90 Miles From Tyranny

Saturday, July 13, 2013

On Proactivity...

10 Cases Of Students Vanishing From Their Schools

10Roger Ellison

At approximately 8:30 AM on February 10, 1981, 17-year-old Colorado student Roger Ellison showed up at Cedaredge High School and stowed his books in his locker, which he shared with another student. This student would provide the last confirmed sighting of Roger, who did not attend any of his classes that day and was never seen again. Roger was a very popular straight-A student who had already been accepted at college and, since he left behind all his personal belongings, there was no reason for him to have disappeared willingly. However, John Pash, a social studies teacher/wrestling coach at Cedaredge, soon became a person of interest in the case.

Pash visited Roger’s mother shortly after his disappearance and claimed that Roger had been experiencing a lot of personal problems and was suicidal, which she did not believe. Pash’s home happened to be located right next to the school and Roger was known for frequently visiting the home to turn in his homework. In 1994, one of Roger’s classmates claimed that his body might be buried underneath Pash’s house. Pash had long since sold the place, but authorities searched it with ground-penetrating radar. While they did detect some anomalies underneath the concrete garage floor, they ultimately decided not to dig through it. John Pash has always maintained his innocence, and after more than 30 years, Roger Ellison has still never been found.

9Bianca Lebron

Ten-year-old Bianca Lebron was a fifth-grade student at Elias Howe School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. On the morning of November 7, 2001, she arrived for classes and told her friends and teacher that her uncle was going to take her shopping that day. At approximately 8:30 AM, she was seen climbing into a brown van with tinted windows, which was being driven by a Hispanic male in his twenties. Because everyone at school assumed this man was Bianca’s uncle, they did not think her departure was unusual and her teacher simply marked her absent for the day. This is the last anyone ever saw of her.

However, Bianca did not actually have an uncle and no one from her family owned a brown van. As a result of this misunderstanding, Bianca was not reported missing until later that night. A potential suspect was Jason Gonzalez, a 20-year-old acquaintance of Bianca’s who had reportedly been seen kissing her. He left town a month after Bianca’s disappearance and did not provide a statement to police for nearly two years. While Gonzalez does resemble the composite sketch of the driver and had a friend who owned a brown van at the time, he did provide an alibi for that morning. After declaring her daughter legally dead, Bianca’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school for allowing her to leave with this unidentified man, but she still has no answers about what happened to her daughter.

8Deanie Peters

On February 5, 1981, 14-year-old Deanie Peters was attending her younger brother’s wrestling practice at Forrest Hills Central Middle School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She told her mother she was leaving to use the restroom, but she never actually arrived there and was last seen walking out the gymnasium door. She left all her money and personal belongings behind at home. Over the years, there were some potential suspects in her disappearance, including the school custodian and two girls with whom Deanie had a physical altercation two days before she vanished. However, the most promising suspect turned out to be Bruce Bunch, who was a junior at Forrest Hills at the time Deanie disappeared.

Bunch had a history of being violent and abusive and was overheard saying he had killed Deanie. One female acquaintance claims that on the night of Deanie’s disappearance, Bunch was acting frantic about accidentally hitting a girl with his car in a school parking lot. Though he never mentioned the name of the girl or the school, Bunch and some accomplices reportedly buried the victim under a pile of rocks somewhere. Unfortunately, before he could be properly investigated, Bunch died of a heart attack in 2008. Authorities have publicly announced that anyone who may have helped Bunch dispose of Deanie’s body would not be prosecuted if they came forward with information. However, no one ever has, so Deanie Peters’ fate is still a mystery.

7Sarah Kinslow

At approximately 7:20 AM on May 1, 2001, 14-year-old Sarah Kinslow’s father dropped her off at Greenville Middle School in Greenville, Texas. However, she apparently had no intention of attending classes that day. Sarah and a couple of her friends were planning to skip school and meet at a local cemetery, but Sarah never showed up and has not been seen since. Police dogs followed Sarah’s scent from the school, but the trail ended after two blocks.

One of the people Sarah was planning to meet in the cemetery that day was her 18-year-old boyfriend, Curtis Wayne Bell. Sarah’s parents did not approve of their relationship and she had written in her diary about wanting to marry Curtis and run away with him to Mexico. Weeks after her disappearance, Sarah and Curtis were seen together in surveillance footage from a Greenville gas station. Curtis initially claimed it wasn’t Sarah and that he was with a different girl at the gas station, but then later denied that the guy in the footage was even him. Years later, Sarah’s parents found an anonymous note in their mailbox with information pertaining to her whereabouts. When they eventually discovered who wrote the note, this person claimed to have heard that Sarah’s body was disposed of in a rock quarry. However, investigators have yet to find any evidence to back up this person’s story, so Sarah Kinslow’s fate remains unknown.

6Bryan Hayes, Mark Degner

Thirteen-year-old Bryan Hayes and 12-year-old Mark Degner were developmentally disabled special needs students at Paxon Middle School in Jacksonville, Florida and happened to be best friends. At approximately 1:15 PM on February 10, 2005, the two boys got into an argument with a teacher and decided to run out of the school. A witness apparently saw Bryan getting into a car outside the building. Neither of the two boys has ever been seen again.

It was initially believed that both Bryan and Mark had chosen to run away. They had apparently told friends about their intentions to run away and a third boy was even planning to go with them before he ultimately backed out. The day before their disappearance, Bryan and Mark had been caught trying to sneak away from their bus after school ended. However, neither of them took any personal belongings, and their book bags and Bryan’s coat were left behind at the school. Both boys suffered from bipolar disorder, requiring daily medication to control their condition, but they did not have this medication with them when they disappeared. There were reported sightings of Bryan and Mark in Holly Hill, Florida two months later, but police could not find them there. Sadly, after eight years, there is still no trace of the two missing boys.