Elaine Park went missing on January 28, 2017 in Calabasas, Calif.
It’s every parent’s worst fear their child may be harmed while venturing into the world on their own. But, what parent could imagine “not knowing” where her only child is for nearly two years. That is the nightmare, Susan Park, the mother of missing actress Elaine Park is living.
Elaine Park, now 22, vanished on January 28, 2017, after she was last seen leaving her boyfriend’s home in Calabasas, Calif.
Her unlocked charcoal-gray 2015 Honda Civic was found at Corral Beach in Malibu, parked on the shoulder of Pacific Coast Highway, with keys still in the ignition. Inside the car was her cell phone, backpack and a laptop inside, makeup, and money.
Prior to her disappearance, Elaine looked forward to attending Los Angeles Pierce College and continuing to pursue her acting career. She loved performing in dance companies and musical theater. She had already appeared in small parts on E.R., Mad TV, Desperate Housewives, Crazy Stupid Love and Role Models.
The night Elaine went missing, her boyfriend Divine “Div” Compere told police he and Elaine had gone to a movie and returned home by Uber at approximately 1 a.m. that evening. His story was later confirmed on surveillance camera.
Div Compere is the son of Hollywood businessman Shakim Compere who co-owns Flavor Unit Entertainment with Queen Latifah.
Compere also told authorities that Elaine abruptly woke up at about 4 a.m., shaking and singing which he said was probably due to a panic attack. Surveillance captures Elaine walking to her car two hours later at 6 a.m., not appearing distressed. Then the camera shows Elaine’s vehicle leaving the Compere Compound, a large secured property near the 2600 block of Delphine Lane in the rugged Coldwater Canyon of Calabasas, Calif.
Elaine Park’s vehicle was found along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu
A resident of La Crescenta, a good 30-minute drive northeast of Cold Water Canyon to her home, Elaine’s car was found 20-minutes southwest at a Corral Canyon Beach pull out.
Police conducted an intensive ground search of the area with canines but found nothing. No information has surfaced to explain why Elaine would have driven in this direction.
Corral Canyon Beach along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu Calif.)
“It’s suspicious in the way that we found her car, her cell phone and things, in the manner we did,” Glendale Police Sgt., Robert William told Dateline. “We can’t rule foul play in or out because plain and simple, we don’t have any evidence to do so.”
Elaine Park’s gray Honda Civic founded unattended alongside Pacific Coast Highway SR 1.
Days and months have passed with no sign of Elaine. Now, nearly two years without her daughter, “As days go by, my hope finding her gets cloudy and losing hope,” says Susan Park. “It is very difficult to be in the same house with her shadow lingering with her laughter and my visual memories.”
Park has worked tirelessly to remind the public her daughter is missing, raising reward money and working with private investigators.
To date, Park is uncertain if investigating agency Glendale Police Department has et to “unlock” Elaine’s cell phone. The private investigator initially hired is no longer working the case.
Though Compere was ruled out as a suspect early on, Park is not satisfied that he has no knowledge of her daughter’s disappearance as he stated to detectives.
In a saddened tone and only the heartbreak a mother of a missing person would know, “There are no new developments except the $140K reward has been extended until the end of this year,” said Park.
When we hear of a person going missing without a trace, it’s often in municipalities, such as cities. The moment a loved one has realized the person is missing, they contact their local police department to file a missing persons report. From there, search and/or rescue efforts are launched by the local law enforcement. Hundreds of labor-hours are spent canvassing the area where the missing persons were last seen, speaking to witnesses who knew the missing person, and gathering information that could unearth plausible leads. According to the NCIC, as of May 31, 2018, there were 87,608 active missing person cases in the United States. However, that number may be inaccurate, as disappearances within the public lands of the United States, such as national parks, are poorly cataloged and filed. When you go missing in the city, the local police will likely look for you. But who is there to answer the panicked call when the only other human being for miles might be a single park ranger?
Available data on the exact number of missing persons cases varies by source, but the fact is, no one is immune from going missing—even in national parks. One of the youngest missing persons to vanish in a state park was Alfred Beilhartz in 1938. When he was reported missing during a family camping trip over the July 4th weekend in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, he was just five years old. The family noticed Alfred was missing when the family reunited at the camp after a trip to the river. A search party of 150 people searched for Alfred, but after ten days, the authorities decided the little boy must have drowned in the river.
In a more recent case, one of the oldest missing persons to go missing was John Devine in 1997. John was 73 when he disappeared from Olympic National Park in Washington State. Despite his age and the intrepid 24-mile hike from Mount Baldy, John Devine was an experienced hiker who was known to handle himself well in the wilderness. The search for John was conducted in terrible weather conditions eventually causing a helicopter crash killing three people who were searching for John in the air while other search party members scoured the land on foot. The search was called off on the sentiment John would not want others put in harm’s way.
People go missing every day for a myriad of reasons, such as being the victim of a crime, or running away. In national parks, however, the disappearance is usually attributed to one of two things, one being the wrath of Mother Nature. In July 2004, David Gonzales and his family were on a camping trip in Northern California’s San Bernadino National Forest, when he asked his mother if he could have her car keys. Why? Because there were cookies in the car. His mother handed him the keys, thinking nothing of it. After all, the car was only 50 yards away. What happened next was the stuff of every parent’s nightmare. David’s mother turned her back for only a short moment, and by the time she turned back to look for her son, he was gone. It was mystifying. She recalled hearing no sound, no struggle indicating her child was in peril. She recalled later in her report, she saw a beige truck spinning its tires as it flew out of the campground around approximately the time her son went missing, but since there were no signs of abduction, authorities had no reason to investigate. The boy’s remains were discovered a year later by hikers, a little more than a mile from the family’s campsite. Authorities finally decided the boy must have been the victim of a mountain lion attack.
When national park missing persons cases finally go cold, after exhausting all leads and resources, it’s not uncommon for the locals, or even law enforcement, to shrug their shoulders and say, “They were ‘spirited away’.” Many are familiar with the 2001 Miyazaki classic film of the same name. In the film, a young girl named Chihiro is moving to a new neighborhood, during the move, the family gets lost in the woods. She loses her parents to the temptations of the spirit world and spends the rest of the film trying to reunite with them. The family goes missing from the outside world without a trace or without reason, and this is called being “spirited away.”
One of the oldest missing persons cases occurring in a national park is the disappearance of Bessie and Glen Hyde in 1928. They were newlyweds who were on a mission to traverse the intense rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. It was a bold mission, and if successful, Bessie would have been the first woman to accomplish this mighty feat. The couple was last seen on November 18th, when they were photographed before going back into the canyon to complete their route. After they didn’t show up in Needles, California in early December of that year, Glen’s father initiated the search for his son and daughter-in-law. After two weeks, their boat was finally spotted from a search plane. It was upright, undamaged, and full of supplies. There have been many theories about what became of the newlyweds, including running aground in choppy rapids, and a possible domestic dispute that might have ended violently. A woman even came forward in 1971 saying she was the long-missing Bessie Hyde, who had stabbed her new husband in a rage on the trip, but she later recanted. Without the investigative resources of the 21st century, it’s easy to believe two young people in the roaring twenties would just vanish without a trace. However, as we’ve discussed in previous articles about Americans who go missing overseas, we know it’s still possible today, as was the cases of both David Gimelfarb and Aubrey Sacco, who went missing in national parks in Costa Rica and Nepal respectively.
Accurate data surrounding the exact amount of people who have disappeared in our Nation’s national parks is either unreliable or flat-out inaccurate, depending on the source, because the government does not engage high levels of research into these statistics. In an article for Outside, Jon Billman makes an important point, “The Department of the Interior knows how many wolves and grizzly bears roam its wilds—can’t it keep track of visitors who disappear?…The Department of Justice keeps a database, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, but reporting missing persons is voluntary in all but ten states, and law-enforcement and coroner participation is voluntary as well. So a lot of the missing are also missing from the database.” He goes on to say in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in New York, the Department of the Interior attempted to build a database called the Incident Management Analysis and Reporting System (IMARS) “to track law-enforcement actions across lands managed by the National Park Service.” Alas, ten years and $50 million in taxpayers’ dollars later, the database suffered from numerous issues, and the project was written off as a failure.
Including national parks and national forests, the amount of federally-owned land in the United States comes to about 640 million acres. How are we keeping track of these visitors coming to these beautiful places and vanishing without a trace? Depending on the amount of funding, these vast expanses of wilderness owned by the government might be patrolled by a single park ranger. Once a person is reported missing, hundreds could join the search, but it begs the question of how preventable would these missing person cases be if parks were well-staffed. There are also private citizens out there who make it their personal mission to investigate disappearances in national parks, like famed author and investigator David Paulides. He is an ex-cop from California, whose interest in the wilderness began with his founding of the North American Bigfoot Search. But while the existence of Bigfoot may never be successfully proven, Paulides has made a career out of studying the phenomenon of individuals who go missing in national parks, including the founding of the CanAm Missing Project. Jon Billman tells us about Paulides’ approach:
“I don’t put any theories in the books—I just connect facts,” he told me. Under “unique factors of disappearances,” he lists such recurring characteristics as dogs unable to track scents, the time (late afternoon is a popular window to vanish), and that many victims are found with clothing and footwear removed. Bodies are also discovered in previously searched areas with odd frequency, sometimes right along the trail. Children—and remains—are occasionally found improbable distances from the point last seen, in improbable terrain.”
The lack of reliable information on behalf of the government to track these missing persons cases can create a lot of problems for investigators who are on the trail of a person who vanished in a national park. We know the blunder of the IMARS system, and the fact only 14% of information on missing persons in the NPS was actually entered, means the quest for answers will be murky and slow-going after the search party has given up and gone home. This is why hiring a private investigator to find a loved one who has gone missing in the NPS is a solid strategy.
While there are boots on the ground conducting a grid search, private investigators have the independence and experience to conduct a concurrent investigation in which all leads can be exhausted. Take for instance the disappearance of David Gonzales. What if a private investigator could have followed the lead his mother remembered about the beige truck? It’s entirely possible David Gonzales was the victim of a mountain lion attack; however, to have the remains discovered half a football field distance from where he vanished? It seems unlikely a lion would drag their prey such a distance. If David was indeed abducted, a private investigator could use the tools they have at their disposal to pursue all leads. There are also no jurisdictional restrictions preventing a private investigator from performing their due-diligence when entertaining explanations that have nothing to do with nature or the paranormal. A private investigator is beholden only to their client—not to the government, or to the weather, or to ‘the most likely scenario.’
Carie McMichael is the Communication and Media Specialist for Lauth Investigations International, a private investigation firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana–delivering proactive and diligent solutions for over 30 years. For more information, please visit our website.
Mollie Tibbetts, 20, has been missing since July 18, 2018, from Brooklyn, Iowa.
A new website was launched Monday that has generated over 1,500 new tips received from people trying to help find missing University of Iowa student Molly Tibbetts.
A spokesperson for Crimestoppers Greg Willey announced the reward fund has also climbed to nearly $400,000 which is a record for the 36-year old organization.
The amount of the reward is likely to continue climbing a spokesperson for Crime Stoppers told the press.
News outlets nationwide are continuously providing the public with updates, and the non-stop coverage is also breaking national records. The case is being compared to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway whose reward fund was $1 million.
House where Mollie Tibbits vanished while house-sitting. Photo Courtesy of Chris Bott, DailyMail.com
On July 18, 2018, Mollie Tibbetts, 20, vanished while house-sitting in her hometown of Brooklyn approximately 70 miles east of Des Moines with only a population of less than 1,500 people.
Mollie had been house-sitting for her boyfriend Dalton Jack’s two dogs while he was out of town working about 100 miles northeast in Dubuque.
Molly put on her shorts and sports bra, along with her running shoes and Fitbit and headed out for a jog just like she did every evening, according to neighbors.
Then she vanished.
Jack received a Snapchat message and looked at it but did not reply right away. Police have not released any information about when the message was sent. The following morning, he sent a “good morning” text the following day but received no answer. When an employee at the day-care center where Mollie worked called to see why she had not shown up for work, Mollie didn’t answer. Calls went straight to her voicemail.
Early on, dozens of volunteers searched in empty buildings, in ditches, and cornfields to no avail. Now there are millions throughout the country who know Mollie’s name due to the record number of worldwide new stations reporting about her disappearance.
“A daughter to anybody in this community is a daughter to everybody,” Brooklyn resident Joy Vanlandschoot told the Iowa Register. “We all hope the same effort would be made toward our own children.”
Mollie Tibbett’s has quickly become America’s child, that accompanies a fear every parent of a young daughter, who was just venturing out on her own, has in the back of their mind when their child doesn’t show up for work or answer their phone.
Brooklyn is in Poweshiek County, located just off Highway 6 and a couple miles north of Interstate 80 in central Iowa.
Mollie’s mother Laura Calderwood told the ABC news it has been “excruciating” not knowing where she is. “She is just such an outgoing, fun, loving life, loving person,” said her mother.
Calderwood told the Gazette, “It is impossible for me to imagine. I can’t even speculate about what might have happened.”
(FBI joined in the search for Mollie Tibbets early on.)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation joined the search, working with the local Poweshiek Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Department of Public Safety.
However, police have remained closed-mouthed though, even canceling two weeks of scheduled new conferences meant to update the public on the investigation. People are speculating if police may know more than they are releasing.
“To have a complete stranger to come into a small town like this, someone would have to come forward and mentioned they’ve seen this person,” former FBI ex-profiler and director of the forensic sciences program at George Mason University, Mary Ellen O’Toole told Fox News. “She was likely not kidnapped. She either got into the car of someone she knew or had a relationship with, or it was someone who had a non-threatening demeanor.”
However, O’Toole said it was also unlikely Mollie ran away from her life. Though police have been tight-lipped, O’Toole’s analyzation of the case may reflect authorities believe someone Mollie knew abducted her. Everyone’s prayer is she is still alive. In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Mollie’s father Rob Tibbetts shared he also thinks his daughter is with someone she knows.
(Mollie Tibbits father Rob tell media he believes his missing daughter is with someone she knows.)
“It’s total speculation on my part, but I think Mollie is with someone she knows, that is in over their head, Rob said. “That there was some kind of misunderstanding about the nature of their relationship and, at this point, they don’t know how to get out from under this.”
He added, “Let Mollie come home and hold yourself accountable for what you’ve done so far, but don’t escalate this to a point where you can’t recover yourself.”
Robert Lowery of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children told CBS news the case has garnered national attention because it’s rare.
“We always have a small percentage like we’re seeing with Mollie, where they simply disappear and for no investigative reason or for any purpose that we can determine, and these would make Mollie’s the most difficult that anyone can face.”
While some experts in the field of missing persons believe, due to public perception, telling the public Mollie may be with someone she knows could be dangerous in what is clearly a dangerous life or death situation, they also believe appealing to the person who took Mollie may be law enforcement’s only hope right now.
(Authorities release map of areas of interest.)
On August 15th, authorities announced they are seeking to talk to anyone that was in the highlighted areas on the above map on July 18, 2018, between the hours of 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. The notice was posted on www.findingmollie.iowa.gov.
The highlighted area surrounds the vicinity of Mollie’s boyfriend’s home, where she was staying the night she vanished, and two tracts of farmland accessible only by dirt roads.
One of the farm locations next to Big Bear Creek, a waterway that runs northwest of Brooklyn in Gilman, and northeast to Marengo, emptying into the Iowa River approximately 20 miles away.
(D & M Carwash in Brooklyn, Iowa, where authorities are seeking information from anyone in the area the night Mollie Tibbits vanished.)
Another location included on the map is the D & M Carwash in the town of Brooklyn.
Police have not released why they are focusing on these areas and no suspects have been announced in the case.
“We are considering all potential scenarios,” said Mitch Mortvedt, the assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. “It is possible Mollie came into contact with someone who caused her harm.”
Mollie’s cell phone has still not been located.
As of May 31, 2018, in the United States there were 87,608 active missing person cases in the National Crime Information Center at the FBI. Of that number 8,853 were classified Involuntary, also termed a Nonfamily abduction. The state of Iowa has 35 missing adult cases deemed involuntary in the FBI database and another 63 missing person cases listed as Other.
The “Other” category normally describes a situation where there is not enough information available to law enforcement through their investigation to deem the person missing under involuntary circumstances.
The Missing Person Information Clearinghouse at the Iowa Department of Public Safety profiles the state’s missing adult and children’s cases on their website. You can find the profile of Mollie Tibbetts on their Homepage.
Disappearance of Jodi Huisentuit
Jodi Huisentruit was a popular 27-year old news anchor at KIMT-TV in Mason City, in northern Iowa. When she failed to show up for work 23-years ago to anchor the 6 a.m. broadcast, police were notified. Until the disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts, Jodi’s disappearance was considered one of the most widely publicized missing person cases in Iowa history.
Findjodi.com ran by the news station and retired law enforcement announced on March 12, 2018, the Mason City Police Department had executed a search warrant for two vehicles owned by a man named John Vansice, now 72-year old and living in Arizona.
Court records indicated police were seeking GPS data from a 1999 Honda Civic and a 2013 GMC 1500 once owned by Vansice.
“As you know, we continue to actively work Jodi Huisentruit’s missing person case from June 27, 1995,” said Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley.
(Photograph taken at Jodi Huisentruit’s birthday just weeks before her disappearance.)
The day prior to vanishing, Jodi had attended a golf tournament and according to Vansice, went to his house afterword to view a videotape of her birthday party earlier that month.
Approximately 4 a.m. on June 27, 1995, KIMT-TV producer Amy Kuns realized Jodi had failed to show up for work and called Jodi’s apartment. Jodi answered and explained to her boss that she had overslept and leaving momentarily to drive to work.
By 6 a.m. Jodi had still not arrived so Kuns filled in for her on the Morning Show “Daybreak.
At 7 a.m. the news station called the police.
When police arrived at her apartment complex they found Jodi’s red Mazda Miata parked in her usual parking place. They also found what appeared to be a struggle at the car and personal items to include Jodi’s bent car key, indicating force reflecting an abduction.
In September 1995 the Huisentruit family hired a private investigator from Minnesota, who then enlisted the help of another private investigator out of Nebraska who worked to take the story to national news outlets like Unsolved Mysteries, America’s Most Wanted and Psychic Detectives.
Police have conducted over a thousand interviews during the investigation into the disappearance of Iowa’s beloved news anchor.
The March 2018 police activity reflects the authority’s relentless efforts to find out what happened to Jodi. Her family and the news station she once worked for refuse to give up hope.
(Jodi Huisentruit’s sister JoAnn Nathe visits billboard dedicated by KIMT-TV.)
Last month, Jodi’s sister JoAnn Nathe, along with her daughter Kristen visited Mason City to see the billboards dedicated to Jodi on her 50th birthday by the website group.
The family also released a statement read by KIMT-TV General Manager John Shine.
We would like to send out a big thank you to the members of the Find Jodi team for all the work they have done and continue to do in trying to find answers and keeping Jodi’s case alive, including these beautiful billboards.
It is amazing to us that many of the members never met or knew Jodi personally, yet they are so willing to give of their own time and resources to help solve the case and bring Jodi the justice she deserves.
We would especially like to thank Josh Benson, his wife Tara Manis Benson, and Caroline Lowe for all the effort they put into making these billboards a reality. We are so grateful, and we know Jodi would be as well.
We would also like to say thank you to the members of Jodi’s Network of Hope for all the work they do in making something good out of something so tragic. From scholarships and safety training to the annual golf tournament, you help keep Jodi’s spirit alive, and we are grateful to you.
Thank you for the continued support in our mission to bring Jodi home.
As reported in the Star Tribune, just last month, remains were found in a rural area near Mason City, and a moment of hope is realized by Huisentruit’s family and friends.
Thomas Lauth. Founder of Lauth Missing Persons has worked over twenty-years on missing person cases and considered an expert in the field. “With the tragic disappearance of their daughter the Tibbetts’s family should not give up hope. Family and friends should continue to place Mollie’s information daily into the media spotlight and be in close contact with investigators. With Mollie’s case making national news, other missing person cases stand to be revived by the public interest. Like all families of missing persons, they hold on to hope and sadly, some endure years not knowing.”
To learn more about missing persons investigations, please visit our website.
(Kiera Bergman has been missing from Glendale, Ariz., since August 4, 2018.)
Kiera Lanae Bergman, 19, was last seen by her best friend and roommate, Destiny Hall-Chand. The two young women worked together at a Glendale furniture store, just west of Phoenix, Arizona.
Hall-Chand told the Arizona Republic that she and Bergman were at work on August 4, when Bergman became upset and asked to leave work early. According to Hall-Chand, Bergman’s ex-boyfriend picked her up.
When Hall-Chand returned to their Glendale apartment near 51st Avenue and Thunderbird Road, Bergman was not there but her car, keys, wallet, and purse were.
Hall-Chand said she sent numerous texts to Bergman and eventually received a response she deemed strange.
After Bergman failed to come home or show up for work the following day, Hall-Chand called the Phoenix Police Department and filed a missing person report.
“She was saying that she was going to go out with some guy she met at the store a couple days ago, which is something that’s not like her,” Hall-Chand told KPHO-TV. “That’s not something she would do.”
Bergman reportedly told Hall-Chand she would contact her as soon as she got a phone charger.
That was 14 days ago.
(Kiera Bergman was last known to be at her Glendale, Ariz., apartment on August 4, 2018.)
“Her family is concerned for her welfare,” said Phoenix Police in a press release.
Bergman moved from San Diego to Glendale in March, to be with her boyfriend. Family members told the Arizona Republic he and Bergman had split up before her disappearance.
Kiersten Bragg, Bergman’s mother left her home in San Diego to travel to Phoenix to search for her daughter.
Bragg told Good Morning America it wasn’t like Bergman to be out of contact, adding she last spoke to her daughter via text on July 30, but she wasn’t “her normal, happy self.”
“If we knew something, our minds wouldn’t be racing and thinking of all the different possibilities.”
In addition, Bragg told ABC News that prior to the breakup with Bergman’s ex-boyfriend, they frequently fought and her daughter did not seem as happy as she was before. After the couple split, Bergman moved into an apartment with Hall-Chand.
AZ Central reported the boyfriend says he has been questioned regarding Bergman’s disappearance.
Those concerned for Bergman’s safety have more questions than answers.
Jon-Christopher Clark, 23, told the HuffPost “I didn’t want to do anything that would give an indication I was hiding anything but also didn’t want anything on the record that would have them say I was doing anything or had any part in this.”
“I told them I would not like a lie detector test because, “One, they are not admissible in court, and two, whatever you guys gather from that is basically your interpretation on my feelings,’” Clark continued. “So, I didn’t want [investigators] to pretty much gather [their] conclusions off of something that is not guaranteed.”
Investigators picked Clark up at a hotel last Monday and transported him to the police station for questioning.
Clark has been dating Bergman since December of last year and has
(Jon-Christopher Clark was dating Keira Bergman since December 2017.)
consistently denied he was involved in Bergman’s disappearance. Police have not named Clark as a suspect.
While it is common for police to ask the significant other of a missing person to come to the station to talk, Clark claims he wasn’t given the opportunity to voluntarily come in as he alleges 20 tactical officers surrounded him while checking out of a local hotel.
“They handcuffed me, put me in the back of a car and. When we got to the interview room [they] handcuffed me to a table the entire time,” Clark said.
Chris Bragg, Bergman’s father is concerned something tragic has happened to his daughter.
Bragg was told Hall-Chand and Clark called police together, but Clark left before police arrived which he thinks strange. Bragg acknowledges he left before police arrived, saying he was staying with a friend and was unable to connect with Phoenix Police detectives until they picked him up at the hotel on Monday.
“They served a search warrant on my phone, car, the pace I was staying at and talked to all my friends and family,” Clark said. “DNA was one of the stipulations of the court order, so they took my DNA — did swabs, all kinds of fingerprints, my wrists, hands, everything — and took numerous pictures of me and my tattoos.”
Clark claims to have fully cooperated with investigators, except for voluntarily agreeing to take the polygraph.
Bragg took a tour of his daughter’s apartment last week and noted his daughter’s bedroom was the only room in the house that evidence had been removed by crime scene technicians.
“The bedding was stripped off the bed, taken as evidence, but aside from that, it looked like a college kid’s apartment,” Bragg went on to tell HuffPost. “It didn’t have a whole lot of furniture and wasn’t really nice.”
The scariest part of this whole situation is Bragg claims detectives told him they had found his daughter’s personal items in a very strange place in the home.
“Her ID for work, her purse with her wallet, ID and credit cards, was found thrown in the back of her closet,” Bragg said. “That is strange. What woman throws her purse in the back of her closet?”
When HuffPost called Phoenix Police, they would not confirm or deny Bergman’s personal belongings were found in a closet.
Bragg calls his daughter’s disappearance devastating.
“We just want her back, Bragg said. “Please just call the police. A piece of our heart is missing, and without it we don’t feel whole. It’s heartbreaking. Pleas somebody saqy something.”
(Kiera Bergman’s mother and family old vigil outside her daughter’s apartment in Glendale, Ariz.)
At a vigil family and friends held at Bergman’s apartment on the evening of August 11, her friend Hall-Chand told KPHO TV and KTVK TV that she doesn’t know what to think about her best friend’s disappearance. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what to believe, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just, I know there’s something wrong. I’m just hoping she’ll come home, and everything will be OK.”
Phoenix Police Public Information Sergeant Vincent Lewis told KNBC that investigators are stymied in their search for the missing young woman and there is no information obtained through their investigation that determines she is a victim of foul play.’
However, Bergman’s family believe something horrible has happened to her.
“She’s a beautiful, sweet, super talented young woman,” says Bragg when describing her missing daughter. “She’s caring, she’s very strong-minded, she’s just a sweet loving person.”
Bergman’s mother told the Arizona Republic she had a message for her daughter. “Wherever you are, if you can hear this, if you can see or hear it, just know we are doing everything we can and fighting so hard to find you.”
(Flowers sit outside Keira Bergman’s Glendale Ariz., apartment, placed there by family and friends.)
Keira Bergman’s disappearance has caught the attention of national news and appeared in USA Today and Newsweek and one private investigator that has worked many missing person cases in the state of Arizona.
Thomas Lauth. Founder of Lauth Missing Persons has worked over twenty-years on missing person cases and considered an expert in the field. The family and friends give various and multiple accounts of arguments between Kiera and Jon Christopher Clark, and it would seem the hostility grew worse around the time of Kiera’s disappearance. Mr. Clarks excuse for not submitting to the polygraph is not supportive of someone wanting to clear his name and allow investigators to focus their efforts elsewhere. Mr. Clark’s behavior following Kiera’s disappearance is highly suspicious and he should submit to a polygraph.
In the United States, as of May 31, 2018, there were 87,608 actives missing person cases in the National Crime Information Center at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were 2,286 listed as missing within the state of Arizona.
Anyone with information should call the Phoenix Police Department at 602-534-2121.
For more information on missing persons investigations, please visit our website.
In May 2009, New Jersey resident Joe Dunsavage vanished during his international trip to Honduras. He left his wallet, passport, and luggage in his hotel room and set sail on his Catamaran to go fishing – never to be heard from again.
The 49-year old mortgage company manager also had a business in the Central American country, so he was familiar with Honduras and its culture.
His family searched for him for months in Honduras. His brother Jeff Dunsavage maxed out his credit cards and even mortgaged his home paying for planes and helicopters to search Honduran waters and other Central American countries nearby.
(Jeff and his father Ed Dunsavage hold a picture of Joe Dunsavage.)
Each May 10th marks another year of not knowing. Not knowing if Joe is alive or dead. Joe’s father Ed Dunsavage told NJ.com, “It’s an anniversary for everyone else,” Ed said. “To us, it’s what we live with every day.”
It has also been a learning lesson for the Dunsavage family. Initially, the Dunsavages tried to get the US Military to assist in the search for the missing American. Then they contacted the State Department, Consulate, and federal representatives to no avail.
In addition to lacking assistance in the effort to find Joe, the family has faced other challenges because Joe was missing while traveling internationally. For example, even though the Dunsavage family believes Joe to be deceased, they were initially unable to collect Joe’s $150,000 life insurance for Joe’s two teen sons.
After experiencing unimaginable frustration and going into debt to find his brother, Jeff decided he wanted to ensure other families who have loved ones missing in other countries do not go through the same heartache his family has in their attempt to find assistance.
Jeff started an organization called the Missing Americans Project to advocate for families of missing persons while setting out to change the way the government deals with cases of missing persons. “It’s about getting the policy changed and getting a fair and humane interpretation that enables families who are in our situation to not have to wait many years or go through a third world corrupt court system,” Jeff said.
Much of the problem the Dunsavage faced could have been avoided if the State Department’s Foreign Affairs had issued a finding of a presumption of death. However, officials informed Jeff that he needed to go to Honduran authorities to obtain a declaration of death – something Jeff Dunsavage does not believe would be advantageous given the infamously corrupt judicial system in Honduras.
But according to the State Department’s own handbook, the department’s decision to issue a declaration of death is “discretionary” based up the circumstances of each case and “whether the government exercising jurisdiction over the place where the death is believed to have occurred lacks laws or procedures for making findings of presumptive death.” Yet, the State Department declined to help.
While the State Department’s own website concedes corruption exists within the Honduran judicial system in matters of business, it doesn’t acknowledge corruption in any other capacity.
The website states, “There are complaints that the Honduran judicial system exhibits favoritism and vulnerability to external pressure and bribes.”
“The real story is that the state Department won’t do what it is authorized to do by law, and our senators have given up on helping us.”
The State Department’s website reads, “Honduras Travel Advisory Level 3: Reconsider Travel.
“Reconsider travel to Honduras due to crime. Some areas have increased risk. Violent crime such as homicide and armed robbery is common. Violent gang activity, such as extortion, violent street crime, rape and narcotics and human trafficking, is widespread. Local police and emergency services lack the resources to respond effectively to serious crime.”
Sadly, the Dunsavage family is not alone when dealing with both American and foreign governmental entities that are unresponsive when a loved one goes missing across borders.
A Son Missing in Costa Rica
On August 11, 2009, Luda and Roma Gimelfarb said goodbye to their son David at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. David, a 28-year old graduate student of Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, was on his way to Costa Rica for a six-day vacation. They had no idea that would be the last time they would see their son.
Four days later, they found themselves going through the same customs line their son had encountered at Liberia Costa Rica Airport. The previous night they had received a call from the hotel manager where David had been staying notifying them their son had not slept in his room for the two previous nights. His rental car was found in the parking lot of nearby Rincon de la Vieja National Park.
(Hacienda Guachipelin, where David Gimelfarb stayed.)
David had been staying at the Hacienda Guachipelin, a 54-room motel-style compound located on a desolate road that leads to Rincon de la Vieja. This was his last adventure before starting his fourth year of graduate school.
David had been volunteering as a therapist for a mental health facility on the West Side of Chicago which he found rewarding but stressful. In fact, David’s parents were worried he was having a hard time coping with the recent loss of his Russian grandmother, whom he was very close.
As reported in Chicago Magazine, David was introverted, described as socially awkward at times. Before his departure to Costa Rica, he told his adviser at Adler that he thought the trip would be a way to build his confidence. “I told him I was worried about him,” recalls Janna Henning, a coordinator for the school’s traumatic stress psychology program. “But he said that he’d traveled alone before and would be fine.”
David had been a reserved and shy little boy whose English was broken. He had always felt like an outsider and the early experience had always stuck with him according to his father Roma, a chemical engineer at Morton Salt.
According to David’s friends, David adjusted in college and joining a fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. They describe him as having a dry sense of humor, never having had a serious relationship with a girl.
David was very introspective for his age and wrote in a private Facebook message 13 days before his trip, that he feared his own mortality and was struggling with how to confront his future. “Life is finite,” David wrote. “We must love it no matter what, so we can be satisfied with it when we look back on it.”
David seemed to be making life memorable and had traveled to Hawaii by himself to hike and in his apartment, he kept a copy of the book Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel which encourages readers take immerse themselves in the local cultures they are visiting.
David knew well of the risks of traveling alone. Ironically, just before his senior year one of his fraternity brothers disappeared in southern Ecuador while hiking alone in a national park.
On August 11th, David woke up and ate alone in the outdoor dining room at 9 a.m., then left the Hacienda to make the five-mile drive to the park in his rental car. One of the motel employees described David as appearing contemplative or sad that morning.
He talked to his parents every day and had called his mother Luda the day before telling her that he had met a girl and hoped to meet up with her again. His mother asked if she was local and David only responded that she “seemed very nice”. He told Luda he planned to hike the park the following day but complained the motel was too quiet and too far from beaches implying he might not stay at the motel the entire six-day visit. That was the last time she spoke with her son.
(Geothermal mud pits that line the path David Gimelsfarb took that fateful day.)
Rincon de la Vieja National Park is a vast area of beauty with ancient trees, waterfalls and bubbling geothermal mud pits that can reach upwards to 200 degrees. Visitors flock to the area to hike near the active volcano, which is often masked by cloud cover offering a mystique to the land. As legend has it an old witch inhabits the volcano’s peak and became a recluse after her father threw her lover into the crater in disapproval.
(Rincon de la Vieja National Park.)
David was excited to visit the lush tropical destination. However majestic the forest, locals will tell you the area is as wild as it comes with at least four varieties of poisonous snakes, pumas, jaguars prowling the dense rainforest.
The trails are like labyrinths and not well marked. In fact, drug traffickers are known to use them to smuggle narcotics into Nicaragua, only 25 miles to the north.
It is known approximately 300 visitors from all over the world were also there on August 11, 2009. We know he walked into the Visitors hut at approximately 10 a.m. and wrote his name in the visitor’s log.
David spoke to the ranger in Spanish telling him he intended to hike the easy almost two-mile loop called the Las Pailas or Cauldrons, named after the numerous steam holes along the path. David walked out of the hut, up a wobbly footbridge crossing the beautiful cool waters of the Colorado River, and was never seen again.
Luda had called the motel several times when she did not hear from David that evening. The following morning, panicked, she requested someone from the motel enter his room and conduct a welfare check.
That evening, the owner of the motel Jose Tomas Batalla called the Gimelfarbs to inform them David had not slept in his bed the evening before, his suitcase still in room 16. He also told Luda and Roma that David’s car had been found parked in the lot at the park.
David’s parents went online and immediately booked a flight to Costa Rica.
On August 13th, the motel manager opened the room and let the Gimelfarbs inside. The found the bed made, his suitcase, a couple of books of poetry on the nightstand. The manager then opened the room safe where David’s parents found their son’s passport, $600 of the $800 David was known to have on hand, and his cell phone.
It is believed David took his Northface backpack, his wallet with driver’s license and a couple credit cards. Also missing was David’s journal and a camera.
In the months that followed David’s disappearance, the Red Cross, local police, dog teams, hunters, volunteers and even the U.S. Army Search and Rescue team stationed on a nearby air base in Honduras helped conduct intensive searches of the park and surrounding areas.
Thousands of flyers were distributed along with a $100,000 reward offered. The family still receives email and phone calls from people who claim to have seen David, who speaks fluent Spanish, around Costa Rica. Some describe seeing a person who cautiously speaks to people and doesn’t appear to know who he is, possibly suffering from amnesia.
When the Gimelfarbs called the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica, to request assistance, they were told it is not the embassy’s responsibility and that he had traveled there on his own. Basically, the Gimelfarbs found out they were on their own.
“We believe that when Abraham Lincoln said, “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities,” he was right, said Roma Gimelfarb, David’s father.
(Luda and Roma Gimelfarb sit on a park bench hoping to see their beloved son David again.)
The Gimelfarbs, both Russian emigrants, say they have suffered nine years not knowing if their only son is sick, hungry, cold, held hostage or abused, and feel utterly powerless.
One of the last sightings of a man with a slight build and red hair came in from Limon, on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, about a five-hour drive from the park. Witnesses said the man was disoriented, dirty and unable to speak but gestured he needed something to drink to the owners of a small mini-mart. The witnesses recognized the man from news reports about David’s disappearance. They felt so strongly it was David they took the man to a police station where police conducted a short interview and released him without even taking a picture.
Some believed David may have gone to Costa Rica with the intention of “falling off the grid.” Sean Curran a detective at Chicago’s Highland Park Police Department told Chicago Magazine that after going through David’s belongings, financial situation, reading his journals and talking to relatives and friends there is little evidence that points to a conscious decision to disappear.
However, two clues did make Curran take notice: the copy of Vagabonding, a book about long-term travel in other countries and a series of maps he discovered on David’s laptop. On the night before his disappearance, he had studied maps of Honduras, Columbia, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua, a baffling aspect since David had only planned to be gone for six days.
Curran, also a dad, told Chicago Magazine he still finds the case troubling. “I don’t think he intentionally did this to his parents.”
Exhausted and shattered, David parents believe their son may still be alive. They live the daily rollercoaster of despair and maintaining hope – and they know they are not alone.
Like Jeff Dunsavage, the Gimelfarbs decided to create the David Gimelfarb International Rescue Resources Foundation to help other families find their loved ones who have gone abroad – and gone missing.
How many?
As of May 31, 2018, there were 87,608 active missing person cases in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, statistics involving those who go missing overseas are not available. Experts estimate the number of individuals missing in foreign countries is in the thousands.
Family members of those who go missing while traveling internationally find police in other countries are less equipped to investigate missing person cases. Behind each missing person case is a shattered family.
American embassies do not have trained personnel or a budget to assist families. Despite funding billions in programs in foreign countries, not one penny is allocated to assist in the search for missing Americans abroad.
Most families have no idea where to start searching for their loved ones, nor the budget to hire a private investigator, helicopter pilots, canine search teams and other search-related expenses. They receive little to no guidance from their government.
In the years since David disappeared, at least 10 foreigners have gone missing in Costa Rica and over 20 US citizens have been murdered there since 2011, with several other countries issuing travel warnings citing the rising crime rate in the country.
The Gimelfarbs live every day wondering if maybe David had seen poachers or smugglers in the park and killed. They wonder if he may have headed back to the motel and been the victim of a con. Who was the “very nice” girl David had referred to?
What if he was robbed on the way back to the hotel? Maybe abducted and his organs harvested. Though that scenario might be unbelievable to most, the black market for donor organs is a growing problem in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
The number of situations is never-ending.
To ensure every lead was followed the Gimelfarbs hired four private investigators. One private investigator and former military intelligence officer from Azerbaijan spent approximately a month in Central America searching for David. He concluded David had left the park and was killed near the motel (even though his vehicle was found still sitting in the lot at the park).
Another private investigator came to the conclusion David got lost after the sun went down and wandered onto private property at the edge of the park and killed after mistakenly being taken for a thief or poacher (even though David arrived at the park in the morning and only intended on staying a few hours).
The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial which is Costa Roca’s equal to the FBI conducted an investigation interviewing the motel employees but never talked to park rangers or visitors at the park.
The official never conducted an official search of David’s room at the motel yet closed its investigation without any inference. The report indicates “All out efforts have come up empty.”
Like the Dunsavage family who bankrolled their own search, Roma estimates they have spent over $300,000 on their search efforts. “We just want a complete and thorough investigation,” said Roma. “We’ve never had that.”
Thomas Lauth, owner of Lauth Investigations International has worked over 20 years on missing person cases both within the US and internationally says, “As all families of missing persons will agree, they have become a member of a club no one wants to join.”
People go missing every day for a myriad of reasons, such as being the victim of a crime, or running away. In national parks, however, the disappearance is usually attributed to one of two things, one being the wrath of Mother Nature. In July 2004, David Gonzales and his family were on a camping trip in Northern California’s San Bernadino National Forest, when he asked his mother if he could have her car keys. Why? Because there were cookies in the car. His mother handed him the keys, thinking nothing of it. After all, the car was only 50 yards away. What happened next was the stuff of every parent’s nightmare. David’s mother turned her back for only a short moment, and by the time she turned back to look for her son, he was gone. It was mystifying. She recalled hearing no sound, no struggle indicating her child was in peril. She recalled later in her report, she saw a beige truck spinning its tires as it flew out of the campground around approximately the time her son went missing, but since there were no signs of abduction, authorities had no reason to investigate. The boy’s remains were discovered a year later by hikers, a little more than a mile from the family’s campsite. Authorities finally decided the boy must have been the victim of a mountain lion attack. 
One of the oldest missing persons cases occurring in a national park is the disappearance of 
“I don’t put any theories in the books—I just connect facts,” he told me. Under “unique factors of disappearances,” he lists such recurring characteristics as dogs unable to track scents, the time (late afternoon is a popular window to vanish), and that many victims are found with clothing and footwear removed. Bodies are also discovered in previously searched areas with odd frequency, sometimes right along the trail. Children—and remains—are occasionally found improbable distances from the point last seen, in improbable terrain.”
David spoke to the ranger in Spanish telling him he intended to hike the easy almost two-mile loop called the Las Pailas or Cauldrons, named after the numerous steam holes along the path. David walked out of the hut, up a wobbly footbridge crossing the beautiful cool waters of the Colorado River, and was never seen again.