me,” she said later. “I give the credit to God. This has got to be God, because of the firepower he had versus what I have.”

Assam was one of twelve volunteers that the church had enlisted to act as security guards. A former police officer, she had a permit to carry a weapon. As Murray entered the church, Assam said, “I came out of cover, identified myself, and took him down. My hand wasn’t even shaking. It seemed like it was me, the gunman, and God.”

Assam shot Murray four times. As he lay bleeding on the floor, Murray put his own gun to head and killed himself.

Assam was credited with saving dozens, if not hundreds of lives.

New Life’s Senior Pastor explained the church's security system. Volunteers attend one of the morning services, then remain for a second service to be available in case of trouble. There are more than a dozen security guards. The ones who have concealed carry permits are armed, the others are not. The guards are all members of the church and “not mercenaries that we hire to walk around our campus to provide security.”

Regardless of the out-of-touch leftists, other churches might consider such a system.

The Unsolved Murder of Amber Hagerman

Snatched from her bicycle
by Robert A. Waters

On the afternoon of January 13, 1996, Amber Hagerman, 9, and her five-year-old brother, Ricky, pedaled their bicycles to an abandoned grocery store in Arlington, Texas. Minutes later, Ricky turned to head back home, about a block away.

Jim Kevil, a 78-year-old retiree, stood in his backyard not far away. “I saw [Amber] riding up and down,” he said later. “She was by herself. I saw this pickup. He pulled up, jumped out and grabbed her. When she screamed, I figured the police ought to know about it, so I called them.”

Kevil described the truck as being dark, possibly black. The abductor was white or Hispanic.

Police arrived within a minute or two. By that time, Jimmie Whitson, Amber’s grandfather, was on his way to the locale of the former Winn-Dixie store to check on her. (When Ricky had arrived back home without Amber, Whitson had grown worried.) By the time he arrived, cops were there.

Experts say that stranger abductions are rare. They are also among the most difficult cases to solve. Even with an eyewitness, investigators were stymied. They theorized that it was a crime of opportunity, that the kidnapper saw Amber alone and impulsively decided to snatch her. The vacant lot where children liked to play was on East Abram Street, not far from a huge General Motors plant. From the beginning, cops felt that the abductor was almost certainly familiar with the area.

Local police were joined by volunteers and the FBI in the massive search that followed. A truck similar to that of the kidnapper had been spotted outside a nearby laundromat before Amber was taken, but investigators never located the vehicle.

Four days later, a man was walking his dog near the Forest Hill Apartments, just a few miles from where the child had been snatched. At the bottom of a creek bed, he saw a child’s body. Amber Hagerman had been found.

An autopsy determined that Amber had been held alive for two days. During that time she was sexually assaulted.

Arlington police and the FBI formed a task force to search for the killer. Investigators followed up thousands of leads, but none turned up the murderer.

By 1999, the task force had been disbanded and the case had gone cold. The killer has gone undetected now for eleven years. Arlington detective Jim Ford recently said, “There would be nothing more important or rewarding than seeing this case get resolved because [it] is as bad as they get.”

Shortly after Amber went missing, a caller to a Dallas radio station asked a simple question: why can’t law enforcement team with the media to quickly provide information to the public when a child is abducted? The idea caught on, and the Amber Alert was born. It began locally as the Dallas Amber Alert. Then it became a state-wide program and finally went national.

Since its formation, the Amber Alert is credited with the rescue of more than three hundred missing and abducted children.

Glenda Whitson, Amber’s grandmother, prays that the killer will be caught. However, she’s not optimistic. “[Police] really don’t have much to go on,” she said. “A few fibers they found on her body, they tell us. They’re still working on it, and they call us now and then. They say they’ll never give up. After ten years, you lose hope that they’ll ever find him, but I still have a little bit of hope.”

A psychological profile was issued by police a few weeks after the murder. Unfortunately, it was a generic rehash of profiles released after many such crimes. The killer was at least 25, cops said. He lived or worked near the scene of the crime. Since Amber was alive for two days after she was kidnapped, the killer had to have had some place to keep the child. Something probably caused him to snap, police said.

Since 1996, a killer has roamed free. Did he keep trophies of his victim so he can relive his crime? Has he killed again? Is he free or incarcerated? Amber Hagerman deserves justice and her killer deserves a Texas send-off to Hell.

Police Patches

Police and law enforcement memorabilia are popular among collectors. I have a small collection that consists of patches, cold case playing cards, books, old pulp magazines such as "True Detective," letters from inmates, and other items. Many of the things I’ve collected over the years are related to articles and books I’ve written.

Of all my collectibles, I think the patches are my favorites. They’re inexpensive (unless you run up on a true rarity or a vintage patch) and easy to store. I use acid-free holders for all my patches and paper items. Anytime I see a cop the first thing I look at are his or her patches.

Okay, this article isn't long or profound. I just wanted to show off a couple of my police patches.

UNSOLVED SERIAL MURDERS -- The Arcadia Street Graveyard by Robert A. Waters

Reconstruction of Victim B. Based on the remains, experts think this white male was about 20-30 years old, was very tall, was very active and had bone fractures in the right calf.


In fiction, there’s Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter--in real-life, Bundy, Gacy, and Dahmer. There are novels, true crime books, comic books, trading cards, television series, and movies chronicling the lives of serial killers. We fear monsters we can’t see, and these deranged humans lurking in the shadows fit that bill. Over the next few months, I plan to examine some recent and past cases of serial murders that have gone unsolved.

Thirty feet into the undergrowth of a dense melaleuca forest, a surveyor stopped in his tracks. The fast-growing trees had been brought from Australia to Florida years before, and they formed a canopy over the ten acre forest. The surveyor had spotted something: the skull of a deer or wild boar, so he thought. Looking closer, he realized it was human. The area, just three miles from downtown Fort Myers, was off a remote dirt road known as Arcadia Street.

By late afternoon, on March 23, 2007, a swarm of police investigators had sealed off the whole thicket. Before darkness fell, detectives, with the aid of cadaver dogs, had uncovered eight skeletal bodies. The experienced detectives could tell that the remains had been there for years. Time and animals had stripped all the flesh from the bones.

John Douglas, former FBI profiler and author, later said: “To find eight bodies in one place--that’s really bizarre. If you’re in the killing business, that’s a great disposal area. You’ve got the remoteness, the elements, the insects, animal predation. You put a body out there and probably within a week or so, there’s not going to be much left.”

Who were the victims? How did they get there? How did they die? Who killed them? These questions would haunt investigators as they attempted to piece together the lives of eight lost souls.

Except for the skeletons, there were few clues. The killer had removed the clothes and personal effects of each victim. The elements had long since eliminated any trace of the murderer. A forensic anthropologist was called in. Heather Walsh-Haney and her team used archaeological methods to remove the bodies and preserve the bones.

Dental impressions and DNA were taken from each victim. They were all males, between 18 and 49, and had been dumped there between 1980 and 2000. The television show “America’s Most Wanted” arranged for a forensic artist, Sharon Long, to reconstruct the faces of each victim.

Police had a possible suspect. Daniel Conahan, the so-called “Hog Trail Killer,” was currently sitting on Florida’s death row. He’d been convicted of murdering a drifter named Richard Montgomery. According to court documents, Conahan picked up homeless men at Port Charlotte shelters. He would take each man to a remote, wooded area where he would rape and strangle his victim. Although he was convicted of only one murder, Conahan was suspected of at least five more. Several of the murders involved castration and mutilation.

Even though Conahan lived in Chicago from the late 1970s until 1993, many local investigators continue to view him as a suspect in the Ft. Myers murders.

Three of the bodies have been identified. John Blevins, 38, and Erik Kohler, 21, lived in the area before they disappeared. According to family members, they both lived transient lifestyles and had minor police records.

Jonathan Tihay, 24, was recently identified. His life seemed to mirror those found at the Arcadia Street graveyard. Originally from Illinois, he developed a drug addiction and had several scrapes with the law. He spent six months in jail for burglary and served a brief sentence in the Joliet Correctional Center for destroying property. After he got out, Tihay wandered the country, finally landing in Ft. Myers to be near his mother. In 1995, he disappeared.

Serial murderers often choose the most vulnerable: the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, and others living on the fringes of society. The lives of the Arcadia Street victims seem to fit that pattern.

A killer has lived among us for years. Was he bold enough to go back to the shadows beneath the melaleuca trees and relive his sick crimes? Did he keep souvenirs such as clothing or watches or shoes? Does he still follow the case in the news, secure in the knowledge that he will never be caught, that he’s smarter than the cops?

The website of “America’s Most Wanted” has the facial profiles of each of the five remaining unidentified victims. Check it out. If you have information about this case, contact the Fort Myers Police Department at 239-321-7700.

The Unsolved Murder of Jennifer Lynn Stone

The Unsolved Murder of Jennifer Lynn Stone
by Robert A. Waters

In 1983, I received my Master’s Degree from the University of Georgia. Even though it’s been two-and-a-half decades since I last returned, I have fond memories of the place. At the time, Athens was a beautiful city with narrow roads, centuries-old trees, and antebellum homes. Downtown had a typical collegiate flavor. I remember that there was a bookstore beneath the sidewalk on Main Street and artsy, trendy businesses all along the road. It was close to that location in 1992 that a student named Jennifer Lynn Stone was murdered. Even though police obtained a DNA profile of the killer, he has never been caught.

Jennifer Lynn Stone was a pretty advertising student at the University of Georgia. Her drive, personality, and intelligence made her a sure success in her chosen field. In the early morning hours of April 23, 1992, Jennifer stepped outside her home on North Hull Street. A few minutes later, she returned to a nightmare.

Athens-Clarke County police investigators later surmised that a burglar entered her house during the brief time she was away. When Jennifer came back inside, she was forced to her bedroom and raped. Then the rapist strangled her to death.

The assailant left Jennifer’s home, described by an Athens Banner-Herald reporter as a “carriage house,” and walked down the street to where a crack dealer waited. “We know that Jenny was...alive at 1:00 a.m.,” former investigator J. W. Smith said, “because that’s when her boyfriend called to check on her...Her cameras were being sold or traded for dope at around 3:00 a.m.”

During interrogations, local dope dealers told cops the assailant was a stranger to them. Investigators figured he was passing through. He was described as a light-skinned African-American with a thin mustache. DNA collected from the scene confirmed that he was of mixed race. Investigators later took samples from dozens of people, but none matched.

After murdering the innocent coed, the killer calmly walked down West Hancock Avenue and ended up at a pool hall “where the dopers hung out.” According to the Banner-Herald, “the man traded one of Stone’s cameras there for a rock of crack cocaine, then crossed West Broad Street to trade the other camera for more crack at the Parkview Homes housing complex.”

The next morning, Jennifer was scheduled to meet several classmates to work on a project for their advertising class. After she failed to show up, friends stopped by to investigate. They found Jennifer lying motionless on the floor in her home.

Most investigators think the killer was a transient who quickly left Athens behind in a Greyhound Bus. The depot was close by, and it would have been easy for him to catch a ride and never be seen again.

Each month, year after year, police submit the murderer’s DNA profile into the FBI’s national database, hoping for a match. Someday they might get lucky: the killer no doubt was a crackhead who has probably been arrested numerous times--that is, if he’s still alive.

The Athens Banner-Herald once sued the department to obtain files from the case under Georgia’s open records law. They lost the suit, however, so much of the information obtained by police will remain secret until the culprit is caught. Or until investigators determine that he may have died of old age.

Anyone who has information on this case should contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-597-TIPS.

Down for the count

Corbett vs. Mitchell (This inaccurate painting shows the two pugilists with bare knuckles in their championship match. Actually, they wore gloves under the recently adopted Marquess of Queensberry rules.)

Down for the count
by Robert A. Waters

The morning of January 25, 1894 broke in Jacksonville, Florida with thunderous claps of lightning and a heavy downpour. Not exactly what the members of the Duval Athletic Club had hoped for. At two-thirty that afternoon, a heavyweight title fight was scheduled. Because of the political overtones, the whole civilized world would be watching.

“Uncivilized.” The catch-phrase rang from newspaper to newspaper as editors and politicians and the intelligentsia lined up against the public in a fight to the finish. Boxing, the high-hats grumbled, is not civilized. In addition to violence, it breeds gambling and liquor. (At the time, even popular sports such as football and baseball were frowned on by many elites.)

Members of the Duval Athletic Club countered. Boxing is a sport, they contended, a “scientific glove contest.” In fact, the Marquess of Queensberry rules had been adopted a few years earlier, doing away with the brutal bare-knuckles bouts of the past. Now each fighter was required to wear five-inch boxing gloves and could no longer foul an opponent or strike him while he was down. Californian Corbett had recently defeated the venerable John L. Sullivan in a bout that lasted 26 rounds. Now he was matched against English heavyweight champ Charles Mitchell.

The Duval Athletic Club was supported by local businesses and the general public. In fact, when two militias--the Ocala Rifles and the Gates City Rifle Company of Sanford--were called in to quell an anticipated riot, they were roundly booed and pelted with eggs.

Despite the political uproar, the fight moved inexorably closer. Corbett set up training camp in nearby Mayport while Mitchell worked out in St. Augustine. Both fighters remained detached from the furor.

As soon as the match had been announced, a horrified Florida state legislature had passed a law outlawing “prizefighting, pugilistic exhibitions and kindred offenses.” The day before the match, however, the statute was struck down as unconstitutional. But that didn’t keep newspapers such as the New York Times from touting the law as a model for other states to follow.

Despite the driving rain, large crowds began to arrive at the gate. The Athletic Club charged $25.00 a head, and ended up with nearly two thousand paying customers.

At two-thirty that afternoon, the fighters stepped into the ring. While receiving instructions from the referee, the British fighter began to curse and scream at the champ. This caused great excitement--frenzied spectators cheered and hissed as tension throbbed in the throng.

Corbett was not intimidated by the tactics of his opponent. Near the end of the second round, the champ landed a series of punches that sent Mitchell reeling. The stunned fighter dropped to the canvas just before the bell sounded.

Early in the third round, Corbett continued his assault. He again knocked his opponent down, but Mitchell rose at the count of nine. Finally, a vicious right hand sent the Englishman down for the last time. When he was unable to get up, the victorious Corbett raised his gloves in victory.

State and county officials were enraged by the success of the match. Instead of accepting their loss graciously, the powers-that-be prevailed on Duval County Sheriff Napoleon Broward to arrest the two combatants. Both were charged with assault. The fighters quickly posted bail and left Jacksonville. But not before Gentleman Jim Corbett collected his $20,000 winner-takes-all purse plus an extra ten grand in bets he’d placed on himself.

In February, Corbett was hauled back to Jacksonville to stand trial for his part in the match. Once again, fight fans lined the streets leading to the courthouse. Within hours, the pugilist was once again victorious. He was acquitted.

Mitchell was never tried. After Corbett’s second victory in Jacksonville, all charges against the Englishman were dropped.

Missing in Marion County

Photos of Christine Blackburn Wiles and her daughter, Tobi Callaway

As readers of my blog know, I’m a native of Marion County, Florida. A local mystery has gone unsolved for more than two years. In the spring of 2007, Christine Blackburn Wiles left a bar near Belleview and went missing. The mother of a son and daughter, Christine has never been found.

On February 29, 2008, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office released the following statement: “A search is scheduled to take place in the Ocala National Forest on Saturday, March 1 for Christine Wiles, W/F, 11-02-67. Wiles was last seen April 21, 2007 and was reported missing by her father in early May, 2007. An ongoing investigation supports the possibility of foul play in Wiles’ disappearance. DNA evidence found in the trunk of a 1995 Chrysler New Yorker, which may have been seen in the Ocala National Forest in the area of Wild Cat Lake, has led detectives to conduct the search scheduled Saturday. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office hopes to bring closure to the family of Christine Wiles and possibly locate additional evidence that may aid in the investigation of her disappearance.”

That search, as was the case with other searches, ended with no evidence being found.

Christine’s mother, Connie Blackburn, emailed me recently describing the events that occurred on the night Christine went missing. “On the evening of April 21, 2007,” she wrote, “Christine and her sister [Leah] went out together for a few drinks. Sometime during the evening they met up with Billy Ashton whom Christy was living with at the time. At one point during the evening, the girls left him at a bar just wanting to have girl time, but he ended up following them in a Chrysler New Yorker.”

Although Christine may not have known it, Ashton had a lengthy criminal history. In 1998, he’d been convicted of kidnapping and assaulting a former girlfriend and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Ashton had just been released from prison a few months before he met Christine.

“Fearing Ashton was going to run her off the road,” Christine’s mother wrote, “Christy’s sister pulled over. She begged Christy not to go with Ashton but to spend the night with her at a friend’s home. At the time, Christy had stitches in her eye where Ashton had elbowed her. Unfortunately, Christy did get in Ashton’s car and was never seen again. The car was later recovered at the home of his mother where he and Christy had been living.”

Leah believed that Ashton would have run them off the road had they not stopped. She stated that she thought he was angry because the sisters left the bar without telling him.

Marion County Homicide Detective Rhonda Stroup, who is in charge of the investigation, said, “I do believe that this is a solvable case, and we can bring this to an end.”

Anyone with information about this case should call Detective Stroup at 352-368-6845. Crime Stoppers is offering a $ 1,000 reward leading to the location of Christine Blackburn Wiles.

While Billy Ashton is a suspect in the disappearance of Christine, he has not been charged. He is currently in jail on other charges.

NOTE: On March 1, 2013, the Ocala Star Banner reported that all charges against Billy Ashton have been dropped: "The State Attorney’s Office has dropped its murder charge against Billy Joe Ashton, the man accused of killing Christine Blackburn-Wiles six years ago.

 

"State Attorney Brad King, in a three-page explanation, wrote that much of the evidence linking Ashton to the death was entirely circumstantial.

 

"'That is,' King wrote, 'there is no direct proof by either witnesses nor admissible statements of the defendant that Ashton killed the victim, and the victim’s body has never been located.'"

 

20 Years and More - Tiffany Sessions

On a cool evening in February, 1989, Tiffany Sessions stepped outside her Gainesville apartment and vanished. It is one of central Florida’s most enduring mysteries. What happened to the pretty University of Florida student?

In the 20 years since her disappearance, the world has changed. Computers and cell phones are used by nearly everyone. In fact, without these electronic marvels, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has introduced many innovative measures in their attempts to deter crime and capture those who commit violent acts. One such method is to distribute playing cards to inmates in Florida’s prisons. The cards summarize cases like that of Tiffany Sessions. It is hoped that prisoners will remember something and come forward. Several cases have indeed been solved by these playing cards.

20 years later, where is Tiffany Sessions?