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1997 Mitchell,Karen 11-25-1997; Eureka
Topic Started: Feb 25 2007, 10:27 AM (371 Views)
oldies4mari2004
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/m/mitchell_karen.html

Karen Marie Mitchell



Upper Images and Lower Left: Mitchell, circa 1997;
Lower Right: Age-progression at age 20 (circa 2000)


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: November 25, 1997 from Eureka, California
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: November 30, 1980
Age: 16 years old
Height and Weight: 5'5, 130 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Sandy brown hair, blue/green eyes. Mitchell has pierced ears. Her hair was neck-length at the time of her disappearance.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: A long-sleeved tan shirt, dark brown baggy-style corduroy pants and buckled tan leather shoes.


Details of Disappearance

Mitchell was on holiday vacation from high school on November 25, 1997 in Eureka, California. She departed from her place of employment, the Coastal Family Development Center, during the afternoon hours. Mitchell's aunt, Annie Casper, was her legal guardian and owned a store inside Bayshore Mall. The shopping center was in the 3300 block of Broadway Street, approximately one mile from Mitchell's place of employment. She briefly visited her aunt's business before departing from the mall at approximately 2:45 p.m. Mitchell was last seen walking towards West Sonoma Street shortly afterwards. She has never been heard from again. She was carrying a Nalgene water bottle at the time of her disappearance.
A witness stated that Mitchell may have entered an unidentified four-door 1976 to 1978 sedan, which was possibly a Ford Grenada, a Mercury Monarch, or a Nissan. The vehicle is described as light blue in color, with California license plates and "Eureka" imprinted on the rear plate's frame. The driver of the car is described as a Caucasian male, approximately 60 to 70 years old, with balding light gray or sandy blonde hair. The unidentified man had green or gray eyes and a large-sized nose that appeared to have been previously broken. He had a small build and wore eyeglasses. The driver was wearing a long-sleeved button-down light blue shirt. Sketches of both the driver and vehicle are posted below this case summary. The driver is wanted for questioning as a possible witness in Mitchell's case. The witness claimed that the car pulled across Broadway Street and nearly hit him before stopping for a girl matching Mitchell's description.

Authorities identified a vehicle similar to the car reported by the witness shortly after Mitchell vanished. The owner passed a polygraph exam and was cleared of any potential involvement in her case.

Casper said that her niece planned to attend Humboldt State University in 1998. She said that Mitchell was interested in politics, education and environmental issues. Mitchell is described as an intelligent and responsible. Investigators do not believe she left the area of her own accord.

Confessed murderer Wayne Adam Ford, who killed several women in California during the 1990s, denied any involvement in Mitchell's disappearance. His photo is posted below this case summary. Ford turned himself into authorities one year after Mitchell vanished. He has never been charged in connection with her case.

Robert Durst apparently visited Casper's store several times in March 1998, four months after Mitchell disappeared. Robert's first wife, Kathleen Durst, disappeared from New York in 1982. Her case remains unsolved and Robert is considered the prime suspect, although he has never been charged in connection with her case. Robert was charged with the 2001 Texas homicide of Morris Black. He claimed he murdered Black in self-defense, and was acquitted in 2003. Investigators looked into the possibility that Robert was in the Eureka area at the time of Mitchell's disappearance, but he has never been charged with any involvement. Ford and Robert's photos are posted below this case summary.

Investigators announced that they had received a "new, substantial" lead in Mitchell's case in 2004. Afterwards they began searching an area on Hilfiker Lane in Eureka with cadaver dogs. The site is often camped on by transients. It is the same place where the body of Matthew Anton Large, 22, was found in February 2003. Large disappeared from Huntington Beach, California in 2001; his case is not thought to be related to Mitchell's. Investigators would not give details about the new lead but stated that they believed two people were involved in Mitchell's apparent abduction. Her case remains unsolved.



Left: Sketch of unidentified driver;
Right: Sketch of the driver's vehicle

Left: Robert Durst; Right: Ford



Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Eureka Police Department
707-441-4044



Source Information
The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
The Polly Klaas Foundation
Child Protection Education Of America
America's Most Wanted
Nation's Missing Children Organization and Center For Missing Adults
The Eureka Times-Standard
The Las Vegas Review-Journal
The Child Seek Network



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http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsro...0125durst.html

Jury selection tomorrow in Scarsdale man's murder trial
By JONATHAN BANDLER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: August 25, 2003)

Suspicion in his wife's disappearance has hounded Robert Durst for more than two decades. It intensified when his best friend was shot to death in Los Angeles three years ago — and grew even more when he admitted killing a cantankerous neighbor in Texas and was accused of chopping up his body and setting it adrift in Galveston Bay.

Now, as the 60-year-old Scarsdale native and scion of a Manhattan real estate empire goes on trial in that Galveston killing, investigators in northern California are taking a close look at Durst, suspecting he might have played a role in the disappearance of two teenage girls there in 1997 — 18-year-old Kristen Modafferi in San Francisco and 16-year-old Karen Mitchell in Eureka...

...Information linking Durst to the two California cases was first reported in publicity material for the paperback edition of "A Deadly Secret," writer Matt Berkbeck's book about the Durst saga that will be published next week.

Five months before Mitchell disappeared, Modafferi vanished after leaving her waitress job at a San Francisco coffee shop, headed for Land's End Beach on San Francisco Bay in Oakland. One of the original detectives in that case, John Bradley, is now an investigator with the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and has spent the past several months investigating Durst's ties to northern California. He said information he has obtained put Durst in the area at least on the weekend before Modafferi disappeared and on the day that Mitchell went missing, although Parris said he was still looking into whether Durst was in Eureka that day.

Bradley, too, sees similarities between Durst and the sketch in the Mitchell case, but is even more intrigued by the description of the car. Although Durst had a green Ford Explorer in northern California at the time, a drug user and prostitute who reported Durst befriended her told authorities she only knew him to drive a light blue car, Bradley said...
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Where is Karen Mitchell?
Chris Durant The Times-Standard
Posted: 11/25/2007 01:35:09 AM PST


Click photo to enlarge«1»

Dave Parris doesn't need reminding that Karen Mitchell was last seen 10 years ago today.

While working as a detective with the Eureka Police Department, Parris made the Mitchell case a top priority when she was reported missing. He still does, keeping a position with the department while working as police chief of the Yurok Tribal Police Department.

”I've actually kept a reserve status down there so I can work on it,” Parris said. “We're working it on a weekly basis.”

Mitchell was last seen along Broadway on Nov. 25, 1997, walking to the Coastal Family Development Center, where she cared for children. She was almost 17 -- just five days short of her birthday -- and living with her aunt and uncle, Annie and Bill Casper, in an unincorporated area of the county.

Her disappearance is treated as a kidnapping-homicide case.

Over the years, Eureka police have pursued several leads. There was the caller who claimed to have heard details of Karen's kidnapping and murder. And a letter to the Times-Standard from “Topaz” said police should try looking behind Taco Bell and the Bayshore Mall.

Nearly four years ago, detectives announced they were pursuing new angles in the case.

Police set off on the largest land search since Karen disappeared. Investigators and cadaver-sniffing dogs inspected a fenced area near the foot of Truesdale Street and other locations at the foot of Hilfiker Lane looking for clues.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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At least one house was also searched, and new interviews were conducted.
At the time, investigators said there was information related to two people in custody on charges unrelated to Karen's case that prompted the search. The location and names of the possible suspects was not released. They still haven't been. And the search efforts produced no results.

Now, with the 10th anniversary of Karen's disappearance, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is renewing its call for members of the public to come forward with any information about what happened to her.

Even after all this time, new information still comes in. “There are a couple of things we're working on,” Parris said.

The new information is checked against the 35-plus volumes containing what the investigation has gathered over the years.

”We've been back through the files numerous times,” Parris said, “always looking for anything that may have been missed.”

Though new information has come in and been checked out, the family still doesn't have anything solid to hold onto.

”We still don't know a lot more than we did 10 years ago,” said Karen's uncle, Bill Casper.

According to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, nearly 800,000 children are reported missing every year, with an average of 2,200 reported missing each day.

There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to the Karen's recovery, Bill Casper said. Anyone with any information is asked to call Parris at 482-8185, or Special Agent Heather Nelsen with the California Bureau of Investigations at 445-7818.

Parris said the anniversary is not a milestone he marks, as he pursues the investigation into Karen's disappearance with the same energy he did 10 years ago.

”I'm not giving up,” he said.


Finding Karen: Facts of the case


Karen Mitchell: She disappeared five days shy of her 17th birthday while walking along Broadway, on her way to the Coastal Family Development Center, where she cared for children. Karen was last seen at her aunt's shop at the Bayshore Mall.

Karen was planning to go to Humboldt State University. She was interested in politics, especially involving the environment, and in children.

Annie and Bill Casper: Karen's aunt and uncle. Annie Casper is Karen's legal guardian, and Karen was living with the couple when she disappeared. In interviews over the years, the couple described their niece as “very bright, had a funny giggle and was very determined.” “She was like an old soul,” Annie Casper said in 2001.

Dave Parris: Now the police chief of the Yurok Tribal Police Department, he was the Eureka police detective assigned to the case. He keeps a reserve status with the Eureka Police Department to continue work on Karen's disappearance. “I'm not giving up,” he said.


Movements in the case:

Over the years, detectives have followed several leads, searching areas with cadaver dogs and at least one house. Several calls with information have come in since her disappearance.

November 2003: Eureka police announced they were pursuing “a new, substantial lead” in Karen's disappearance. Parris described it at the time as “the most substantial lead we have had in six years since she disappeared.”

January and February 2004: Police launched the largest land search for Karen since her disappearance. Residences in Eureka were also searched. Investigators and cadaver-sniffing dogs inspected a fenced area near the foot of Truesdale Street and other locations at the foot of Hilfiker Lane, looking for clues. The searches produced no results.

November 2007: On the 10th anniversary of her disappearance, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children renewed calls for the public's help in solving Karen's case, including the release of Karen's poster and an age-enhanced photograph of what Karen might look like today.

Reward: There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to Karen's recovery.

Anyone with information is asked to call Dave Parris at 482-8185, or Special Agent Heather Nelsen with the California Bureau of Investigations at 445-7818.


Chris Durant can be reached at 441-0506 or at cdurant@times-standard.com .

http://www.times-standard.com/ci_7554193?source=most_viewed
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http://www.times-standard.com/ci_8829485
Online sleuths take on missing persons cases
Ryan Burns/The Times-Standard On the Web: The Doe Web site, www.doenetwork.org.
Posted: 04/06/2008 01:36:59 AM PDT


Click photo to enlarge«1»When Karen Mitchell disappeared on November 25, 1997, just five days before her 17th birthday, she became one of an estimated 100,000 people formally listed as missing in the United States.

There are also more than 40,000 unnamed bodies in the country -- John, Jane and Baby “Does” whose identities remain a mystery.

The Doe Network, an online resource for mystery-solving volunteers, seeks to make connections between those two tragic groups by giving names to the dead and thereby providing closure for families of the missing.

Missing person profiles, which include such details as dental records, photographs and police reports, are posted on the Doe Web site, www.doenetwork.org. The amateur sleuths of the network can then cross-reference this information with law enforcement agencies and medical examiner's offices, putting in the kind of time and effort that many officials can't spare.

The Doe Network's Web site has had nearly 1.8 million visitors since it was established in 1999, and according to media director Todd Matthews, more than 40 bodies have been identified by or through the group in that time.

”There are no advocates for the dead, so that's what we had to become,” said Matthews, a 37-year-old Tennessee man who works for an automotive parts supplier during the day and peruses the Web at night, looking at morgue photos, artist sketches and forensic reconstructions.

His obsession with the dead began two decades ago

when his girlfriend, Lori, who would later become his wife, told him the story of “Tent Girl.”
In 1968, Lori's father stumbled across the body of an unidentified young woman wrapped in canvas. None of the Georgetown, Ky., locals knew who she was, so they buried her under an apple tree with a tombstone marked simply “Tent Girl.”

”It all sounded so familiar to me,” Matthews said.

He began spending all of his spare time researching the case. As described in a recent Associated Press story, once Matthews found his way online, he discovered thousands of people just like him, digging through evidence hoping to solve a case.

”My obsession with 'Tent Girl' finally got annoying for Lori,” Matthews said. “One phone bill was $300, which is a problem when you're making minimum wage.”

The two even separated for a period of months.

But in 1998, after years of fruitless investigating, Matthews had a breakthrough. A woman from Arkansas had posted a message in a chat room about her sister, who had disappeared 30 years earlier.

It was 'Tent Girl.' Or, as it turned out, it was Barbara Ann Hackmann.

”I wish I'd had the Doe Network at the time,” Matthews said.

Since a recent Associated Press story, the Doe Network has been bombarded with offers to help.

”We've had about 3,000 e-mails today,” Matthews told the Times-Standard a few days after the article appeared. “Everybody wants to be Batman. But it takes time. Most people lose interest after 10 days.”

The Doe Network now works in conjunction with other agencies like Project EDAN -- where forensic artists donate their time to create sketches of the missing -- and the federal agency NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Mitchell's profile is just one of thousands listed with organizations like the Doe Network and The Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, which was created by the parents of Carole Sund after she disappeared in Siskiyou County in 1999 and was later found murdered along with her own daughter and friend.

In many ways, Mitchell's case is not typical. With most missing persons cases, law enforcement is unable to spend a lot of time pursuing leads, especially after months or years have passed.

”It's just the opposite with this one,” said Dave Parris, who was working as a detective with the Eureka Police Department when Mitchell disappeared. Now the police chief of the Yurok Tribal Police Department, Parris has kept a position with the EPD specifically to work on the case.

”That happened on my watch,” he said. “I'm going to stay with it.”

There are now 35 volumes on Mitchell's case at the EPD, “the largest paper trail case in Eureka's history, I would expect,” Parris said.

But while the continued efforts of Parris along with the high level of awareness in the community at large make Mitchell's case unique, Bill and Annie Casper, the aunt and uncle with whom Mitchell was living when she disappeared, embrace all offers for help. Databases like the Carringtons' and the Doe Network increase the chances of finding someone, somewhere who knows what happened.

Annie Casper believes that locals are still the most likely to prove helpful. But she's thankful for the assistance of others across the country.

”We've utilized many organizations,” she said, “some through the state, some federal. Everything's a help.”

Parris said he continues to pursue new leads.

”I feel comfortable with where we're at (with the case),” he said. “But by the same token, she hasn't been found or come home.”

As for what really happened on November 25, 1997, Parris admits, “We may never know.”

But there are hundreds if not thousands of people online right now, working to solve cases just like Mitchell's. And Matthews' experience shows that, even 30 years later, the right person stumbling upon the right piece of information at the right time can solve a case.

And the network is getting bigger all the time.

After the Associated Press story appeared in papers around the world, Matthews got a call from a CNN affiliate in Ecuador.

”They wanted to know what they could do to help,” said Matthews. “They asked, 'Can we feature cases from Ecuador?'”

He told them he'd have to do some homework -- learn the ins and outs of Ecuadorian law enforcement. But he loved the idea.

”Yeah!” he told them via a translator. “We'll take it international.”


Ryan Burns can be reached at 441-0563 or rburns@times-standard.com.
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Breakthrough May Be Near in Case of Missing Eureka Teenager
By Mary Curtius
May 06, 1999


For 17 months, Police Det. David Parris has combed underbrush, searched swamps, banged on doors and run down hundreds of tips--including ones from psychics--in a frustrating search for Karen Mitchell, a high school junior who vanished in broad daylight from a downtown street.


The detective's almost immediate conclusion that Mitchell had been kidnapped sent a wave of fear through this North Coast town of 28,000, where no one can remember another teenager being snatched off a city street and there are only about three murders a year.

Posters of the oval-faced, green-eyed 17-year-old still hang in shops, and tips still come in to the Police Department. Local media highlighted the case again recently, after two other Eureka residents--Carole Sund and her daughter, Juliana--disappeared on a Yosemite trip and were found murdered in Tuolumne County.

Mitchell has never been found, but Parris believes that he may finally have a solid lead in the case.

The mystery may have begun to unravel in November, Parris said, when a trucker named Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department and allegedly confessed to killing four women. He brought with him the severed breast of one victim as proof of his crimes.

Ford told investigators that he picked up his victims on the street. They were hitchhikers or prostitutes, who he told detectives died during "rough sex."

The first killing Ford allegedly confessed to happened one month before Mitchell disappeared while walking to work at a day-care center Nov. 25, 1997.

Mitchell was neither hooker nor hitchhiker, but she was walking down the street when last seen, and three witnesses eventually came forward to say they saw her get into a car that stopped to pick her up. The witnesses, however, differed in describing the car, and the only description of the driver sounded nothing like Ford.

When Parris learned of Ford's confession, he got in line to interview the trucker, who lived in a trailer park in nearby Arcata and has relatives in Eureka.

It was a long line. Investigators from all over the state and across the West wanted to talk to Ford about unsolved slayings of women dating back to 1986.

Parris spent three hours with Ford. The trucker said he had nothing to do with Mitchell's disappearance. Unconvinced, Parris said he tracked down cars owned by Ford's relatives that the trucker might have driven.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/06/news/mn-34523
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SEARCH FOR KAREN CONTINUES: Eureka police said they tentatively plan to hold a news conference this Thursday to update the public on the search for Karen Mitchell, the Eureka teen who disappeared near Bayshore Mall in 1997 just days short of her 17th birthday. Over the weekend, investigators combed the foot of Hilfiker Lane and a home in Eureka looking for Mitchell's body. Pursuing what they have said is a new lead, which they have not described, police organized a search team that included the Sheriff's Department and their volunteer rescue team, as well as cadaver-sniffing dogs from the California Rescue Dog Association. The dogs honed in on two areas at the end of Hilfiker, one of which they were not able to search fully because of a rising tide. Police hoped to get back there with a backhoe Wednesday, said spokeswoman Suzie Owsley.
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/012204/news0122.html
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Grim Discovery in Burned Car
Husband Stunned With Grief -- Teens' Classmates Try to Cope
Pamela J. Podger, Torri Minton, Chronicle Staff Writers

Saturday, March 20, 1999



(03-20) 04:00 PDT Eureka -- Students in a health and safety class at Eureka High School knew something unspeakable had happened when their substitute teacher was handed a note yesterday, just before noon.

``The teacher just went in the corner and cried. We all just knew,'' said Angela Younger, 16.

The FBI had announced that two bodies had been found in the trunk of a charred Pontiac in which friends Julie Sund, 15, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, had ridden on a trip to Yosemite with Julie's mother, Carole Sund.

The bodies were not identified, but all day yesterday the hallways of Eureka High School were awash in tears.

``I am totally devastated. This has totally devastated the whole school,'' said Nick Lende, 16, a good friend of Julie's since seventh grade, who danced with both girls at Homecoming in October.

``It's the worst thing that could ever happen to anybody,'' he said. ``How anybody could do this shows they are out of their minds.''

Classmates of Julie and Silvina slumped on the floors, red-eyed, hugged in groups and packed the counselors' office. Ten adults were on hand to counsel grief-stricken teens.

This is the second such disappearance to hit Eureka High School in two years. In 1997, student Karen Mitchell was picked up by someone outside the food court at the Bayshore Mall, and she has not been heard from since.

Yesterday, on one hallway wall were pictures of the two girls -- Julie in her blue cheerleading sweater, and Julie with Silvina, an Argentine exchange student.

All around the pictures, in blue, light-green and red markers were messages of hope and affection. ``I miss you in Spanish and World History,'' said one. ``I miss you Juli and love you very much.''

The mother, daughter and their Argentine friend have been missing for more than a month.

``I feel horrible,'' said Claire Lang, 15, her face flushed from crying. ``Whoever did this -- I'm just so mad and angry. I'm not going to feel safe walking anywhere, and I don't believe it. I still don't believe it. I don't even believe it.''

The horrific news came to Jens Sund, Carole's husband, in the form of a note just after a 9:30 a.m. press conference in Eureka.

Sund then called Carole's father who had just been briefed about the bodies by the FBI in Modesto, family friend Lee Ulansey said.

Jens Sund's first comment after that phone call -- ``This is the most likely thing to happen. But dealing with the reality is something else completely,'' Ulansey said.

Sund plans to stay in Eureka for now. ``Jens has three kids who pretty desperately need him, with the news today,'' Ulansey said.

Last night, the Sund home was quiet, with white curtains drawn tight.

The whole town seems to have been rallying around the family, quietly, for weeks. That includes three retired Caltrans workers who stood outside Stanton's coffee shop in downtown Eureka yesterday -- and worried about the people they had never met.

``Everyone is paying very close attention,'' said Larry Brewer, 65. ``We talk about what's happening to the Sund family every morning over coffee.''

Paul Welty, 72, had a message for the families: ``Hang in there.''

Carole Sund comes from a prominent family, the Carringtons, who made millions in Northern California real estate and now live mostly in Eureka. She has been active in the PTA, and as a court-appointed advocate for CASA, which helps neglected and abused children in the court system.

``Carole Sund is one of the most important parents in Eureka city schools. She's just a wonderful, wonderful woman,'' said Tim Scott, superintendent of Eureka Unified School District.

``Our community has been torn apart,'' he said. ``Our hope for a miracle has obviously faded.'' snipped

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../20/MN54806.DTL
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Eureka Police Department
707-441-4044
707-441-4060

Agency Case Number: C979949

NCMEC #: NCMC840753

NCIC Number: M-078723261

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