When an adult is missing for a long period of time, it’s easy to assume there won’t
be a happy ending to the story.
A look through solved missing person cases that were unexplained for more than a few
years rarely gives hope a missing loved one might come home.
But sometimes missing person cases, even ones that last decades, aren’t too sinister.
Number 5
Edward Goh’s mother had been missing for almost five years when he found her in the
most unexpected of places: a McDonalds.
In November 2015, Associated Press ran a story about an elderly homeless woman who passed
away at a 24-hour McDonalds in Hong Kong.
The woman had been slumped over at her table for hours before customers and staff tried
to wake her, only to find her cold and unresponsive.
The story highlighted a growing trend in Hong Kong: homeless people seeking refuge at the
restaurants.
Surprisingly, the staff were often accommodating, closing off the part of the restaurant where
these McRefugees slept rather than forcing them back out onto the street.
Associated Press interviewed one of the people planning to spend the night at a restaurant:
60-year-old Mary Seow With the story making it to international
news sites and outlets, it was eventually found by Edward, who recognised the woman
as his own mother.
Mary had disappeared in February 2011.
She was a Singaporean woman who had been abandoned as a baby on the steps of a church.
After being found by passers-by, she was unofficially adopted.
Having no adoption papers wasn’t an issue for going to school or eventually getting
married, but it did mean when her adopted parents passed away, she was denied access
to their savings.
Mary was a widow at this point, her husband having passed away from a heart-attack.
It was in the early 2000s that she met the people who would eventually lure her to China.
Mary met the young woman at church and the two quickly became friends.
The unnamed woman managed to convince Mary to marry a Chinese national named Li Shiren,
who she claimed was her uncle.
They were married in 2008 but, less than six months later, Li had disappeared.
Still, Mary remained friends with the woman, and was pressured into selling her home and
investing money in the friend’s business back in China.
Mary eventually sold everything she owned and went to China to invest everything in
the business.
It was only after arriving and handing over most of her money that she discovered it had
all been an extremely long scam.
Without any money, and ashamed for having fallen for the trick, Mary was left stranded
in China.
She made ends meet as a street sweeper and made her way to Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, she found work in parallel trading, bringing branded goods from the city to mainland
China.
It wasn’t enough to rent a flat in the city, though, and she found herself staying at the
McDonalds.
Mary had only started sleeping in the restaurant a few weeks before AP arrived to cover the
story, having seen others doing the same and deciding to give it a go.
When Edward saw his mother in the news, he went to Hong Kong to find her and brought
her back home to Singapore.
Number 4
The Crime of Kuenca is the bizarre story of the disappearance of Jose Maria Grimaldos
Lopez, who was missing for 16 years.
Jose was a shepherd who worked on a farm in the province of Cuenca, Spain, at the turn
of the 20th century.
He was a relatively short man, and some sources claim he also had a low intelligence.
For this he was ridiculed by his boss and co-workers, in particular the farm manager,
Leon Sanchez, and security guard Gregorio Valero.
Despite being in his late 20s, Jose was not romantically involved with anyone and lived
with his parents in the town of Tresjuncos.
He would often tell them of the bullying he suffered from his co-workers.
Little did they know, he had plans to put a stop to it.
In August, 1910, Jose sold a number of sheep he owned.
He told friends and family he was going on a trip to a mud lagoon some four kilometres
out of town.
It was a popular bathing spot, as the mud was supposed to have healing properties, and
Jose apparently wanted to get away from the torment of his day-to-day life.
But after several weeks of not hearing from him, Jose’s family grew concerned and filed
a missing person’s report.
Given Jose had just sold his sheep, they feared someone might have attacked him to steal the
money.
Then a more sinister thought occurred: what if this wasn’t a random attack.
Having heard all about the bullying, Jose’s family thought Leon Sanchez and Gregorio Valero
were responsible for his disappearance.
Twice, the case was brought to court.
The family accused Leon and Gregorio of taking Jose’s life and disposing of his body.
Twice, it was thrown out due to lack of evidence.
The family weren’t going to give up, though, and the pair were arrested again in 1913.
Leon and Gregorio were subjected to brutal treatment until they eventually confessed
to taking Jose’s life.
For five years, they were held in prison before the trial began.
Once the trial did get underway, evidence was contradictory but, as they had both confessed
to the crime, the jury spent just half an hour coming up with a guilty verdict.
They were both sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Eight years after the guilty verdict was passed, the local priest received a strange letter
from a neighbouring town.
The priest there was requesting the birth certificate of Jose Grimaldos, as a man going
by that name wished to get married.
The priest either thought it was a cruel joke or a mistake, so ignored the letter.
Then the man calling himself Jose Grimaldos arrived in town to acquire the birth certificate
himself.
Officials and Jose’s family were all astonished to discover this really was their missing
relative.
Jose had disappeared of his own accord, and didn’t realise he was considered missing
and even deceased in his hometown.
Leon and Gregorio were put on trial again and found innocent of the crime that had never
been committed, and those responsible for the miscarriage of justice were themselves
put on trial.
Number 3
During his trial in 1980, the full extent of the horrific crimes committed by John Wayne
Gacy became public knowledge.
A profile of his typical victim was developed: young, white men, often following a nomadic
lifestyle, sometimes employed in Gacy’s construction company.
To the Hutton family, the description fit exactly with their missing relative, Robert
Hutton.
Robert had been missing since 1972.
Shortly after graduating high school, he joined his sister and brother-in-law as they road
tripped across America.
Robert found it easy to find work in construction wherever they went and was enjoying the nomadic
lifestyle.
But when they reached Colorado, he decided he wanted to stay.
His sister and brother-in-law continued on their journey, leaving Robert behind.
It was the last time anyone in his family would see him for decades.
Robert’s family filed a missing person’s report in 1972 after he hadn’t gotten back
in contact with them.
Little progress was made in the case and, when news of Gacy’s crimes came to light,
his family feared the worst.
They guessed Robert would have continued hitch-hiking and picking up construction work after leaving
his sister, and it was possible he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and crossed
paths with the criminal.
Robert’s parents believed their son had passed away, but his sister Edyth was determined
to find him.
In the 1990s, Edyth compiled a list of 400 men from across America going by the name
Robert, Rob, or Bob Hutton.
She sent each of them a post card explaining she was looking for her brother.
None of them got back to her.
She would also trawl through sites of John Does, unidentified men who had lost their
lives.
None of the men were her brother.
Finally, in 2011, the Cook County Sheriff’s department announced they were looking to
identity eight of Gacy’s victims that had remained as Does for more than 30 years.
Edyth got in contact and sent a DNA sample to see if any of the victims could be confirmed
as a relative.
Unfortunately for someone who just wanted answers at this point, none were a match,
but the detectives working the case decided to help Edyth.
They put Robert Hutton’s information into a database to see if they could find any sign
of him.
Amazingly, they found what they were looking for.
Robert was alive and well, living in Montana.
He had travelled a lot, not putting down roots for too long.
For a while, he owned his own carpentry and construction company, but business slowed
down in 2008 and he was on the move again.
He had wanted to get in touch with his family, but had been unable to find any contact information
for them.
He assumed they hadn’t been looking for him so kept to himself.
Robert was reunited with his father and sister.
His moher had sadly already passed away, still thinking her son was one of Gacy’s victims.
Number 2
Margie Profet had always been eccentric.
Even as a child, she said she felt like an alien, but didn’t mind too much.
In her eyes, some of the best scientists were misfits, and fitting in didn’t matter as
much to her as science.
She was extremely intelligent, regularly testing grades above her age.
She was the daughter of two Berkley-trained engineers, and she went on to study at the
university, though not before graduating from Harvard University with a degree in political
philosophy.
At Berkley she studied physics.
Then in 1994 she went to Seattle to study mathematics at the University of Washington.
All the while, Margie was developing her own scientific theories.
She was a well-respected scientist, even if her theories were radically different to anything
anyone was talking about at the time.
In 1993, she received the MacArthur “genius” grant for her out-there theories, and was
described as Evolution’s It Girl.
She argued menstruation, allergies, and morning sickness had all developed to help rid the
body of pathogens and carcinogens, and wrote a book on advice for pregnant women, which
included not eating vegetables.
In the early 2000s, Margie started to pull away from her friends and family.
She cut off all contact with her mother, with whom she had been very close, for reasons
her mother would never understand.
She was still studying, but became easily frustrated with her co-workers and supervisors.
Some that knew her said she was dealing with psychological problems that she was good at
hiding.
Margie’s disappearance was slow, pulling away from people until, sometime in 2005,
it was discovered nobody knew where she was or what had happened to her.
Margie’s mother reported her missing and even hired a private investigator to try to
locate her.
Her online history stopped at around 2002, and there was no credit card information to
follow.
It was as if she had simply ceased to exist.
In 2012, a writer at the publication Psychology Today wrote about Margie’s life, work, and
disappearance.
He had known Margie for a time when they were students and was fascinated by her work.
When he looked her up years later, he was amazed to find nobody knew where she was.
The article was called The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Genius.
Those that knew Margie thought she had either met with foul play, was in a care facility
after a mental breakdown, or had disappeared to get away from the fame her theories had
acquired.
It would turn out to be none of these things.
A few weeks after the Psychology Today article was published, the writer received an email
from Margie’s mother.
Margie had gotten back in contact.
Margie had been suffering with a condition that left her in severe physical pain.
She didn’t want to bother her mother with her problems, and had quietly slipped away
somewhere she thought would help her get better.
This pain would explain why she was so short with those around her, and any mental health
problems people thought she might have.
The pain didn’t go away and Margie was unable to work.
She had fallen into poverty, and hadn’t imagined anybody would have been looking for
her.
She had been shown the article about her disappearance and immediately contacted her mother, who
was overjoyed to have Margie back in her life.
Sources: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/05/missing-biologist-surfaces-reunites-with-family.html https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/articles/201205/the-mysterious-case-the-vanishing-genius
Not every case of a missing person returning has a happy ending, as was the case with Brenda
Heist.
Heist made headlines in 2013 when she reappeared after 11 years.
The Pennsylvanian mother of two had been considered legally deceased for over a decade and her
case had been cold when she suddenly turned up in Florida.
It was February 2002 when friends and family last saw Heist.
She was in the middle of a divorce from her husband, Lee Heist, and had applied for housing
assistance.
The application had been denied, and Heist couldn’t see how she was going to support
herself and her two children.
After dropping her children off at school, she went to a park and cried, according to
Heist.
That was when she met a group of drifters, who invited her to join them as they hitchhiked
down to Florida.
Heist agreed and, without a word to friends and family, vanished.
Given their marital problems, suspicion fell on Lee.
Of course, there was never any evidence he was responsible for her disappearance, but
rumours swirled and neighbours wouldn’t let their children play with the two Heist
children.
Lee and his children eventually adapted to life without Brenda.
They had money problems, and had to move into assisted housing.
After she was declared legally deceased, Lee remarried, and the children graduated high
school.
Their son went on to pursue a career in law enforcement.
They expected they would never have answers as to what had happened to their loved one,
but their world was turned on its head again in April 2013.
According to Heist, she had been homeless for most of the 11 years she had been living
in Florida.
At first, she had lived under bridges and survived on food thrown out by restaurants.
For a while she had lived in a camper van with a boyfriend, but when the relationship
broke down, she ended up on the streets again.
Under false names, she acquired a criminal record for theft and illegal substances use.
It was as she answered one of these warrants for her arrest that she told police in Florida
her real name, handing over Brenda Heist’s ID.
Police in Pennsylvania were contacted and Heist’s family was informed she was still
alive.
By this point, though, her daughter wanted nothing to do with the woman who had abandoned
her.
Lee Heist also now faced problems with the insurance company, as he had received a life
insurance pay out for Brenda.
More suspicion was thrown onto her story when a woman in Florida came forward to say Brenda
had lived with her for almost a year while working as a housekeeper.
Brenda hadn’t appeared homeless at the time, and the woman had no suspicion she had been
using illegal substances.
It’s likely the true story about what really happened in the 11 years Brenda was away from
her family is not yet known.