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“And Vera had all these birth certificates to get social security cards. Birth certificates equate to getting social security cards for new identities,” Kelly pointed out.
“As well as driver’s licenses,” Jade added.
Brent nodded. “Again, I think Vera—or whoever she was—was nothing but a scam artist, maybe even a killer. We start by running backgrounds on every name in this box, beginning with Katharine Pellico. We need to figure out if these people are victims or accomplices. Once we’ve established what category they fall into, we’ll take it from there.”
“Since Birk is out of the country,” Jade began, “I’ll do the deep dives. I have all the software Birk uses loaded onto my laptop.”
“Let’s get to it then,” Brent urged. “We have a lot of names to research.”
For the remainderof the afternoon, no one left the house. Other than letting the dogs out, everyone stayed glued to their laptops, huddling over their keyboards until they could account for every name in the box. No one suggested a break to eat until they could begin putting the puzzle pieces together.
From a corner of the den, Beckett hit the print button on his computer and retrieved a sheet of paper, handing it off to Brent. “Birk emailed me that before he got on the plane. I just found it in my inbox. It’s a list of all the males across the Midwest who vanished without a trace in or around 1969. Notice a familiar name. The only male name on that list that matches one of the IDs in the box is Joseph Ellington. Joe was a thirty-year-old farmer who disappeared from Kansas. This guy vanished from his farmhouse on April 26, 1969. His wife went to see her sister. When she returned home four hours later, Joe was nowhere on the property. His pickup was still parked near the barn. But nobody ever laid eyes on Joe again. He’s been missing now for fifty-two years.”
Lucien got up from doing his research to read Joe’s details. “This could be our victim in Vera’s blanket box.”
Brent eyed Joe’s driver’s license photo, comparing it to the article online. “I’ll pass the information along to the medical examiner’s office. If nothing else, it’s a place to start.”
“Two IDs found among these things belong to people who turned up missing,” Brogan pointed out. “That can’t be a coincidence.
“Katharine Pellico,” Jade mumbled before pumping a fist in the air. “Found a woman by that name who lived in the Saint-Georges area around the same time Talia disappeared. According to Social Services records, Katharine grew up in foster care, becoming a Crown ward at age six after her mother died of a drug overdose. By the time she quit high school at sixteen, Katharine had a rap sheet for shoplifting and petty theft. She was picked up numerous times for hustling drinks at a local hotel and stealing wallets from the tourists, mostly salesmen from out of town.”
“But was she sophisticated enough at that young age to hatch a kidnapping plot?” Brogan argued.
“Not without the help of an older man,” Lucien proffered. “Maybe Katharine graduated from small-time antics to bigger fish when she met up with the guy in the blanket box. Maybe he was her accomplice.”
Brent nodded. “That’s a distinct possibility. Maybe after the kidnapping, the pair stormed across the US until they had a falling out.”
“At which time Vera put an untimely end to her partner in crime,” Brogan finished.
Brent’s cell phone rang. “It’s River, probably wondering how long I’ll be. I need to take this.”
“You can use the sunporch,” Brogan offered. “The pocket doors close for privacy.”
As Brent left the room, on the other side of the den, Kelly stretched her back. “I found another missing person matching one of the driver’s licenses. Louise Lunsford disappeared from a Saint Louis shopping mall in mid-March 1969. If you line up the driver’s licenses we found in the box, it’s almost like a missing person’s grab and snatch. Talia in December 1968, Louise Lunsford in mid-March, and Joe Ellington during the latter part of April. We should start googling the rest of the names on the list for disappearances in between that timeframe.”
It took them less than half an hour to see the pattern developing. Talia had gone missing from Maine in early December 1968. Twenty-five days later, Ellen Pierson disappeared from Lebanon, New Hampshire, on New Year’s Eve. Two weeks into the new year, a Syracuse student named David Campbell hadn’t shown up for his spring semester classes. Ten days after that, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, Sharon Proctor disappeared from a twenty-four-hour truck stop. The first week of February, a desk clerk named Linda Foster went missing during the graveyard shift from her job at a Pittsburgh hotel. Three weeks later, in a suburb of Cincinnati, teenager Bella Anderson disappeared on her way to school. A fourteen-year-old Columbus, Ohio, boy was the next to go missing on his way home from band practice. After that, the trail led them through college campuses. From Ohio to Indiana and Illinois, students were reported missing at an alarming rate before the pattern changed. The pair moved through a string of small Missouri towns before eventually kidnapping Lunsford in Saint Louis.
“1969 saw a sharp increase in missing people,” Brogan remarked as she made notes on the whiteboard. “We’re running out of room on the board.”
“It looks like they were methodically working their way across the northeast and Midwest toward Joe Ellington in Kansas,” Lucien reasoned. “Male, female, this pair is liable to grab anyone who crosses their path.”
Beckett crossed his arms over his chest. “Do we absolutely know for a fact we’re dealing with a ‘pair’ of kidnappers?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Jade added. “Are we sure Vera wasn’t acting alone?”
“Maybe. But highly unlikely,” Brent reasoned.
“But why did their snatch-and-grab crime spree come to an abrupt end in Kansas after taking Ellington?” Kelly brokered. “What happened that changed the dynamic?”
“A falling out between parties? A kidnapping that went off the rails?” Jade offered.
“The kidnappings probably ended in murder. How much further off the rails could it go?” Beckett snapped, rubbing his forehead, where a fierce aching had begun. “Sorry. It’s just that we’re talking about a lot of people disappearing without a trace. Look how long their families have gone without answers. Decades. Online article after article says the same thing—unsolved disappearances occurring across multiple jurisdictions and state lines. Why didn’t anyone make the connection? Did the authorities even get the FBI involved?”
“Probably not. It was 1969,” Kelly noted. “Back then, law enforcement agencies didn’t talk to each other. They didn’t have the same tools as today.”
Anger took over Beckett. “Bull. Christopher Wilder went on a six-week crime spree in 1984 afterabducting and murdering at least twelve victims from more than eight states. Multiple agencies worked together to put out the word on him.”
“That was fourteen years later,” Kelly pressed. “During that time, the likes of Ted Bundy surfaced. Serial killers were suddenly everywhere. Law enforcement took note.”
