Anna Christian Waters (Missing 1/16/1973 from Half Moon Bay, CA)

[Dr. Doogie]

I thought you said she was born in New York? Shrug. Will correct next time I update. Let me know if you want me to add/change/remove anything. I am the owner/administrator of the Charley Project and so I have free rein.

Meggilyweggily:

I reread my post about where Anna was born and while it is correct, I mention both NY and SF in the same sentence. I see shere it could have been easily misread.

I also am impressed with your work with the Charley Project. Thank you for all your efforts.

 

[Dr. Doogie]

I have invited Anna's mother and stepfather to visit this forum. I hope that they can answer some of the questions that I may not know.

One point of clarification: The mother and stepfather are no longer married. The mother has remarried and is living in the Half Moon Bay area (in a different house than from where Anna disappeared). The stepfather currently resides on the east coast.

I have always been impressed with the maturity level and politeness of this forum (as compared to some other sites). Please remember that these are good people who have had something very bad happen to their family. Please be respectful of them.

 

[HeartofTexas]

Dr. Doogie, thanks for inviting them to the forum. It's always nice to have someone that can answer questions with first-hand knowledge.

That's sad that the mom and step-dad are now divorced. So many families are unable to make it after a tragedy like that. The son of my closest friend was murdered, and it destroyed their whole family. It took years for them to heal and, obviously, the marriage didn't make it. My friend has also since remarried and is very happy... but it took many years to grow beyond the tragedy.

 

[Annasmom]

An article from the Oakland Tribune, dated Jan 17th, '73, states Anna's parents are Mr. and Mrs. Joe Ford??? How did they get that so wrong? Or could there be a clue there....

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/cache2/30332915.pdf (This link will time out after a period, if anyone wishes to view it after that let me know).

Shadowangel: I couldn't get the news story (and never saw that one), but in case you haven't already learned this, Joseph Ford was Anna's stepfather. We have been divorced many years now and I no longer use the name Ford. Thanks for your interest.

 

[Annasmom]

Just to play devil's advocate....Reports for the bay area on the day Anna disappeared state that the entire area was in the grip of a storm of almost hurricane-like proportions. Nearly 6 inches of rain had fallen in the 24 hours prior to 8:00 am on the day Anna disappeared. Roads were flooded, levees overflowing, bridges in danger...Winds in excess of 70mph were recorded near Oakland.

The rain continued on throughout that day.

Was Anna's home even accessible by car (or van) at the time? And why, of all days, pick this day to see if she was "grabbable" (for lack of a better word).
I think the assumption would be that she was inside...

Shadowangel, there was indeed a terrible storm that day, but the rural mail delivery person had in fact driven over the mountain road to deliver the mail, so we know the house was accessible. Also, the school bus picked up and delivered the children.

 

[HeartofTexas]

Welcome to WS, Annasmom. WS has some of the smartest posters on the internet and some of the most polite, so I hope you'll make yourself right at home here.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your opinion on what happened to Anna that day? Do you think your ex- was involved in the abduction, or do you think something else happened?

 

[SadieJane]

Annasmom, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you will feel comfortable enough to share your story. Anna was such a beautiful little girl, and she look so sweet and joyful in the photographs. I can't imagine what you have been through since her disappearance, but I hope your family has supported you and you have found some measure of peace.

 

[shadowangel]

I am a little puzzled about the motivation....I understand that Brody felt Anna was the reincarnation of a woman Brody knew (who was not yet dead). That being said, why did they decide to take Anna? In the hopes she would grow into this woman? Or, more likely, was Brody simply a pedophile who used his influence over Waters to abduct a beautiful young child? As I read the details, Anna could not have been in the possession of the two for long, not without being detected. If Anna were kept alive, where could she have been? Passed off to someone else for safekeeping? Did Brody have any other known associates (or "followers")? Besides the place where the two stayed, did Waters maintain a residence elsewhere? Somewhere he may have stayed following the seperation but before becoming Brody's "roommate"?
Is anything known of Brody's past? Criminal history? Former associates or residences?
Were dogs ever brought in to aid in the search for Anna along the stream? The map Dr. Doogie supplied is a little difficult for me to read, but by Mapquesting it appears the stream empties into the bay. At the time Anna disappeared, given the massive amount of rain that had fallen, was the stream high enough to bypass any normal obstacles (dams, tree roots, etc)? Having two children myself, I know the fascination the young have for moving water. Did Anna normally play in or near this stream on more normal days?

 

[Dr. Doogie]

I am a little puzzled about the motivation....I understand that Brody felt Anna was the reincarnation of a woman Brody knew (who was not yet dead). That being said, why did they decide to take Anna? In the hopes she would grow into this woman? Or, more likely, was Brody simply a pedophile who used his influence over Waters to abduct a beautiful young child?

There is no evidence that Brody was a pedophile. His motivation in his dealings with Waters appeared to be both financial and control. From what I understand about the woman that Brody lived with prior to Waters, his motivation appeared to be the same. Once she was terminally ill, Brody shifted his focus onto Waters and his family in an attempt to continue his small cult.

As I read the details, Anna could not have been in the possession of the two for long, not without being detected. If Anna were kept alive, where could she have been? Passed off to someone else for safekeeping? Did Brody have any other known associates (or "followers")?

The hypothesis that I have been working on is exactly what you asked. The only way that I see that the two Georges could pulled this off was to immediately pass Anna of to someone "safe", either until the heat was off or perhaps permanently. They were being followed within a very short period of time, first by LE, then the PI and also Anna's stepfather. It is not known if he had other followers, but a review of the notes taken by Anna's stepfather during his stakeouts showed that at least one unidentified woman was known to associate with them (this, however, could be innocent).

Besides the place where the two stayed, did Waters maintain a residence elsewhere? Somewhere he may have stayed following the seperation but before becoming Brody's "roommate"?

It was discovered after a period of time that the two Georges maintained two residences, both hotel rooms within a few blocks of each other. Unfortunately, this fact was not discovered sooner. While it is possible that Anna may have been kept in the "secret" hotel room for a period, it is also possible and more likely that she would have been passed off to someone far enough removed from the two Georges to avoid scrutiny.

Is anything known of Brody's past? Criminal history? Former associates or residences?

Very little is known about Brody (probably an alias, since no offical paperwork seems to have existed on him until his death certificate). We do know the name of the woman that he lived with prior to Waters and where they lived. One interesting note: the woman whom he lived with refered to him as "Bobby". Obviously, the true identity and history of Brody would be very helpful in solving this case.

Were dogs ever brought in to aid in the search for Anna along the stream? The map Dr. Doogie supplied is a little difficult for me to read, but by Mapquesting it appears the stream empties into the bay. At the time Anna disappeared, given the massive amount of rain that had fallen, was the stream high enough to bypass any normal obstacles (dams, tree roots, etc)? Having two children myself, I know the fascination the young have for moving water. Did Anna normally play in or near this stream on more normal days?

Dogs were brought in, but due to the heavy rains that day, the did not prove to be useful. The creek was at flood stage on that day, but the number of obstacles between the home and the ocean make it extremely unlikely that a body could have traveled the distance without being stopped in the creek. A dead rooster that was tossed in the creek a few hours before Anna's disappearance was found tangled in the snags on the creek - if a five pound rooster could not make it to the ocean, then a much larger 40 pound girl would have been even more likely to have been snagged. And searches turned up numerous animal carcasses in the stream, but no Anna. Also, local fisherman patrolled the ocean near the mouth of the creek and never spied a body. And a hydrologist familiar with Purisima Creek stated that a body would have been most likely washed up onto the bank by the rushing water.

 

[Annasmom]

Posted pics and info on Anna here: http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/waters_anna.html Not the bits about her father and his friend, but about the general circumstances of her disappearance, and the sighting of the two men in a panel truck.

With regards eye color: it's possible to chemically change eye color after death, but I'm not sure if you could do it to a live person without ruining their sight. I know about this because I read about a blue-eyed girl who was killed and her body dumped in a very polluted river in Washington state. She wasn't identified for the longest time because the chemicals in the river turned her eyes brown, so no one thought the Jane Doe could be the missing girl. Finally they compared dentals more or less out of desperation, and lo, it was she.

Anna was (is) the brown-eyed child of two brown-eyed parents, so I really don't see how her eyes could turn blue. Anyway, the fused pictures of Sharon/Anna notwithstanding, there really is hardly any resemblance between the adult Sharon and Anna or any of her family. See age-progressed pictures from the National Center. There is really no reason at all to do DNA testing except that Anna is one of thousands of missing children and Sharon is one of a few "found" children. Should we ever need to identify a young woman as a possible Anna, there are other marks besides the mole and eye color. I really REALLY appreciate your interest in this case, which has baffled many of us for so many heartbreaking years.

 

[Annasmom]

Welcome to WS, Annasmom. WS has some of the smartest posters on the internet and some of the most polite, so I hope you'll make yourself right at home here.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your opinion on what happened to Anna that day? Do you think your ex- was involved in the abduction, or do you think something else happened?

HeartofTexas: I wish I had some insight, but I really don't know. I never had the slightest intuition. Not knowing is harder than knowing, and one of the problems we have had with the continuing investigation through the years is that people want to make up their minds too quickly. They form an opinion so that they don't have to think about it. We have literally no evidence at all as to what may have happened to our girl.

 

[Annasmom]

Have you uncovered any evidence to indicate that Waters ever left the country? Was he in possession of a passport? Is it possible for the PI you are working with to check if a passport was ever obtained for Anna?

He had applied for a passport within a year of Anna's disappearance, but apparently he destroyed the passport before he died. Also he had several flight insurance policies. I wouldn't know how to go about checking whether a passport was obtained for Anna, but it's certainly a good thought.

 

[Annasmom]

Annasmom, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you will feel comfortable enough to share your story. Anna was such a beautiful little girl, and she look so sweet and joyful in the photographs. I can't imagine what you have been through since her disappearance, but I hope your family has supported you and you have found some measure of peace.

Thank you. I have to believe that even though I don't know what happened to my daughter, somewhere there is an answer. I appreciate your kind thoughts.

 

[shadowangel]

Thank you. I have to believe that even though I don't know what happened to my daughter, somewhere there is an answer. I appreciate your kind thoughts.

It is this very thought that keeps us all hammering away at these cases. Someone knows the answer to each mystery. Others have knowledge which will lead us to those people. As I am fond of saying, no one exists in a vacuum.

Annasmom-What has been Anna's paternal grandparents involvement in all this? Were you close? Did they live in NY at the time of Anna's disappearance?

 

[HeartofTexas]

Shadow, in thinking about the possibility that Waters obtained a passport for Anna, I wonder if (thru Brody perhaps) he had contacts that falsified various documents for Anna (muck akin to what Floyd did with Sharon) so that a passport was obtained under a different name. It's interesting that some of the low-lifes that missing children come in contact with operate under false identities so that tracking them is either impossible or very difficult. Low-lifes (of which I have very little knowledge of) seem to have a whole network of contacts to assist them which makes their work organized and difficult to trace. Very frustrating.

 

[Annasmom]

It is this very thought that keeps us all hammering away at these cases. Someone knows the answer to each mystery. Others have knowledge which will lead us to those people. As I am fond of saying, no one exists in a vacuum.

Annasmom-What has been Anna's paternal grandparents involvement in all this? Were you close? Did they live in NY at the time of Anna's disappearance?

I have been in touch with them all along. Although I lived in New York before Anna was born, there is no other family connection to New York. And they, as all the family, were grief-stricken.

 

[Annasmom]

I am a little puzzled about the motivation....I understand that Brody felt Anna was the reincarnation of a woman Brody knew (who was not yet dead). That being said, why did they decide to take Anna? In the hopes she would grow into this woman? Or, more likely, was Brody simply a pedophile who used his influence over Waters to abduct a beautiful young child? As I read the details, Anna could not have been in the possession of the two for long, not without being detected. If Anna were kept alive, where could she have been? Passed off to someone else for safekeeping? Did Brody have any other known associates (or "followers")? Besides the place where the two stayed, did Waters maintain a residence elsewhere? Somewhere he may have stayed following the seperation but before becoming Brody's "roommate"?
Is anything known of Brody's past? Criminal history? Former associates or residences?
Were dogs ever brought in to aid in the search for Anna along the stream? The map Dr. Doogie supplied is a little difficult for me to read, but by Mapquesting it appears the stream empties into the bay. At the time Anna disappeared, given the massive amount of rain that had fallen, was the stream high enough to bypass any normal obstacles (dams, tree roots, etc)? Having two children myself, I know the fascination the young have for moving water. Did Anna normally play in or near this stream on more normal days?

Shadowangel: The woman (in the reincarnation issue) was dead by the time the old fellow started coming around. And the motivation was power and greed. He wanted control over people, and he wanted to be supported in style. As far as the dogs go, it is true that nothing conclusive came from their tracking (the ground was wet, and many people had already walked over it), but it was curious that they doubled back upstream (toward the place the neighbor heard a noise and thought "somebody was stealing something" (her words) before they quit.

 

[shadowangel]

Annasmom-I take it that your ex-husband's involvement with Brody pretty much estranged him from contact with family and friends?

Just to clarify...Would Anna have likely recognized her father by the time she disappeared? (If I ask any questions that you find disturbing, let me know..Sometimes I get on a track and forget myself).

 

[smile22]

can someone clarifly what "Eifee" means was it a name that her mom and step dad and family refered her to

 

[shadowangel]

It evidently was a name important to Brody--the name of the dead woman that Brody thought was reincarnated in Anna?