“ON THE ROAD TO REMEMBER TOUR” 2010

Every missing person is somebody’s child…

From CUE Center for Missing Persons:

Dear Families of the Missing and Supporters
It’s that time of the year again when we are preparing for the “ON THE ROAD TO REMEMBER TOUR” and invite all of you to participate in this national awareness campaign for the missing, unidentified/unsolved homicide and cases fallen cold. Below you will find much needed information about the tour and history.. see you soon!

If you are a family of a missing person, law enforcement agency, organization/group or volunteer and you would like to host a rally stop featuring missing person – unidentified person – unsolved homicides, please contact our center.

The following states are the chosen ones we will travel through if you are in the tour path and want your case featured please at a hosted stop please contact us now. See below, states.

North Carolina
Tennessee
Kentucky
West Virginia
Pennsylvania
New York
Connecticut
New Jersey
Maryland
Virginia

About the Tour Honoree
In keeping the tradition of the tour – an honoree is selected each year, one who needs fair coverage of their disappearance. .



Patricia Viola – you can view her information athttp://patriciaviolamissing.homestead.com/ or the CUE Center web site athttp://www.ncmissingpersons.org/patricia-marie-viola/

FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION HOW YOU CAN HONOR YOUR MISSING LOVED ONE, OR SPONSOR A RALLY STOP IN ONE OF THE ABOVE STATES, PLEASE GO TO CUE CENTER FOR MISSING PERSONS.

PO Box 12714 Wilmington, NC 28405
(910) 343-1131 / (910) 232-1687
Contact CUE

Jana Morton:Still Missing After One Year

Jana Morton left her ex-husband's home to visit her mother in Caswell County, NC.   Although her ex-husband, Charles Morton, wasn't too concerned when she didn't return the next day, he knew that when she hadn't been heard from in a week that something was wrong.  Her daughter reported that she was missing and her car was found weeks later in the parking lot of a grocery store.

According to reports it would be unusual for her to abandon her car, it was the only thing she owned and it was unlikely that she would give it up willingly.  Charles Morton admits that Jana "fell apart" when he got sick and had to have a leg amputated, she got into the wrong crowd and started using drugs.   She had been arrested and had just finished serving a short jail sentence, but was in need of help.

It's reported there is a person of interest in the investigation, Robert Mitchell Foust, who has a long criminal record including drugs and violence related crimes.  He admitted to authorities that he had possession and use of Jana Morton's car.

There is a family who waits for any bit of information on what happened to Jana, living with the fact that she is most likely deceased, except for her 17 year old daughter who holds out hope that her mother has just lost her memory and will come home safe.  Jana Morton's mother, Sherry Cloninger, hopes her granddaughter is right, but accepts that it's unlikely.

The teen has created missing person posters. The latest one announces that the family and sheriff’s department are offering a $6,000 reward for information about her disappearance. The poster says that “Michelle is a mother of a 17-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy who miss her.”

Jana Morton is part of Project Jason's Angels Awareness Program and you can go to their site and download a missing persons's poster to have copies made and distribute in the area of Alamance and Caswell Counties in North Carolina.  If you live near the area from which Jana vanished, please consider helping this family bring their loved one home.

The investigation into the disappearance is open and ongoing.  If you have any information you can add to help this family find their loved one, please call authorities.

“I drive to Burlington or Graham and I think and wonder if she is there,” Cloninger said. “I see a stretch of woods or a pond and wonder could she be there. It’s constant. It’s not just trying to accept the fact that she is gone. You just want to know where she is at. You just want to bring her home. I don’t want my kids to have to continue to live with it.”

When Morton’s white 1997 Dodge Intrepid was found, it had some damage to the hubcaps and steering. Cloninger wonders if anyone saw the car stuck somewhere before it was found on Feb. 27. She doesn’t know if anyone saw anything that could help the case. But if someone did, she hopes that person will come forward and give that information to the sheriff’s department.

Morton is white. She is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs about 115 pounds. Her hair is brown. Her eyes are hazel. She was last seen wearing a tie-dyed short sleeve shirt, blue jeans and white tennis shoes. She has a tattoo of a rose on her left upper chest.

Anyone with information can contact the sheriff’s department at 570-6313 or can give information anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 229-7100.

Star Boomer: Loved and Missed

The name "Star Boomer" fascinates me, I don't know why, but I remember the day I first saw it, thought it was actually pretty cool, like something my "60's" mind would make up.  But Star Boomer is not just a cool name, but a real woman, a woman who has been missing under suspicious circumstances for way too long.

I first wrote about Star Boomer's disappearance, a mother of a young boy at the time, last year when I learned that another mother was missing from the same area, Renee Pernice, and that her husband, Shon Pernice, was one of the last persons to see each of them alive.   Another year has passed and still there is nothing to investigate until bodies are found.  Each family has dealt with the fact that murders have occurred, however, they can't come close to starting the grieving process until they have answers and until these women are in a place of peace.

The following is an article written about Star's sister, Cynthia Hurtie, who has made a mission of finding, not only her sister, but, as many others with missing loved ones do, she has set out to help find other missing persons.  So many family members I've communicated with seem to have a need to give.  Whether it be by physically searching, changing legislation, calming spirits with support or setting up internet sites for information, all of them have the need for a way to give answers to others if they can't have the resolutions they want for themselves. Each day may be a personal struggle, but they find a way to step above it and face each obstacle with courage.

While researching "Star Boomer" I came across the site of someone from Australia who designs and makes toys.  One of her toy sets are called "Star Boomers" based on an Australian Christmas song.  As she explained the toys there was a paragraph that struck me as being written for the "real" Star Boomer!

I hope that next time you look up into the night sky you might imagine a mob of Star Boomers traversing the heavens, bounding over the Milky Way in search of green starry pastures.

I hope one day, while looking into the heavens for answers, the family of Star Boomer will find her.

WOMAN SEARCHES FOR MISSING SISTER

Finding the lost has been something of an obsession for Cynthia Hurtie, Spring Hill. She’ll settle for finding just one missing person, but ideally, Hurtie, a recent graduate with a degree in forensic science, would like to find her sister, Star Boomer.

"If you have a person go missing in your life, it’s unrepairable," she said. "It does major damage to the family members."

The last people to see Boomer alive told police that Boomer got into an altercation on Feb. 23, 1999 at Uncle Mike’s Bar in Kansas City, Kan. She was allegedly knocked to the ground and where she lost consciousness.

According to old news accounts, Boomer went to the local watering hole with friend and roommate, Carolyn Marshall. Marshall stayed for one drink and planned to return to pick up Boomer later in the evening. Marshall was told that Boomer had left with two men, when she returned to pick Boomer up. Investigators believe she was killed at the bar and her body was dumped.

Tip Leads To New Search For Renee Pernice

Kansas City Mother Missing Since Early January

POSTED: 4:36 pm CDT September 24, 2009
UPDATED: 4:55 pm CDT September 24, 2009

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A new tip sent Kansas City police on another search Thursday for missing Northland mother Renee Pernice.

Pernice hasn't been seen since Jan. 1.Investigators believe Pernice is dead. Her estranged husband, Shon Pernice, is believed to be the last person to have seen her, police said."We think this is going to get a resolution," said Rick Pretz, Renee Pernice's father.Pretz said he and the rest of Renee's family are convinced she has been killed.Shon Pernice, who was a firefighter in Independence, has been charged in unrelated crimes, but not in connection with his wife's disappearance.

Pretz said he's pleased that police haven't forgotten about his daughter."It's nice to know that the public is giving tips and that the police are out there looking," Pretz told KMBC's Peggy Breit.Renee Pernice's parents have posted a $25,000 reward for information in the case."Finding Renee is worth $25,000 to the first person with a tip good enough that enables us to find her," Pretz said.Investigators did not disclose where Thursday's search took place.

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• Mom vanishes while pursuing divorce (cnn.com)

Patricia "Pat" Viola: Missing, Featured on AMW

Into Thin Air (from America's Most Wanted)

We...were just a normal family. The pool and the deck, music playing. You think you have it all, and then it is gone.

On the morning of February 13, 2001, Jim says Pat seemed a little agitated. His sister was staying with them, and Pat had been dreading a confrontation about smoking in the house. The discussion didn't go well, but Pat continued her day by going to her son's elementary school, E. Roy Bixby, where she volunteered as a librarian. Her co-workers said she seemed sullen when she first got there, but by the end of her shift seemed much more relaxed. At 11:35 a.m., Pat walked one block back home, talked to her mother on the phone at around noon, and then set the house alarm at 1:11 p.m., and left. She was wearing a green or gray long sleeved sports shirt, jeans, white athletic shoes, and a black cloth winter jacket. This is the last anyone has seen or heard from her.

While this seems like an ordinary morning, police say there are a few things that don't add up. When Patricia set the alarm and left the house, her personal items - purse, wallet, keys, ID, medication - were all left inside. To make matters worse, Pat suffers from epilepsy and is prone to have seizures if not on her medication. The door Pat left automatically locks when closed, and Jim fears she may have accidentally locked herself outside. When she locked her keys in the car or house before, however, she had always called Jim to ask for his assistance.

Earlier that year, Pat's doctor had taken away her license due to an epileptic seizure. She was looking forward to getting her license back before the winter holidays, and was very disappointed when her doctor decided to hold the suspension for another three months. Luckily, Pat's town of Bogota is very small, so it was easy for her to travel around on foot.

Police don't know what happened to Pat that day, but found no signs of a struggle. Search dogs were brought into the house and property, the vehicles were checked, as was the surrounding neighborhood. Roadblocks were put up and cars in all directions in and out of Bogota stopped. The airports, bus, and train stations were all investigated, but no one with Pat's description was seen. It was as if she just disappeared.

Det. James Sepp of the Bogota Police Department regrets that he can't give Pat's distraught husband and family some type of lead. "I would like something to tell him. I wish I had the answer, but there is nothing pointing me in either direction, good or bad."

The 'What-If' Game

For Jim and his family, it is the not knowing that is the hardest. They don't know if Pat had a seizure and is in a hospital somewhere with amnesia, or if someone harmed her. She hasn't been matched with any case in a national missing person or crime registry, and no one seems to recognize her picture. Det. Sepp runs a credit check every six months, but her credit and social security number remain unused.

Jim and the children have continued to live their lives, but each day they awake with the hope that they'll have news of Pat.

We have two children, Christine, now 18, and Michael, now 15. Time is moving forward, and the children are growing up without their mom. We did everything together as a family and never saw this coming. We do not even know what THIS is.

We have no idea what happened to my wife...We only need one person, the right person, to recognize my Patricia's face and make the call to help us. I need her; our children need her, and we all love her so much.

Patricia's Law

Background

"Patricia's Law" - model Missing Persons Legislation, signed into NJ law on Jan. 13, 2008, and the majority of its language were born almost three years ago in April 2005 as Model Legislation at the first National Strategy Meeting on identifying the Missing. At this conference, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service brought together Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement, medical examiners and coroners, victim's advocates, forensic scientists, key policymakers and families who have lived through this tragic experience to develop the baseline Missing Persons' Model Legislation. The Model was now ready for the next step.

ProjectJason.org, a not for profit Missing Persons organization, facilitated the next step and called for volunteers in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to retain a Sponsor to support the Model Missing Persons' Legislation at the state level. Campaign for the Missing 2006, a grassroots effort, was born and volunteers came forward from many states to take the Model Legislation, tailor it for their respective state, retain a Sponsor and forge it into law. Patricia's husband, Jim Viola, took on New Jersey and State Senator Loretta Weinberg (District 37) and her staff immediately embraced the new proposed Legislation, making NJ the first state to obtain sponsorship and making it a reason for all of us to be proud. New Jersey is on it's way to passing some much needed new Missing Person Legislation as Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri-Huttle and Assemblyman Gordon Johnson also sponsored an identical proposed bill in the Assembly.

If you know ANYTHING about Pat's disappearance, or where she is, we beg you to call Detective Dan Creange or Sgt. James Sepp of the Bogota Police Department at

(201) 487- 2400 or Detective Richard Fonde of the Bergen County Sherrif's Department of Missing Persons Bureau at (201) 646-2222.