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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

April Beth Pitzer

I have a best friend who lives in the Mojave Desert near Death Valley. We grew up together and I remember her tales of the fun she and her high school friends had roaming the old gold mine trails, the mountains and the vast expanse of nothing. It takes a tough soul to live there and she is definitely a tough soul. The days of gold mining and borax are long gone, but the area dotted with little towns is still home to families with a strong tie to the harshness and the beauty of the Mojave.

The Mojave is a place that hides many things, remember Charlie Manson and his "family" hid out there for quite some time. It also hides the answers for two little girls and their grandmother who have been searching in mine shafts, behind rocks and under bushes since June 28, 2004.

April Pitzer was preparing to go home again. After a separation from her husband and her family which brought her to the tiny town of Newberry Springs, California, she realized that it wasn't the place she needed to be and arranged to go back to Arkansas to be with her mother. Gloria Denton was anticipating April's return, knowing that the life she was eking out in Newberry Springs was not the life that she was hoping she would find.

The day before April was planning to leave California she talked to her mother several times. Gloria was moving from Texas to Arkansas and taking the last load that day. Not able to be near phones, she tried to reach April for a couple days, calling people April had known in Newberry Springs. When she received a phone call from a man that April knew, asking how she liked having April back with her, Gloria knew something wasn't right. She immediately notified authorities and registered a missing persons report.

Being so far away and only able to make phone calls, she started where most families of a missing person start, calling hospitals and morgues. It was one of these phone calls that brought her to David Van Norman, the coroner for San Bernadino County, and known to many families of the missing as being an angel sent from God. With his help and a detective they were able to determine that there was a possibility that April could have been murdered and dumped into one of the thousands of abandoned mines in the Mojave.

The detective took a team and cadaver dogs to a particular mine that rumors around town said the man who April knew had connections with. During that search, the dogs from a couple search teams all laid down close to the air shaft of a certain mine, indicating the presence of human remains. However, several days later they returned to the same mine and none of the dogs hit again, indicating the possibility that the remains were moved.

Not able to idly sit by any longer, Gloria Denton took off to California to find her daughter, April. While searching in another mine site they found the clothes that Gloria had recently sent to April strewn about, buried, and some burned. It was a poor attempt to cover up evidence. They also found in a desert shack more clothes, duct tape, gauze and iodine, possibly an attempt to "patch" April up. There has been blood found on a sheet and mattress.

The man that April knew, and could be a part of the mystery surrounding her vanishing, has since died. There is another man who some think holds the answers and he is currently in prison on other charges. Authorities say that without a body they really don't have enough circumstantial evidence to file charges against him. So the question of April's whereabouts has yet to be answered.

No mother should have to search for her child like this and no mother should ever have to find evidence of the possibility of her child's demise. April Pitzer has not been found and brought home to her mother and her two little girls. There will be more searches, and until the day that April is found, Gloria Denton will not give up searching for her.



April was last seen in the vicinity of the 30000 block of Caspian Way in Newberry Springs, CA. She indicated she was going to travel to Arkansas to see her mother but never arrived. As of November of 2006, April's case was updated from a missing case to a missing/homicide case.

If you have information regarding the case of April Beth Pitzer, please contact:
San Bernardino Sheriff's Department at 1-760-256-4838 or the Free "No Cops" Tip Line at 1-866-479-LBTH

Please join us at Peace4 the Missing
Network and support for families of the missing and victims of crime.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the truth was told about her missing and the real picture of how she looked at that time was shown then maybe she could have been found and just perhaps others outside the area could have added information that no one was aware of.

Delilah said...

Anonymous, the truth is what families spend countless hours searching for. Do you have that truth about April? Do you know the real picture? How she looked? Where she is? Who has the information that no one is aware of? I can't beg you enough to tell what you know. You can message me anonymously, or any law enforcement agency, or her mother. Just please, tell what you know to someone. Let this be one missing person nightmare that ends!

Anonymous said...

I never said I knew were April was, I do not, but the pictures on the missing persons flyer are a flat out lie, yes April was a very beautiful girl at one time but after years of drug and alcohol abuse and prostitution at Barstow Ca. truck stops Baker Ca, so on she was very ran down, missing more that half of the teeth in her mouth, sleeping were ever she could, having multiple sex partners in and around were she lived! It flat out pisses me off that the one picture that could have brought out more information to find her was never shown on t.v. or else were,and if April could have been alive and still maybe and I stress maybe she could never show her face in public because GD told anyone she could that April was a federal informant,hell if I was alive I would stay hidden until hell froze over! I wish that this never happen and I wish I new were she was because I would tell no one.

Unknown said...

I am so very tired of all the lies you tell. For a person who admcharges on you. i have had enough. deliah, this is written by a very cruel, obsessed by April woman who we cannot get to go away. I have had it and I am going to sue herits to the detective you stalk me, have used 13 alias you have nerve. terry con, know this...I rarely surf the net about April. Obviously so or I would have already commented on this. I am going to contact an attorney as well as the detective in the morning. I am going to inquire as to pressing criminal charges, as well as defamation, and stalking

trucknurse3110 said...

Well said Gloria! I saw the show on April, years ago. I re-watch it every 6 months, and read up on Aprils' case, because it tares my heart out. I am a female in Canada, with a drug past of my own. Especially, out in California, Orange County.
I know why people turn to drugs, for comfort. Especially, when their babies have been taken. These losers that claim to know what "truth" is need to stop their jealousy of April! How dare they speak lies about a victim of violence! Wherever April is, is definitely not with friends, or hiding away from you, Gloria. April sounded, and portrayed like she was so homesick, from what I saw on the show, and have read on the internet. There is no way that a more "recent" photo would have turned up more from people out there!!!
April was April, and a photo is not the problem!! Cruel, ugly, no minded people, like this person that claims she "would not tell if she knew where April was" is nothing but a sick sociopath/psychopath, that gets off on telling lies about this beautiful women who was down on her luck, and in danger!! God Bless April Beth Pitzer, Gloria, and Aprils' babies. Please someone let this poor woman come home. No one deserves to be out, lying in the dirt, like a piece of garbage. This is horrible! I cannot even imagine how unbearable it would be to be her family. I did not know Amber, but she is someone I would have loved to know. And, I would not have treated her like people out there would have treated her no matter WHAT!!
Please help April come home instead of being disgraceful, and an embarrassment to yourself, and entire community!

trucknurse3110 said...

I apologize for writing "Amber" at the bottom of my comment of April Beth Pitzer.
I must have subconsciously wrote "Amber" instead of April because I was thinking many things while writing! One of them being "Amber Alert!"
Again, I apologize. God Bless April, and her family.

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