| Welcome to PorchlightUSA. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| 1988 Madison, Stacie E. March 20,1988; Carrollton 17 YO | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: May 11 2007, 06:12 PM (653 Views) | |
| PorchlightUSA | May 11 2007, 06:12 PM Post #1 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/m/madison_stacie.html Stacie Elisabeth Madison Left: Madison, circa 1988; Right: Age-progression at age 34 (circa 2004) Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance Missing Since: March 20, 1988 from Carrollton, Texas Classification: Endangered Missing Date Of Birth: June 17, 1970 Age: 17 years old Height and Weight: 5'6, 120 - 160 pounds Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Madison's ears are double-pierced. She has two or three white discolorations on the back of her neck. Some agencies spell her name "Staci." Clothing/Jewelry Description: A long-sleeved white sweatshirt with a pink and orange logo on the front, white cotton pants and white tennis shoes. Details of Disappearance Madison and her friend, Susan Smalley, planned to spend the night of March 19, 1988 at the Smalley family residence in Carrollton, Texas. It has been established that the girls were at the house at approximately 12:00 a.m. on March 20, as Madison called a friend from their home at that time. Smalley and Madison departed together afterwards. They were traveling in Madison's 1967 Mustang convertible. The car had been painted green and gold, the colors of Newman Smith High School, where the girls were students at the time. Smalley and Madison apparently attempted to purchase beer at a local 7-11 convenience store in the early morning hours of March 20. They were refused service due to their ages. The girls then drove to the Steak and Ale in Carrollton, where Smalley was employed. One of Smalley's co-workers told investigators that Smalley spent approximately five minutes inside the restaurant speaking to a friend, then departed. Madison stayed inside the vehicle while Smalley was in the establishment. This was the last confirmed sighting of the girls. Smalley's mother called authorities when she noticed that neither of the girls was in the family's home later in the morning. Madison's convertible was located later in a strip mall parking lot in Dallas, Texas on Forest Lane and Webb Chapel Road. The vehicle was locked and appeared to be undisturbed; Madison's portable stereo was placed on the back seat. Foul play is possible in their disappearances. It is believed that they may have been abducted and taken to Mexico. Investigating Agency If you have any information concerning this case, please contact: Carrollton Police Department 214-466-3324 OR Texas Department Of Public Safety 800-346-3243 Source Information The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children Child Protection Education Of America Nation's Missing Children Organization Texas Department Of Public Safety Carrollton Police Department ID-Wanted California Attorney General's Office Updated 3 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated February 9, 2004. Charley Project Home |
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | May 11 2007, 06:13 PM Post #2 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Age-progression at age 34 (circa 2004) |
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | May 11 2007, 06:13 PM Post #3 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...opic=8877&st=0& |
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | Jan 6 2009, 06:51 PM Post #4 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Paper: Fort Worth Star-Telegram Title: Little revealed in decade since 2 teens vanished A weekend night out ended in mystery in Date: March 18, 1998 CARROLLTON - Like countless other American teen-agers, Susan Smalley and Stacie Madison had their Saturday night planned: cruising, flirting, eating out, maybe scoring alcohol, having fun. "They were just going to go out and goof off, kind of like what you do when you're 17, 18, 19 years old," said Susan's mother, Carol Audett, 54. An evening of fun has turned into a decade of despair for the girls' parents. Neither has been seen since early the next day - March 21, - when they left an Addison Steak and Ale Restaurant where Susan worked part-time as a hostess. Stacie's green-and-gold Mustang convertible was found that day in a strip-mall parking lot at Forest Lane and Webb Chapel Road in - locked, with her portable stereo undisturbed on the back seat. Stacie, 17, had endured the SAT that afternoon. Fun was in order. Ida Madison gave her daughter, a senior, a perm after the exam, and Susan, a new friend who shared two classes, dropped by to begin the evening. Madison told her daughter to be in by midnight, even though Stacie would be at Susan's house overnight. "How will you know if we're there? " Susan, 18, piped in, teasing. "Because you never know when I'll call," was the response. For the past 10 years, their families have agonized over what happened. They believe that neither Stacie nor Susan had a significant amount of money or credit cards and that no one has ever used their drivers' licenses or Social Security numbers. "Somebody's going to have to talk," said investigator Glenn Michna, the third detective assigned to the case. "That's what it's going to take to solve it. Or we'll have to find a . " The story of their night out was assembled through the Carrollton police record of the case and interviews. Investigators believe they are dead. So do their mothers. "Some days it really hits you hard, and then sometimes you go a whole week without thinking about it," Audett said. "Sometimes I think it would be best to find out and totally know, and then other times I think, `Well, as long as I don't know, there's still a chance. ' "I'd just like to have it resolved," she said. "I think it would be the best thing for Ida and myself. " Leads in all directions The disappearance spawned a predictable outpouring of interest and endless conjecture. People wanted to help so much in , they deluged Carrollton police with dozens of leads. Now Michna is left with an open but inactive case that "bugs" him, a case with no conclusion and nothing new to explore. "We heard so many different things in the very beginning," Madison, 53, said last week. A man who identified himself as a behavioral psychologist reported his "feeling" that the teen-agers crossed the Mexican border near San Diego with two men a week after they disappeared. One caller "saw" Madison at a Houston supermarket but could not recall its name. Another said the two frequent a Madison, W. Va., saloon called Bob and Bea's. A third phone tip said Madison visits an inmate at the state prison in Bushnell, Fla., every Saturday. A Coon Rapids, Minn., woman was convinced the two share an apartment near her house. One teen-ager speculated that they decided to get married to each other on South Padre Island. All of the "tips" were dead ends. At 1 p.m. March 25, , Carrollton police dispatchers received a call from an person who said "Stacie and Susan are all right" before hanging up. The call came on an unrecorded line, leaving no voice to track. About two months after Stacie and Susan disappeared, Stacie's boyfriend, Kevin Elrod, then 19, told a girl he was dating that he had killed the pair, bludgeoning them and dumping them in a nearby cemetery. The girl called police. Elrod later said he told the girl he killed the teen-agers because he was exasperated with people asking him about Stacie's disappearance and implying that he knew something about it. He passed a polygraph test in June and has moved to Florida, living in several towns over the past decade. Attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. In pursuit of leads, Carrollton police called John Catchings, a Richardson psychic, who died in 1992. During a three-hour consultation, Catchings told detectives that the teen-agers had been murdered by a white male who was 28 to 34 years old, with blond hair and eyeglasses. The murderer dumped their near Lake Grapevine, Catchings said. A search of the area he described turned up nothing. Two of a kind Stacie Elisabeth Madison was a neat freak determined to have a tidy room. Her panda collection sat neatly atop her dresser, and her bed and bathroom were always in order. She would, at times, clean the house without being asked. She played French horn in the marching band and twirled a baton with skill. She worked as a receptionist in an allergist's office and planned to take business courses at the University of North Texas. Susan Renee Smalley was only 18 but possessed the maturity and responsibility of an older woman, Audett said. Her parents divorced when she was 6, and Susan, always independent, worked two jobs while earning above-average grades, her mother said. "We got along like sisters," Audett said. "She felt like she could tell me anything without me being shocked or embarrassed. " Where the trail ends Ironically, police know the girls were at Susan's house by midnight, just as Ida Madison had mandated. At 12:01 a.m. that Sunday, they called one of Stacie's friends in Arlington, a guy she may have been dating, a guy who told police he was trying to avoid Stacie before his girlfriend caught on. Police aren't sure why the two went out again. The first item on their evening's itinerary had been to pick up Susan's mother at the Prestonwood Dillard's, where Audett worked as a clerk. Stacie followed in her '67 Mustang convertible, which bore the colors of their school, Newman Smith High School. At some point during the evening, they drove to Arlington and found an apartment full of people hanging out. They left, with plans to eat at Chili's, and said they might return, according to the police file. The day Stacie was reported missing, Elrod told police she was supposed to pick him up after his shift at McDonald's at 10:45 p.m. When she didn't show up, he said, he walked home and went to sleep, puzzled. That night, Susan and Stacie also went to the Steak and Ale on Belt Line Road. Stacie waited in her car while Susan went inside to talk to a co-worker who told police that Susan had been trying to date him. Susan and Stacie left in less than five minutes. A 7-Eleven clerk later told police the two had tried to buy beer from her Saturday night, apparently before they went to the restaurant. "These girls were just normal teen-age girls," said Michna, the investigator on the case. "They liked to go out on Friday, Saturday nights, drink a little, smoke, you know? " Both mothers say their daughters did not simply run away from home, a theory the women heard often in the first months. And if they're alive, both said, Stacie and Susan have been prisoners for a decade. "She left those hot rollers and her makeup so ... I never thought for a minute that she had run away from home," said Ida Madison, a Spanish teacher at her daughter's high school. "She would never have left those. " |
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | Jan 6 2009, 06:55 PM Post #5 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
13 years after two popular teens disappeared, families still in agony.(The Dallas Morning News) Article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Article date: August 24, 2001 Author: Granberry, Michael More results for: Stacie Elisabeth Madison DALLAS _ Thirteen years after her daughter disappeared, Ida Madison keeps a yellow ribbon tied around the tree in her front yard. It's a reminder to her, and to everyone who passes, that a glimmer of hope still exists. For the Carrollton, Texas, mother, the national coverage of the Chandra Levy case _ involving a Washington, D.C., intern missing for more than 100 days _ has made her own agony even worse. Madison says she thinks her daughter Stacie Elisabeth is probably dead. But not knowing keeps the memories alive, making closure all the more impossible. It is, she says, nothing less than torture. "I would like nothing better than for her to come walking in the door and say, `Hey, Mom, I'm home' _ and to tell me what happened," says Ida Madison, 56. Her daughter was last seen with Carrollton high school classmate Susan Renee Smalley early Sunday, March 20, 1988. Susan was 18. Stacie was 17. Both were about to graduate from Newman Smith High School. Neither reported for class the next day. No other missing-persons case in the history of North Texas law enforcement has been as baffling as this one, says Joe McKey, program administrator for the Missing Persons Clearinghouse of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The office lists more than 72,000 missing persons in Texas, including adults and children. "This is the strangest missing-persons case we've had since I've been here, and I've been here 20 years," says Sgt. David Sponhour, spokesman for the Carrollton Police Department. "At this point, there is nothing to go on. I mean absolutely nothing." Susan's mother, Carolyn Audett, says: "I feel almost like a war mom, waiting for news from the front about a son who's gotten killed in battle. I hear on the news that a body was found, and I do a double-take until I know it's not Susan. And then the Levy case it's taken me back in time, stirring up a whole bunch of bad emotions." ___ Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley were looking forward to the future. Stacie was working for a prominent allergist and hoping to go to college. Susan, an honor roll student, wanted to graduate and head to Florida, with her mother riding beside her in the brand-new car she couldn't wait to buy. Both girls were cute, as their friends often told them. Stacie had blond hair, blue eyes and a dazzling smile. Her mother says boys would call almost in tears, because Stacie was already committed or had just said no to a date. "Please ask her to go out with me," she remembers one boy saying as he choked back tears. Susan, brown-haired and green-eyed, was a hostess at an Addison restaurant. She, too, was outgoing and was meeting a lot of new people. Audett says she and Susan were "the best of friends," with "nothing but good feeling" between them. Susan's parents divorced when she was 7; her father lives in Odessa. For survivors, missing-persons cases can inspire an endless procession of what-ifs. Questions about fate are never so cruel. Had Stacie Madison not given up baton twirling the year before, she would have been competing that weekend at a regional contest. Ida Madison says Stacie gave up twirling because her boyfriend wanted to spend more time with her. Just before her disappearance, she was trying to end the relationship, Ida Madison says, "but couldn't figure out how to break it off." So on Saturday afternoon, March 19, 1988 during the last weekend of their spring break Stacie told her mother that she would be "sleeping over" at Susan's. If her boyfriend called, she instructed, "tell him I'm out with Susan." He did call that Saturday night, Ida Madison says, "and I followed my daughter's instructions." At the time, Susan's mother was working as a saleswoman at a department store in the Prestonwood shopping center. The girls gave her a ride home after her shift ended at 6 p.m. "They came back to my house to change clothes," Audett said. "I had a date that night. I was a single mom. They were heading out, so I told them to be careful, not knowing I'd never see them again. When I came home, they weren't home, but I wasn't alarmed. "Susan was 18 then, and she had always been a good kid, so I'd never given her a real strict curfew. I knew she'd do the right thing. When I got up the next morning, I was surprised to notice that the living room light was still on. I always left it on for Susan if she was out for the evening. So I checked on the girls and was surprised to find Susan's bedroom empty." Weeks later, police determined that Stacie had telephoned a friend in Arlington from Susan's Carrollton house at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. Investigators concluded that the girls headed back out after making the call, driving toward Dallas in Stacie's 1967 Ford Mustang convertible. They drove to the Steak and Ale where Susan worked. Friendly and talkative, the girls were seen there in the early hours of Sunday, employees told investigators. The next Tuesday, Stacie's Mustang was found in a parking lot near Forest Lane and Webb Chapel Road in Dallas. The car was in good condition, offering not a single clue. "This is the first and only case of this nature that the Carrollton police have ever investigated," Ida Madison said. "I honestly believe they did the best job they could." But she says they failed to check for fingerprints on the car, and "they can't even explain why that happened." Greg Ward, the detective who inherited the case four months after the girls' disappearance, says the original investigative team "just didn't process the car. They thought (the girls were runaways). I'm not saying they screwed up, but they probably could have handled it better." Like the two officers assigned to the case originally, Ward has since left the Carrollton Police Department. ___ Years later, when the Internet became popular, Ida Madison seized the opportunity to forage for new clues. She located a woman named Stacie Madison, living in East Texas. She dialed her number, hoping the voice on the other end would be her Stacie's. But as soon as the woman answered, Ida Madison knew that another hope had vanished. Web sites only recently pinpointed a Stacie Madison in Ohio and one in Minnesota. Should she call them? "How can I not?" she says with a sigh. She's holding off for now, she says, fearing that when she does call, it won't be her Stacie. For years after Stacie disappeared, Ida Madison found herself locked in a numbing routine. "At first, I stayed awake," she says. "I'd stay up half the night. Or all night. I'd make endless lists of things to do tomorrow. `This is what we must do tomorrow,' I'd tell myself. Things to do kept coming in waves. Not long ago, I reminded myself, `I need to tell Frank about this tomorrow.' " But then she remembered that Frank, Stacie's dad, died five years ago of complications from cancer at 55. At the very least, the case has made Ida Madison and her other children, Sara, 27, and Stefanie, 19, careful to the point of paranoia. "This can happen to anybody anywhere," Ida Madison says, "and people who think it can't are just totally oblivious." Rather than obsess over the case, Susan Smalley's mother recently told investigators that she no longer wished to be contacted unless there's a breakthrough. "Even today, there's still a little bitty glimmer of hope that she could walk back into my life," Audett said. "It's not very likely" that Susan is alive, she said, "but I haven't 100 percent given it up." ___ Glenn Michna, an officer with the Carrollton Police Department, remains in charge of the Madison-Smalley investigation, even after giving up his duties as detective. In search of better hours, he returned to being a patrol officer. But his conscience won't let him give up the case. "Even today," he says, "I get references almost weekly or monthly. Somebody says they saw them on a street corner the night they disappeared 13 years ago. But it never amounts to anything. They think they saw them. Nothing more. It never goes anywhere, and it's agonizing." Officer Michna took the case after Ward resigned to become a private detective. "It was definitely an abduction," says Ward, who is now with the Frisco Police Department. "We couldn't find anything to make you think they were runaways or had voluntarily left home. They were seniors ready to graduate. They were good students, with no big event in their lives that would force them to flee. They were normal. There was no secret life that anyone was aware of." Even so, Ward recalls two witnesses saying they had seen girls matching the descriptions of Susan and Stacie hanging out early that Sunday at a popular drag-race strip in a warehouse district near LBJ Freeway and Interstate 35E not far from where Stacie's car was found. "They said the girls appeared to be intoxicated and were starting the races by flashing their breasts," says Ward, noting that the girls' mothers remain skeptical of the drag-race story. "Four years into the case, I had a kid come forward who claims they were there that night. He also said there was a `heavy biker element' hanging out at the races that night." Officer Michna took over the case in 1994 and says it haunts him even now. Soon after the girls' disappearance, he says, the investigation focused on Stacie's boyfriend, who was "questioned extensively" by Carrollton police, investigators say. Police gave the boyfriend a polygraph test, which he passed, removing him from suspicion, Officer Michna says. Thirteen years later, police have no suspects in the case. ___ Ida Madison says the craziest time for a missing person's friends and family occurs immediately after the disappearance. That's when she made hundreds of phone calls to anyone and everyone she could think of. Friends and strangers by the thousands put fliers on trees and in buildings all over North Texas. One family friend who traveled extensively posted fliers in airports all over the country. Some of those are still in Carrollton, including one in the lobby of police headquarters. News of the girls' disappearance became fodder for crime-stopper television shows, locally and nationally. After a $10,000 reward was offered, a handful of tips materialized, all fruitless. With nothing else to go on, Carrollton police listened intently to several psychics, one of whom said, "They're in water," Madison said. But a search of a lake near Coppell found nothing. Could they still be alive? Living, say, in Europe or South America? Both mothers find such a notion ridiculous. They say neither girl was anything but a normal teenager. They had good relationships with the adults in their lives and had bright futures. The morning before her disappearance, Stacie had taken the SAT. Susan left more than $600 in a bank account bearing only her name, where it remains. (Because it's in her name alone, her mother has no access to it.) When Stacie's father died, he left no will, forcing his wife to have Stacie declared legally dead to probate his estate. ___ The incident has scarred Stacie's sister Stefanie, her mother says, leaving her with an inordinate suspicion of strangers. When the family drives on LBJ Freeway, Stefanie panics if the doors are not locked, her mother says. And there have been other difficulties, although "it's brought us all closer together," Ida Madison says. For a while, Stacie's sister Sara's learning disability seemed to worsen. "It's been really hard," the mother says with a catch in her voice. "I've always had a really strong belief in God. One of the things the Bible tells us is that God will never give us more than we can handle. I've tried to take things day by day. If I can get through today, I tell myself, then I can get through tomorrow. "But, yes, it's a nightmare, one of those dreams that never seems to end. I keep thinking I'll wake up, but I haven't. I'm still in the nightmare. It's still going on. And it probably always will be." ___ Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. _____ PHOTOS (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099). © 2001, The Dallas Morning News. Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-77521404.html |
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | Oct 7 2009, 09:30 PM Post #6 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
http://www.carrolltonleader.com/articles/2...der/news/70.txt Horbrook, shorbrook@acnpapers.com Published: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 7:02 PM CDT Shawn Sutherland’s chance restaurant encounter with Susan Smalley in early 1988 left a lasting impression. Little did he know, she would turn up missing with her best friend just a few months later, never to be seen or heard from again. “Mention those two girls and anybody here in 1988 knows who you’re talking about,” Sutherland said. Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley, seniors at Newman Smith High School, disappeared March 20, 1988. Sutherland, a paralegal who lives in Richardson, delves into the story of their disappearance with his book The Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley. “I have never felt called to preach, but I just felt called to tell this story,” Sutherland said. “By getting it back out there, somebody might offer what they know.” Sutherland, a 1982 Newman Smith graduate, was home on break during his last semester at Abilene Christian University and heard the police were reaching out to the community for two missing Newman Smith students. At first, he assumed the two friends may have headed to South Padre for the weekend as so many high school students did back then. “As I got ready to drive back to school, they still weren’t back,” he said. “After that, I got on with life.” When he returned home from Abilene again a few months later he saw one of the many missing posters plastered all over Carrollton and realized Smalley was the restaurant hostess whose smile and friendly conversation made him forget his worries about grades, tests, graduation and the hope of finding a job. “Staring back at me from that piece of paper was a blonde I did not recognize. The other face, though, I knew instantly,” Sutherland wrote in the first chapter. “The smile was unmistakable. It was the same one that had lifted my spirits that freezing cold night earlier in the year.” It has been reported Madison and Smalley were last seen in the parking lot of Steak and Ale in Addison between 12:01 and 12:45 a.m. On Monday, March 21, Madison’s 1967 Ford Mustang was discovered in the El Fenix parking lot on Forest Lane, near Marsh. At that time, the area was known as the hot spot for teenagers cruising in cars and hanging out with friends. “Nobody knows what their plans were if they were meeting anybody,” Sutherland said. “Prior to that they’d done teenage stuff, gone shopping, visited friends in Arlington and came back.” In his book, Sutherland details numerous interviews, including those conducted with family members, friends and officers who worked the case at various times. “I don’t claim to have solved the mystery,” he said. “I explore probably what’s more realistic. They met up with somebody they knew or trusted or the other possibility is they were abducted by a complete stranger.” When Sutherland decided to write this book, he was apprehensive about approaching the girls’ relatives. “The scariest thing was approaching the people out of the clear blue saying ‘I want to write a story about two of your beloved that vanished and never appeared again,’” he said. “There were also some people who were friends of the girls that were a little suspicious, wondering why this guy is so interested.” Sutherland said the police were also a little apprehensive about speaking with him. “The Carrollton police have sort of got a bad rap over this over the years. They didn’t take it seriously at first,” he said. “When they found one of the girls’ cars a few days later, it wasn’t fingerprinted.” When it came time to publish his findings, Sutherland knew it would be nearly impossible to sell the book to a mainstream publisher because the girls were never national news or household names. “A bigger obstacle, though, was that, since it is the story of a cold case, the book would be minus an ending. And the public, or so I am told, is prone to avoid reading about unsolved mysteries unless they are of the most garish sort, such as the Black Dahlia, Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac,” he wrote in the preface. “I would later learn that the higher profile television programs devoted to capturing criminals had also declined for years to broadcast the details of the Madison/Smalley case because police lack a suspect whose photograph they can publicize.” Sutherland went the self-publishing route and is selling the book at cost, meaning he will make no profit. “Somebody out there knows what happened to these girls. Somebody knows where they are. I think it’s obscene they’ve been missing this long,” he said. “My thoughts are parallel with the officer I interviewed. He would just like to have a little closure for the family. That would be my reward.” Information on how to purchase the book can be found at missinggirlsbook.com.
|
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | Dec 4 2009, 01:47 PM Post #7 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Shawn's new book!!! please check this book out! http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Unsolved-di...k-78381357.html by JASON WHITELY / WFAA-TV Posted on December 2, 2009 at 9:58 PM Updated yesterday at 11:30 PM Related: •Missing Girls Book Gallery .See all 8 photos » DALLAS - For Ida Madison, the passing of time hasn't helped. "My daughter still has not been found and I can't stop looking for her," she said. Madison just wants to know what happened to her oldest daughter, Stacie. As their classmates from Carrollton's Newman High School started Spring Break, Stacie and her friend, Susan Smalley, disappeared March 20, 1988. Volunteers passed out hundreds of fliers with the girls' pictures on them at shopping centers, but the two high school seniors seemingly vanished without a trace. With no credible leads and a stalled investigation, their story soon faded from the headlines. "I think this case has languished for too long," said Shawn Sutherland. Almost 22 years after Stacie and Susan disappeared, Sutherland has revived their case. As a 1982 graduate of the same high school, he was drawn to their story. Sutherland briefly met Susan before she disappeared when she worked as a hostess at the Steak & Ale Restaurant in Addison. Over the last seven months, Sutherland, who is a paralegal, has spent his own time and money conducting an independent investigation that he recently self-published in a book titled This Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley. In the book, the original Carrollton Police detectives working the case, who have since left the department, admit Stacie's boyfriend was never entirely cleared in the case. "As far as they know, his family and friends were never pressed and they should be," Sutherland said. Her boyfriend, who is not mentioned by name, confessed to his new girlfriend that he killed the two girls and then immediately recanted. Investigators stopped pursuing him after he passed a polygraph. Madison thinks Carrollton police did the best they could with the knowledge they had in 1988. But, she isn't convinced her daughter's former boyfriend had nothing to do with the disappearance until he's finally cleared. "Maybe he did exactly what he told that girl he did do - that he hit them both over the back of the head and killed them, then he buried their bodies and took the car back," she said. Madison doubts Stacie or Susan are still alive. Their disappearance remains one of the oldest unsolved cases in Carrollton. It's still classified as missing persons since there is no evidence of a homicide. Their missing poster still hangs inside the Carrollton Police Department. Sgt. Joel Payne said the case remains active, is assigned to an investigator and leads still trickle in. But, detectives wouldn't reveal whether they're still following up with Stacie's former boyfriend or taking any other steps for investigative reasons. Payne and Madison hope Sutherland's book, which he is selling at cost, generates new leads in the unsolved mystery. For now, more than two decades later, it's still a story without an ending. Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Carrollton Police at (972) 466-3290. E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com |
![]() |
|
| PorchlightUSA | May 11 2010, 10:31 PM Post #8 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Carrollton Police Department 972-466-3333 mailto:rmenefee@ci.carrollton.tx.us All information may be submitted on an anonymous basis. Agency Number: 286361 NCMEC #: NCMC707842 NCIC Number: M-503980246 |
![]() |
|
| tatertot | Jul 6 2010, 06:54 AM Post #9 |
|
Administrator
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...ng.20496b1.html Book prompts renewed look at unsolved 1988 disappearances of 2 Carrollton teens 06:47 AM CDT on Tuesday, July 6, 2010 By JON NIELSEN / The Dallas Morning News The poster is from another generation. A dozen tiny pinpricks above the words "MISSING PERSONS" mark where the flier has been tacked and retacked onto a bulletin board in the Carrollton Police Department lobby. Below the block text pounded out on an old typewriter are pictures of the two teens missing since 1988. Stacie Madison and Susan Renee Smalley stare back from their senior class photos. Their smiles, frozen in time, express youthful optimism. Thousands of Carrollton residents remember the days and weeks after the teens vanished. They remember the posters scattered about the city and in the windows of businesses up and down Forest Lane, a popular teen hangout where the girls disappeared. Time passed. The headlines subsided. As Carrollton grew, the memory faded until a full-time paralegal decided to write a book that reignited the investigation. 'Tell their story' The case invaded Shawn Sutherland's sleep. Sutherland, who was 24 in 1988 and had grown up in Carrollton, was haunted for years by the girls' disappearance. Then, one night last year, Sutherland awakened with this phrase racing through his mind: "Tell their story." Sutherland, now 46, spent much of his free time studying and writing articles about cults. After his epiphany last spring, he put a project about a California cult leader on hold so that he could write the tale of the missing teens. He called the book he self-published last fall This Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley. Carrollton police had never closed the case. It sat inactive, like a jigsaw puzzle missing pieces, until Sutherland wrote his book. "I was thinking I was going to write a book that maybe stirred citizens up. ... Maybe that would force police to do something," Sutherland said. 2 months from graduation Stacie, 17, and Susan, 18, set to graduate in two months from Carrollton Newman Smith High School, were determined to make the last night of spring break count. They planned a sleepover at Susan's place and were determined to find a good party. It was March 19, 1988. Stacie had endured the SAT earlier that Saturday and was waiting at home for Susan to drop by. Ida Madison, Stacie's mother, permed her daughter's shoulder-length blond hair as they waited. After Susan arrived, the teens pranced out the front door to Stacie's pristine yellow 1967 Mustang convertible. As they headed to the car, Ida reminded them about her midnight curfew. "How will you know we'll be in?" Susan joked. "You never know when I'll call," Ida said. The girls planned nothing that night. In typical teenage fashion, they wandered around town. They went to the mall, dropped by Susan's house, and then went to a friend's party in Arlington. They didn't stay at the apartment long, left about 10 p.m. and returned to Susan's house in Carrollton. They called the Arlington apartment again at 12:01 a.m. Between 12:30 and 1 a.m., they went to a Steak and Ale restaurant in Addison where Susan worked. Susan talked to a boy whom she wanted to date, and then the girls left in the Mustang, the convertible top down. It was the last time they were seen alive. Police discovered Stacie's car at Webb Chapel Road and Forest Lane the following Tuesday. The doors were locked, the convertible top fastened shut. It was about 45 degrees the morning of their disappearance, but the girls' jackets were found on the car's floorboard on top of Stacie's boombox. The girls' families never thought that the teens would have run away. Susan's mother is sure something sinister happened that morning. "There's a chance they might walk through the door. In your mind you think that might happen," said Carol Audett, Susan's mother. "But I know my daughter. She wouldn't have just left." A fresh start Sutherland began working on the book in April 2009. After his daylong shifts as a patent law paralegal in a downtown Dallas high-rise, he stayed up as late as 2 a.m. pecking the pages out on his keyboard in his Richardson home. Sutherland, who has a stubbly salt-and-pepper beard and an arch of baldness across his head, binged on sandwiches and Pop-Tarts. The diet added about 20 pounds to his already husky frame. For nearly eight months he wrote, researched and interviewed everyone from the original case detectives to the girls' high school teachers. The book didn't reveal new details about that night in 1988, but it came at a time when Carrollton police were re-examining cold cases. His efforts prompted investigators to take a closer look. "What this book did was push the full reset button," said Carrollton police Sgt. Joel Payne. "We threw out all the assumptions, and we started from scratch." The department and Payne, the lead detective, are throwing new resources into the case. The Denton County district attorney's office also assigned an investigator after learning of a connection in its county. With the case revived, investigators are re-examining theories dismissed long ago. There's a heightened urgency to get anyone with information about the case to come forward. "Somebody knows something out there. Good, bad, rumor, we don't care. We just need to put some pieces together," said Denton County investigator Jerry Pomposelli. Some who have remained silent for 22 years are providing information about the night the girls disappeared. Detectives won't reveal what that information is, but they say it's credible. Payne said they need more. "What I need is something somebody's been holding on to for 22 years," Payne said. Questioning of boyfriend Sutherland's book builds toward a climax when he introduces Stacie's boyfriend at the time as a possible suspect. The author agreed not to name the boyfriend in the book. But authorities had questioned him in the case about 90 days after the girls disappeared. At the time, theories on what happened to the girls abounded: They were kidnapped by a cult and forced to live as prostitutes in Mexico. They left on a joyride to South Padre Island. Or cross-country truckers picked them up. Those were possible but unlikely scenarios, Payne said. But then a woman whom Stacie's former boyfriend was dating told authorities he had admitted to the killings. According to the girlfriend, he told her he had killed Stacie and Susan with a shovel and buried their bodies in a cemetery near State Highway 121 and Fish Hatchery Road in Denton County. It was the biggest lead police had received. Police grilled him extensively and searched the cemetery. But he passed a polygraph test, and the search revealed nothing. They let him go. To this day, there have been no arrests. Stacie's former boyfriend has since moved out of Texas, changed his last name and been married at least four times. One of his wives filed for a restraining order against him in 1993 after he allegedly threatened her with a knife. They've since divorced. Investigators have not labeled him a suspect in the case. He could not be reached for comment. Looking for answers Ida Madison has kept close watch over the police investigation. She insists that she be provided the latest updates. She closely watches evening newscasts. Whenever area authorities find bodies or bones, she imagines they're her daughter's and presses Carrollton detectives to investigate. But Madison has never found the answers she's looking for. She hopes that someone with answers will help police solve this case. "I do believe there are people who know," she said. "I also know that the next 22 years could go on just like the last 22 have: knowing nothing." At 65, she said, she may not have another 22 years to wait. |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · Missing Persons 1980 to 1989 · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z2.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)



2.jpg (15.6 KB)

9:19 AM Jul 11