Mother, daughter of missing women to search the desert

May 3, 2009 - 8:30 AM

By ABBY SEWELL, staff writer

BARSTOW • The mother of one missing woman and the daughter of another will join forces this upcoming weekend to search for traces of their family members.

For the eighth time since 30-year-old mother of two April Beth Pitzer went missing in June of 2004, her mother, Gloria Denton, will travel to the Barstow area from Arkansas to join searchers May 9 and 10 in looking for her daughter’s body or any evidence that might explain what happened to her.

Stephanie Thompson, whose mother, Catherine “Cathy” Lique, disappeared from Barstow in November 2003 at age 44, joined in the search for Pitzer last year, hoping at the same time to find some trace of her mother. This year is the first time that the search will officially be for both women.

Thompson said Friday she and Denton found out just recently that Lique and Pitzer had met before, at the home of a woman in Yermo with whom Lique was staying for a while, and who also knew Pitzer’s boyfriend at the time.

Denton said Pitzer went to Newberry Springs in 2003 on what was intended to be a short trip after her marriage fell apart. Instead, she ended up stranded there, homeless and associated with unsavory people, Denton said. However, before Pitzer disappeared, Denton said she was planning to come home to start fresh with her estranged husband and two daughters, then three and five years old.

Lique was a truck stop prostitute who drifted around Barstow, Thompson said. Although Thompson had moved to Oregon with her father after her parents divorced, she tried to keep track of her mother. When her brother told her that no one had heard from Lique in a while, and then no one reported seeing her for another week, Thompson filed a missing person’s report.

Lique’s boyfriend at the time said she had left one morning with nothing but a red San Francisco 49ers jacket and never showed back up, Thompson said. Authorities may have initially assumed that Lique had just skipped town, she said.

“My mom wasn’t some pretty young girl who just crazily went missing,” she said.

Search for April Pitzer and Catherine “Cathy” Lique:
When: Saturday May 9, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday May 10, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: Meet both days at The Barn in Newberry Springs, 44560 National Trails Highway. Search will cover area around Interstate 15 and around a mine in Ludlow where some of Pitzer’s clothes were found in December 2005.
Bring: snacks/lunch, water (organizers will provide water as well), large stick in case of encountering snakes
Off-road vehicles are also needed for the search
Burgers and hot dogs to be provided after the search Saturday
For more information, call 479-774-2410.

Still, Thompson said her mother would have eventually contacted the family if she had been able to, especially when Lique’s own mother died.

Thompson got in touch with Denton about a year and a half ago, after hearing a rumor that Lique had been killed and her body dumped in Newberry Springs, which led her to wonder if the case was connected to Pitzer’s disappearance. The two women have stayed in contact ever since.

“I get very discouraged a lot, and having Gloria on my side, she has definitely been a godsend,” Thompson said.

Barstow police never named a suspect in Lique’s disappearance. Pitzer’s case has also stalled, Det. Steve Pennington with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department homicide unit said. Some of Pitzer’s clothing was found in a mine shaft in Ludlow in December 2005. A message on the
wall of a truck stop in Oregon discovered in September 2004 read, “Want to find missing girl from Arkansas? I-15 3 miles east of Barstow.”

However, the leads came to dead ends.

“There’s people out there that have information, but they’re just not coming forward,” Pennington said.
To report information relating to Pitzer’s disappearance, call the Barstow sheriff’s station at 760-256-4123. To report information on the Lique case, call the Barstow Police Department at 760-256-2211. To remain anonymous, call WE-TIP at 1-800-78-CRIME.

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.