Thank you Joni and I completely agree. I started Porchlight for the Missing and Unidentified in Jean's honor as well. I did finally manage to get a small mention (but not much else) in a newspaper article. To my knowledge, other than the True Detective Magazine, it is the only "press" Jean Marie ever got.
Himebaugh disappearance still haunts 15 years later
By BRIAN IANIERI Staff Writer, (609) 463-6713
(Published: November 25, 2006)
MIDDLE TOWNSHIP Fifteen years ago today, a freckle-faced boy disappeared from his neighborhood, leaving behind only a white sneaker and the memories of an 11-year-old who has never grown up.
Nov. 25, 1991, was the last time Mark Himebaugh was seen.
Each year since has been a year without an answer.
But his mother's eyes brighten and moisten with talk of a son who wouldn't swat a bumblebee in the house, but would capture it in a glass and set it free outside.
Maureen Himebaugh uses this date to do something positive and enjoy life with the memory of her son, she said.
I'm ready for an answer. But I've also accepted that I may go to my grave and not know, she said Friday from her home, where marsh reeds across the street blow in the wind.
I just want an answer. That's all.
She isn't alone.
We're still looking for that one piece of information that might be out there that could close this case, said Middle Township police Capt. Scott Webster, who 15 years ago was a patrolman assigned to the juvenile division.
It's still on everybody's mind. Of course at the time it scared a lot of people, and we went from the quiet rural town where people still didn't lock their doors and their cars, he said.
It kind of was a rude awakening to show that this type of thing could happen anywhere, and for several months afterward, you saw parents closer. You didn't see the kids out at the playgrounds, you didn't see them out on the streets. Parents were holding their kids closer. It took that innocence away from the area, Webster said.
The Himebaugh case is 15 years old, but is not considered a cold case, said Jerry Nance, supervisor of the forensic assistance unit at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Cases go cold when leads dry up and generations of detectives have come and gone, he said.
In Mark's case, police are still pursuing possibilities.
Several weeks ago, a person found bones that washed up on a Del Haven beach front. Police had the bones analyzed they belonged to an animal. All the bones reported over the years have turned out to be an animal's, Webster said.
But police still check.
On her refrigerator door, Maureen Himebaugh keeps a missing person's photo that aged her son 10 years and shows a red-headed man with the same sparkle in the eyes.
It looks about right, she said.
It was a sunny, cold and windy Monday afternoon in November 1991.
In Del Haven, a fire burned marsh reeds and the wind fanned smoke across Bayshore Drive.
Police and firefighters were on the scene, diverting traffic from the road and detouring motorists through side streets. This brought more cars and more people into the area, Webster said.
Mark came home from school, grabbed a snack and, being an inquisitive young boy, went to investigate.
His mother, driving a neighbor to pick up a car at a gas station, backed out of the driveway and reminded him of plans they had that evening.
He walked across Bayshore Road. Police believe he was walking with a girl, about 10, near Cape May County Park South, Webster said.
Authorities never positively identified that girl.
Mark was seen walking toward the playground.
And that was it.
He was reported missing at 6 p.m.
In the next six days, helicopters, dogs and hundreds of searchers scoured for signs of Mark.
All they found was footprints and his hand-me-down LA Gear sneaker above the high tide line along the bay.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of leads came in, Webster said.
Calls came in from Florida, Texas, Canada, Mexico and the Grand Cayman Islands.
Over the years, of course, the amount of sightings and leads have dropped and that's just due to time, Webster said. We do still get leads, but now it's more people remembering things from years back.
The uncertainty of what happened to a missing loved one hurts in its own special way, said Lauran Halleck.
Her sister, Jean, was abducted from a parked car 26 years ago from outside a convenience store in Miami. Halleck has been looking for her sister, then 16, ever since.
That's the toughest part, truly, she said. You mourn because they're gone, but you can't mourn in the traditional way because you can't get to the happy memories. You think terrible things about what might have happened to them. And then there's always the stories. Your mind can go crazy, and that's the worst part of all.
I think most of us learn to get on with loss to the degree we can, but then there's just a hole and there's no clue, she said.
Halleck started a Web site Porchlight for the Missing and Unidentified this spring to help families of victims.
Cases like Mark's have been around for a long time, said Vance, who is in charge of cold cases. If something doesn't kick start it, it will be coming here.
When cases are considered cold, they typically get solved through either technological advances in forensics or changes in relationships, Vance said.
Critical witnesses who said nothing before may come forward as they grow older and their perspectives change. People can become more forthcoming decades later.
You want to put a name to everything you touch and unfortunately the odds are way against you, he said.
To e-mail Brian Ianieri at The Press:
BIanieri@pressofac.com
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/st...p-6826061c.html
