Clarksville : Mom helps dig for clues of missing daughter, 30
Posted on Monday, March 13, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/148550/
CLARKSVILLE — Gloria Denton got on her knees to dig in the Mojave Desert to uncover clothing of her daughter that was strewn about the ground, buried in a pit and hidden under a shack.
Denton, of rural Johnson County, knew the clothes belonged to April Beth Pitzer because she had mailed much of it to San Bernardino County, Calif., two months before her 30-yearold daughter disappeared on June 28, 2004.
She recognized her daughter’s white suitcase, her desert boots, swimsuit and underwear, the only physical connection left of the daughter she feels certain she will never see again.
Recovering April’s possessions brought a little comfort, but it didn’t get Denton any closer to finding her daughter, whom she believes was murdered the day before she was to return to her family in Texas.
She thinks her daughter’s body was dumped in one of the hundreds of played-out mines that dot the desert outside Barstow, Calif.
Denton traveled to California in January to look for April after becoming frustrated with the lack of progress from the San Bernardino County sheriff’s office in finding out what happened. She said she came to realize that she was April’s voice and had to have determination and faith to find her daughter. The investigators in California didn’t have the bond she had that would motivate them to continue searching.
“That case will be a cold case unless you, the parent, pull yourself together and persist for answers because they have too many live cases,” Denton said of the overworked detective in charge of April’s case. To the sheriff’s office, she said, April Pitzer was just one of hundreds of missing people in the county and Denton was just a voice on the telephone. “I have 307 bodies under my care now,” said Dave Van Norman, San Bernardino County supervisory deputy coroner and unidentified persons coordinator. Van Norman said the county, which covers 22, 000 square miles, most of it desert, gets about 100 unidentified deaths a year. An average of 10 to 15 of those people are never identified.
SITES TO SEARCH Van Norman searched with Denton when she was in California in January. He said there were specific rumors about a particular mine that may have been used to deposit Pitzer’s body. A cave explorer since he was a child, Van Norman said he believed Pitzer was not in the mine where Denton found her daughter’s clothing. But another mine, called the Red Dog Mine, had possibilities. It lies seven miles away and 13 miles south of Ludlow, a small town east of Barstow on Interstate 40. “I couldn’t see the bottom, but it had promising features,” Van Norman said. Texas EquuSearch Mounted Search and Recovery Team run by Tim Miller will search for Pitzer’s remains in those and possibly other mines in the area in mid-April, Miller said. EquuSearch gained notoriety last year when a team went to Aruba to search for missing Georgia teenager Natalee Holloway. Holloway was last seen May 30. Her body has not been found, according to The Associated Press.
Since then, Miller said, EquuSearch has been deluged by calls for help. But he decided to take on Denton’s case because “every family deserves to have their child back.” Miller can sympathize with Denton. His daughter, Laura, was abducted and killed in Texas in 1984. His ordeal led him to establish EquuSearch in 2000 to find lost and missing people. “After talking to Gloria, how could we say no ?” Miller said. He said EquuSearch will take whatever equipment and people it needs to search the mines. He said he didn’t believe Pitzer was still alive, but even recovering remains gives some comfort to families, as it did in his case. The expedition could cost $ 6, 000 to $ 9, 000, which is covered by donations to the organization, so it won’t cost Denton, Miller said. The small Kristen Foundation of Charlotte, N. C., which is supporting the search for Holloway, also has embraced Denton’s search. Joan Petruski, head of the organization dedicated to finding missing adults, said her organization will underwrite EquuSearch’s mission to California.
Petruski began the Kristen Foundation after the disappearance four years ago of her neighbor’s 18-year-old daughter, Kristen Modafferi. She started the foundation after discovering the lack of state or federal funds to aid in such searches.
She raises money for the foundation by compiling and selling a cookbook entitled For the Love of a Child, and “Expect Miracles” bracelets.
Petruski said plans are to put Pitzer’s picture on the cover of some of the cookbooks to bring attention to her case.
Petruski said she was touched by Pitzer’s story and by Denton’s spirit and determination. She also regarded Pitzer’s case as a high priority because of the specific locations of Pitzer’s remains and the high probability they would be found.
“When there’s a high possibility of bringing someone home, I jump on it,” she said.
MANY STILL MISSING Petruski, Miller and Van Norman know first-hand the problem of missing adults in the United States. The FBI and National Crime Information Center said that as of August 2004 there were nearly 48, 000 active missing adult cases with 30, 622 missing for more than a year, according to the Web site for the National Center for Missing Adults. Pitzer is listed in the center’s database. “It’s a problem that is not being highlighted at all,” Van Norman said. There are other missing adult organizations, such as the Doe Network, a volunteer organization that helps law enforcement solve cold cases involving unexplained disappearances and unidentified victims from North America, Australia and Europe. The Doe Network, begun in 2001, has 1, 400 volunteers, according to the network’s Web site. One problem for families is they don’t know what resources are available to help them find their missing loved ones, Petruski said. The police often are overworked and can spend only a short time and a few resources on each case.
She said families need advocates like missing adult organizations. Amber Alerts, which are issued immediately when a child is abducted or reported missing, should be extended to adults as well, she said. She also said families should hire private investigators who can devote the time necessary to find missing adults.
While the police are limited in the time and resources they can devote to finding missing adults, Van Norman said, they can take some steps to aid in identifying missing adults if their bodies are found.
“We need to cast the widest net we can,” he said.
Fingerprints; DNA from family or from items left behind from the missing person, such as hair from a hairbrush; dental records; and even photos can help. Van Norman said experts sometimes can match teeth of a person’s remains by comparing them with a photo of the person smiling. Denton has received help from her community. She said several Clarksville and Johnson County businesses raised money for her last year so she could travel to Los Angeles to represent Pitzer in a National Center for Missing Adults fundraiser. “I am so bonded to the support I have here, it’d be hard to leave,” she said. “I just made so many friends. They encourage me every day. And there’s not a soul that I have met who has not embraced me.”
THE JOURNEY WEST Pitzer moved to California in fall 2003 from Fort Worth, where she had lived with her husband, Chase Pitzer, and their two daughters, Bradley Elisa, now 7, and Kennedy Marie, now 4.
Denton said Pitzer suffered from bipolar disorder, but her husband’s family didn’t accept that. Pitzer also was distraught over calls she continued to get from an old boyfriend in Arkansas.
When Pitzer’s marriage broke up in mid-2003, she took friends’ advice that distance would help her sort out her life and moved to California, Denton said. Pitzer settled in the Newberry Springs area east of San Bernardino on the edge of the Mojave Desert.
Denton said she stayed in touch with Pitzer through a long-distance phone card she bought for her.
Pitzer told Denton she was working as a waitress, was caring for an elderly invalid named Barbara Killebrew in Newberry Springs and was taking medication for the bipolar disorder. But after nine months, she confessed in May 2004 that she had been lying to her mother. She wasn’t a waitress, wasn’t taking her medication and was living on the street with people whom Denton called “thugs.”
Killebrew persuaded Pitzer to come clean with her mother about how she was living and to try to get home.
Denton said she was angry that Pitzer had lied to her but afraid for her as well.
“I was so worried and angry at the same time, and helpless. She was so far away,” Denton said.
She spoke to Pitzer on the phone shortly after the confession and the two agreed that Denton would try to raise some money to get her back home.
“I’ll never forget, the weeping,” Denton said. “‘ Oh, Momma, I won’t be hungry no more. Oh, Momma, I won’t have to look for a place to sleep and I won’t be cold. I can’t wait to come home. ’”
Pitzer made arrangements for an acquaintance, Chuck Hollister, to drive her to the bus station in Barstow on June 28 so she could catch a bus back to Texas. She stayed at Hollister’s home the night of June 27.
That was the last time anyone saw Pitzer, but Denton wouldn’t discover her daughter’s disappearance until days later. When Denton finally reached Killebrew by phone July 4, Killebrew asked her was how she felt about her daughter being back home.
“‘ Barbara, I haven’t heard from her, ’” she remembers responding. “‘ Something has happened to my April. ’”
Pitzer’s missing person case was assigned to police detective Marie Spain, who checked, once with the help of a dog trained to find cadavers, some mine sites where Pitzer’s body could have been placed.
The next few months saw little progress, but Denton said she tried to remain patient, realizing Spain was limited in what she could do. Spain has interviewed Hollister, his friend Daniel Dansbury and others suspected of being involved in Pitzer’s disappearance but she lacked evidence to tie anyone to it. No arrests have been made so far.
“I have no physical evidence to show me who killed April,” Spain wrote to Denton in a January e-mail. “All I have is her clothing and a mattress cover, which I hope will tell me what I need.”
The mattress cover found at the mine where Pitzer’s clothes were dumped had a stain that Denton said authorities are testing in the hope it will yield DNA or some other clues. It could take six months before they know the results, she said.