MN MN - Christopher Kerze, 17, Eagan, 20 April 1990

[Savemecastiel]

Bump

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

Christopher has been missing for 29 years now.

Just thought of his disappearance a few days ago...In my mind I keep going back to that letter that his parents received years after he had vanished.

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

Christopher has been missing for 29 years now.

Just thought of his disappearance a few days ago...In my mind I keep going back to that letter that his parents received years after he had vanished.

I have to correct myself, letter sent to the Eagan PD- from Christopher Matthew Kerze – The Charley Project:

"In 2004, the Eagan Police Department got an anonymous letter postmarked Seattle, Washington that asked them to stop looking for Christopher. The letter writer said Christopher was a "guardian angel" and that he would return home when he was ready. Police eventually concluded the letter was a hoax."

This part also stood out to me reading his Charley Project profile:

"The family also got a lot of strange calls where the caller would not speak and there would be background noise like a party. Christopher's mother believes the strange calls were from him. They continued for six months before stopping abruptly."

Could have also been from someone that knew more about Christopher's disappearance, IMO. Maybe an individual that he had confided in before vanishing.

Those party noises in the background...possibly someone used to feel guilty for not speaking up and therefore reached out to his family when intoxicated. I don't know. Just pure speculation of course.

 

[Alleykins]

I have to correct myself, letter sent to the Eagan PD- from Christopher Matthew Kerze – The Charley Project:

"In 2004, the Eagan Police Department got an anonymous letter postmarked Seattle, Washington that asked them to stop looking for Christopher. The letter writer said Christopher was a "guardian angel" and that he would return home when he was ready. Police eventually concluded the letter was a hoax."

This part also stood out to me reading his Charley Project profile:

"The family also got a lot of strange calls where the caller would not speak and there would be background noise like a party. Christopher's mother believes the strange calls were from him. They continued for six months before stopping abruptly."

Could have also been from someone that knew more about Christopher's disappearance, IMO. Maybe an individual that he had confided in before vanishing.

Those party noises in the background...possibly someone used to feel guilty for not speaking up and therefore reached out to his family when intoxicated. I don't know. Just pure speculation of course.

He could have been calling from a payphone at a bar or restaurant. I'm really surprised they couldn't (or wouldn't) trace the calls back to their source. It may have been helpful.

 

[Gardener1850]

June 16, 2019 10:23 PM

25 years ago the Minneapolis band Soul Asylum released Runaway Train. The song and the music video became an anthem of sorts to raise awareness about missing children.

Now the band has given the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) permission to re-record Runaway Train and experts are calling it a "game changer."

When Soul Asylum released the original version Runaway Train in 1992 the music video featured the faces of 36 missing children, including Christopher Kerze of Eagan who disappeared in 1990. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reported on Christopher's story in 2018.

Longtime National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Board Member Patty Wetterling says the video had a huge impact. "I believe they recovered 21 of the children featured. This will reach an audience of younger people."

Unfortunately, Christopher Kerze has not been found. But Wetterling is hopeful a 25th anniversary reboot of the music video called Runaway Train 25 will find many missing children.

Why Patty Wetterling believes the new Runaway Train music video will find a lot of missing children

 

[PezCandy]

It’s sad that nothing has been found out yet. Just dead ends. I can’t imagine a parent having to go so long without ever knowing.

I’m actually from mid MN and with so very few details of his case thruout the years it hasn’t been very publicized.
I’m hoping a fresh set of eyes can check his case out and at least find out for his parents sake.

 

[dotr]

May 2019
Video for 1994 Song 'Runaway Train' Helped Recover 21 Missing Kids — But 11 Have Not Been Found
"Before Amber Alerts and social media, there was Soul Asylum’s video of ‘Runaway Train’ airing on MTV. In the video for the 1994 hit, the band featured powerful vignettes about 36 children who have gone missing. As a result of the video, 25 of the children were found -- but the following 11 remain unaccounted for."

3 of 12
CHRISTOPHER KERZE

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Christopher Kerze was 17 years old when he disappeared from his Eagan, Minn., home along with the family’s van on April 20, 1990. The van was found 200 miles away.

 

[Primrosegold]

Hi, I don’t post here much (if at all) but love this site. I found two things recently that made me wonder if he is still alive. There was a blog post on the Charley Project site about Chris making “noise” about not wanting to be found.
Christopher Matthew Kerze – The Charley Project Blog

Also a reddit user stating they felt certain at the time (1990s) that Chris was in their college class.
Christopher Kerze : WithoutATrace

As with anything on the internet, these could be nothing but I thought they were interesting.

 

[PezCandy]

This is the case that brought me to WS. One thing that has bugged me is that his age progression photo looked exactly like a staff member that worked in my school district years ago. I know it’s not him. I don’t have any of my yearbooks anymore so it’s hard for me to remember if he was a teacher or teachers aid. But the looks were very close. Now and then i check CK thread hoping for some sort of update but it’s always nada
The note and phone calls the parents were receiving never sat right with me, I wonder if it was actually him or someone else contacting the parents and friend.

 

[Alleykins]

@PezCandy
You never know about the phone calls and note.
Anita Drake's family got a few calls with no one there. They were convinced it was her abductor/murderer calling to taunt them. Turns out, she was neither abducted or murdered, but had run away to escape abuse, and she was most likely the one calling.

 

[dotr]

Bumping in light of suggestion made on this thread
MT - MT - Flathead Co, WhtMale, 18-49, MJ Pipe, .22 Pistol w/Holster, Poker Game, Sz 11 Adidas, Oct'03

Christopher Matthew Kerze – The Charley Project

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  • • Missing Since 04/20/1990
    • Missing From Eagan, Minnesota
  • ''17 years old
  • Height and Weight 5'11, 135 pounds
  • Clothing/Jewelry Description A mid-calf length acid-washed light blue denim trench coat that came down to between his knees and ankles, a size large black cotton sweatshirt, size 29M blue or black Bugle Boy jeans with pockets at the knees, a black leather belt, white crew sweatsocks, size 30 J.C. Penney underwear with a blue stripe and an elastic waistband, size 11 or 11 1/2 brown leather boat shoes, and a plastic Swatch watch with a black and white zebra-striped band. Carrying a black bi-fold leather wallet with his Minnesota driver's license.''
• ''Caucasian male. Brown hair, brown eyes. Christopher had severe facial acne at the time of his 1990 disappearance. He wears eyeglasses or hard contact lenses; his glasses have blue wire rims. He's badly nearsighted with 20/400 vision in both eyes. Christopher's feet point outward while he is walking. He has a one-inch scar on his forehead near the hairline and a small red birthmark on the bottom of his foot. His nicknames are Chris and Rick-o.''
  

 

[MagnoliaMountain]

Bumping for Christopher.

 

[PezCandy]

Still nothing on Chris. Locals believe he is long long gone and think he ran off to start a new life due to things going on in his personal life and staged a lot of things to throw people off. {{these are just talks from the locals and some people that knew him from school}} i think he’s alive, I think we would have found him by now if he wasn’t. This is jmo. It really bothers me.

 

[onceuponadecember]

As a teacher, I'm going to put my input here: this seems very worrisome. I think this child might've committed suicide in all seriousness. I watched the video with his mother: she just seemed to be in denial. I lost a friend to suicide in HS.. never suspected she would do it. I think Christopher most likely did commit in a very hard-to-find location and his remains have never been located. Now about the caller: I think it was a friend or someone Chris knew wanting to come forward about what they thought happened but were too afraid each time they called. It's sad to see these things happen nowadays.

 

[ekardh]

There's an extract from the CharleyProject that puzzles me:
Authorities believe the gun may have been abandoned somewhere in rural Minnesota and was possibly found later by a hunter.

How and why did the police come to form this belief?

On the face of it, this case has all the indicators of a suicide. It's not much of a mystery that Christopher's body was never found. The vehicle was found abandoned near vast forested areas. Over time, those remains would've been exposed to the environment and destroyed by scavengers.

 

[Alleykins]

There's an extract from the CharleyProject that puzzles me:
Authorities believe the gun may have been abandoned somewhere in rural Minnesota and was possibly found later by a hunter.

How and why did the police come to form this belief?

On the face of it, this case has all the indicators of a suicide. It's not much of a mystery that Christopher's body was never found. The vehicle was found abandoned near vast forested areas. Over time, those remains would've been exposed to the environment and destroyed by scavengers.

Quite a few hunters have gone missing over the years, and their gear, especially their firearms, have never been found (Tom Messick, Mel Nadel, Ludger Belanger, to name a few). Even if the remains are destroyed and scattered into obscurity, their guns should still be intact. And it's possible one reason they aren't often found by searchers in subsequent searches down the road is that hunters and hikers over the years found them instead. And instead of turning them in, they've kept them, not knowing they could be a clue to a disappearance. Or they could still be out there, undiscovered.

 

[ekardh]

Quite a few hunters have gone missing over the years, and their gear, especially their firearms, have never been found (Tom Messick, Mel Nadel, Ludger Belanger, to name a few). Even if the remains are destroyed and scattered into obscurity, their guns should still be intact. And it's possible one reason they aren't often found by searchers in subsequent searches down the road is that hunters and hikers over the years found them instead. And instead of turning them in, they've kept them, not knowing they could be a clue to a disappearance. Or they could still be out there, undiscovered.

Ah, right. Thanks for that. I took it to mean that police had a solid reason for that belief, rather than supposition.

 

[Take another look]

I'm brand new to this website, and for those of you hoping for a fresh set of eyes to check this case out, I did just that. I've been thinking about this case a lot the past few days after I first found out about it, and I thought of a couple things. First, I'd like to revisit the fact of the van in Grand Rapids. He was most definitely there; between the car, the note in the car and his scent found by the dogs in the woods. When he drove up, most likely on Friday 4/20 in the morning, he had to have passed through Duluth to mail that letter for it to arrive the next day. I don't really see mailing a letter and it coming the next day unless it was before collection time on Friday, which is usually in the afternoon so he had time if he left in the morning. Then, he would've taken US-2 straight to Grand Rapids. It's not the fastest way, but it's pretty close to the fastest. But, it is probably the easiest way to remember to get there. So, he gets to Grand Rapids, leaves the van 20 mi. north of the town. Perhaps he was leaving it there to throw everyone off, as a distraction from where he was really going. According to Charley Project, a hitchhiker that fit his description was picked up in Grand Rapids and was headed for Duluth. If it was him, why go back where he already was? Not to mail the letter, pickup time would have already passed so he couldn't have gotten it there on time to arrive the next day, as it did. To go back home? Very unlikely because he was trying to get away, and the van would have made going home a lot easier, so why hitchhike? Maybe he was trying to go past home and to somewhere else, to start a new life where no one would find him (mentioning suicide in the note, whether it was truthful or not, would bring a whole new possibility to those trying to find him and that would slow the search down). He might've thought if he left the van
up north, why would they do a lot of searching for him south of home, or east or west? I do think $200 would come in handy for hitchhiking for a while, so that could explain the cash he took out. Also, not sure if this would mean anything, but since his grandparents lived in Grand Rapids, and he would just need to remember two numbers (35 and 2) for some easy directions to rural Minnesota, plus it is somewhere where he has already been, could he have just needed a place to dump the car and knew that area of northern Minnesota well, so he defaulted to it? He was known to get lost while driving, so maybe he wanted to keep it simple. There's another thing I thought of that I see as pretty unlikely, but I'll just put it out there anyways. He had a good relationship with his family, and was apologetic about pain he had caused, so is it possible he took the gun imagining one of his family members would try to use it on themselves because of the pain of him being gone? All he would need to do was take the gun, no one can shoot themselves with just ammo, and a new gun is more expensive and more complicated than buying new ammo if he had just taken the ammo. Once again, not crazy about that theory. Let me know what you think. It will be 32 years since he went missing on next Wednesday.

 

[spartanx]

It has been more than 33 years since he disappeared... perhaps he took his own life with the rifle he was carrying, it is not necessary to carry more ammunition if you plan to commit suicide... you only need a bullet... the human mind is strange but sometimes without it They explain to us that we understand certain things like suicide because apparently it is in the human unconscious to cease to exist on its own... I feel that the parents also had him somewhat abandoned because according to them they had not noticed anything strange in his behavior... but I did think In the end, commit suicide because I also think that the one making the calls was him, perhaps thinking about taking his own life... perhaps he lived elsewhere with another name, perhaps a short job because 200 dollars would not serve him for a long time... but in the end I think that when he was in the forest he was murdered or committed suicide.. nature, the animals did the same with the body..
rest in peace chris

 

[John/Jane Doe]

Christopher Matthew Kerze – The Charley Project