CA CA - Kristen Modafferi, 18, San Francisco, 23 June 1997

[rachel]

My wife has been following Kristen's case from the beginning and now I too am intrigued with it all. With regards to the above comments, on www.findkristen.com, the photograph of Jill Lampo is of a young white woman and yet Dennis Mahon has said that Jill is a black woman. Does anyone know what is closer to the truth? Is the photograph on the below link truely Jill Lampo?

Check out: http://www.findkristen.com/LampoLying.html

Rooftop,
Yes, that is truely Jill Lampo. I think that 1) the picture is just not so good and 2) she is a very light-skinned African American.

I think that everyone assumed Jill was white from seeing the picture, until Dennis told us otherwise.

I'm glad to see more people are joining in on the discussion.

We still have not speculated much about what Jill was lying about...Perhaps it's something to do about Onuma's whereabouts that day?

 

[rooftopny]

Rooftop,
Yes, that is truely Jill Lampo. I think that 1) the picture is just not so good and 2) she is a very light-skinned African American.

I think that everyone assumed Jill was white from seeing the picture, until Dennis told us otherwise.

I'm glad to see more people are joining in on the discussion.

We still have not speculated much about what Jill was lying about...Perhaps it's something to do about Onuma's whereabouts that day?

Thanks for explaining about Jill. We were confused.

Also, I wonder as well about what she was lying about. That is a really good guess that she provided a false alibi for Onuma ... I'm sure he was asked where he was the day she disappeared. Does anyone know how he responded to this question? And do others think that the pages from her missing diary have notes about where they were that day?

 

[rachel]

From DM's website:

"Police continue to focus on Onuma, believing he knows exactly what happened to Kristen, yet he refuses to come clean. Jon Onuma, as it turns out, has been living in 47-924 Kamakoi Rd, Kaneohe, Hawaii for about a year, perhaps longer. He is living in a home valued over $1,500,000 and is driving a Mercedes convertible.
Throughout learning about this information, a statement was made to me by a person who didn't realize the significance of what they were saying. If this was true, then clearly, no doubt about it, Jill Lampo was lying to me.
I ran this info past Oakland PD and they verified it to be true. I had such a hard time believing it that I asked Kristen's dad to double check with Officer Mahanay.

"It's true, Dennis", Bob said.

I apologize for being so vague but it is a pretty safe bet that both Onuma and Jill will be reading this. I will just let them wonder just exactly what it refers to."


"Note to readers:


Jill is telling me one thing and the Oakland PD are telling me differently. I choose to believe the police. With that said, the key person here is clearly Onuma. I doubt that Jill had anything to do with Krsiten's disappearance. I just now believe that she isn't telling EVERYTHING she knows.


Maybe Onuma has theatened her life? He has done just that to another woman saying words to the effect, " You will meet the same fate as Kristen Modafferi", during one of his screaming tirades at a past girlfriend."


I don't know what the truth is, I just know that Jill was not straight with me and the Mod's and hopefully Oakland PD can use this information to help find Kristen.



I assume that those missing pages most likely had something to do wth KM.....Out of all the pages to be missing? It could be something very innocent, like, "met So-and-So and her friend." Maybe this So-and-so is the blond. Something along those lines, it could be something very innocent, but gives LE clues. It doesn't have to be "kidnapped girl today."
Does anyone know when LE went to search JO's house? I think I read somewhere that it was about a year later. Could that be correct? that sounds crazy. Why did it take so long?

 

[Up2theminute]

The Modaferri's comments on the Reader's Digest article (published in December):
Reader's Digest Feature Article

"The story of Kristen's disappearance is in the December issue of Reader's Digest. This well known magazine has a circulation of 13.1 million readers and is published worldwide in 19 languages. To say we are pleased that Kristen's story is now reaching this global audience would be a huge understatement. This is the kind of exposure we have tried for years to get, because this is our best chance of reaching someone who may have the answer to what happened to our daughter on June 23, 1997. Reader's Digest does not accept articles from the general public, so we owe a dept of gratitude to writer Matt Birkbeck for taking an interest in our case and writing the story for Reader's Digest.

The article does, for the most part, accurately describe the events surrounding Kristen's disappearance, but a few points need to be clarified:

First and foremost, we got the call from Griffin Cherry, who told us that Kristen had been missing for 3 days, but he placed the call after we left a message asking Kristen to call home. We have no way of knowing how much more time may have passed had we not made that initial contact. The first 24 hours are crucial after someone goes missing... we had no idea... no one bothered to call us.

Kristen did a great deal of research before she told us about her plan to live, work, and attend classes in the San Francisco Bay area. She was very excited about the summer work/study adventure that was an integral part of her scholarship program. She presented us with a very convincing case that she was prepared to live on her own for the summer in a beautiful city. We made the decision to let her go. It wasn't an easy decision, or one we took lightly.

In hindsight it is probably true that Kristen may have been too trusting of the people she met in the three short weeks she was in San Francisco. The article states as fact that she took "casual car pool" rides to commute to work. We know she took the BART trains to work... it is only speculation that she tried other options like the casual car pool. We also don't know if Kristen placed the classified ad. There are many young people in San Francisco looking for friends with common interests. We have no proof that Kristen actually wrote and submitted this ad.

Kristen's Law was the culmination of a lot of work by dedicated and caring people who responded to our call for help at a time when none was available for missing persons who had reached the age of 18. Kristen always said she wanted to make a difference in the world. We believe that Kristen's Law will make a difference for other families searching for their at-risk adult loved ones."

http://www.modlink.com/kristen/html/updates.htm

 

[Litlstar04]

Randal Davis, who is the person that believes that he met Kristen in Nicaragua, posted a message in the guest book on www.findkristen.com. Here is a link: http://www.homestead.com/~site/Scri...se&H_H=1750043208&H_P=1&H_A=0&H_V=2&H_U=21064
I'm going to post some more comments later, but just wanted to inform you of this interesting development. An interesting connection that the group that owns the property that she supposedly stayed at in Nicaragua was also in San Franciso at the same time. This case is incredibly strange!

 

[Litlstar04]

LE totally dropped the ball on this case altogether, in my opinion. From the beginning, when the Modaferris first arrived in San Francisco several days after Kristen was last seen, they were told that the investigating officer had gone home for the weekend, so they would have to wait until Monday. This was their missing child, but I think LE treated this case as a runaway, not a missing person case, in the beginning. If they would have brought in for questioning every single person Kristen knew in the short time she’d been in San Fran, I believe this case could have been solved a long time ago. We don’t know everything that Onuma told police. Obviously it wasn’t enough to arrest him, but it was enough to keep him under this cloud of suspicion. I don’t think that Jill Lampo had anything to do with what happened to Kristen, but that she’s not telling police everything that she knows. I think the missing pages of the diary contained strange actions or odd behavior on Onumas part that could have tipped LE off to his involvement in this. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the pages missing are from the days around the time Kristen disappeared. Plus, I remember that she made phone calls to her family in the middle of the night on these days, with the excuse that she and her family are close. I don’t know that many people that call their family in the middle of the night unless they’re upset about something. Why she won’t tell LE everything that she knows, I have no idea. Perhaps Onuma is that scary of a person, but I would think that she’d want Onuma in prison for what he’s done and where he can’t hurt her or anyone else. Anyway you look at it, Lampo has been able to go on with her life, while Kristen is still missing and the Mods continue to not have any answers. Here’s the question and answer session between the Mods and Lampo about five years after Kristen went missing: http://www.findkristen.com/JillLampo.html
As far as the picture of Lampo on the website, I think it’s hard to tell what she looks like. She doesn’t look white to me, but it’s not obvious that she’s black either. However, Dennis has met her and spoken to her on several occasions, so I think we have to trust what he says, that she is a black woman. I’m sure he wouldn’t discard the idea that Lampo could be the blonde-haired woman seen with Kristen if he didn’t have good reason to.

 

[rooftopny]

I read somewhere that Jill Lampo has supposedly begged to take a polygraph but for some reason she hasn't been given one ... does anyone know more about this? Surely she would jump at the chance to take one and it would finally clear her name of any suspicion after all these years. I'm convinced she knows something that has not been revealed. What with the past relationship with Onuma, the missing pages from her diary, the lack of initial information from Oakland PD all screams of suspicious knowledge and inconsistency. Maybe she's protecting herself for whatever reason but after all these years, shouldn't she be eliminated from the investigation once and for all?

I couldn't agree more that it seems apparent that someone who knew Kristen holds key information that has not been provided to the police. The initial investigation was not handled correctly -- there was no urgency and it's a travesty that the case is still unsolved as a result. From the 35 people that Kristen knew in San Francisco surely there must be two clues that match from two seperate people? I can't believe that there has been nothing after this length of time.

As much as I want to point the finger at Onuma, don't you think it's strange that say he is responsibible, why on earth would he make such an outlandish phone call to the Police about the two Lesbians? Surely if he was guilty, wouldn't it make sense for him to stay as far away as possible from the investigation? Or is he that twisted?

And as a second question, does anyone know when Jill and Onuma broke up? How long after Kristen went missing did they split up?

 

[Litlstar04]

Welcome to Websleuths rooftopny
I remember reading that it was a year after Kristen went missing that they searched Onuma's house and found Lampo's diary with the missing pages and Matthew Luque's name. Luque was an ex-boyfriend of Lampo's that worked at Spinelli's after Kristen, but had some friends that worked there when Kristen did. So if it was a year later and they still found some of Lampo's things there, I would assume that they were still not broken up at this time. Is it just a coincidence that one of Lampo's ex-boyfriends worked the same place as Kristen, or is it a possible connection to Onuma? We may never know, but, at any rate, Onuma is an incredibly sick individual. Whether or not he did it, he did threaten another woman that she might know the same fate as Kristen. I often wonder what Dennis and LE know to continue to think Onuma had something to do with whatever happened to Kristen.

 

[Jade]

Any idea why the new found friend Tristin and his family were eliminated as suspects quickly? An article said he was blonde. Could a longish haired blonde man be mistaken for a women? I know it said he had visited Kristen at work so some coworkers saw Tristan but did the ones who saw her talking to a blonde woman see him before?

 

[Litlstar04]

Is Tristin the male that she got a ride home from when she was stranded after a concert? If so, he was cleared because he immediately came forward to police and gave them all the information that he could. The police verified this information and said he was cleared. Perhaps he even had an alibi, but whatever he said, it was enough for LE to clear him. If you're not referring to the male at the concert, could you please tell us more about Tristin because this is the first time I've heard this name?

 

[rooftopny]

Thanks for the welcome. I formerly lived in Kristen's hometown (Charlotte, NC) and have followed this case since the beginning. I was an aquaintance of her older sister Allison and there are some similarities between me and KM that make the whole thing hit close to home. I have gotten my husband interested in the case so he will probably occassionally post under this name as well ...

Anyway, I believe Tristin is the guy she met at the concert. I read an old article from the weeks following her disappearance asking him to come forward and tell everything that he knows, but I didn't read that he did come forward and was cleared.

I'm also wondering about this personal ad that Kristen supposedly had with her belongings ... I've read articles that made it sound like the ad was circled or cut out, strongly suggesting that she answered it or intended to answer it. But I've also read articles that made it sound more like she just had the Bay Guardian newspaper in her room in general and police made the tenuous link between the ad and her. It seems like she would have mentioned to someone that she answered a personal ad or the number for the ad would be on her phone records, if such things are still in existence all these years later.

 

[rachel]

REgarding Randal Davis:

Before the server crashed in August, one of you (either LiLstar or up2) posted an email from Dennis Mahon. He spoke about his travelling to Colorado to meet someone who Randal said would know Kristen.
does anyone still have that email from DH? Could you post it? Or could you tell us again what had happened?

 

[Litlstar04]

I had emailed Dennis and asked him about the brief mention of Kristen’s case taking him to Colorado. I don’t still have the email because I accidentally erased all of my emails, and, unfortunately, the post was lost with one of the server crashes. I’ll try to remember it the best that I can… I believe he said that he came to Colorado to speak with Randal Davis. Unfortunately, they have been unable to corroborate Randal’s story, however, at least as far as any of the other people down there remembering Kristen. If you’ve gone to the guest book and seen Randal’s entry about the Mojica family being in Colorado, it raises a lot of questions. Was that why Randal went to Colorado or is it pure coincidence? I remember reading that Randal has done a lot of work and research to try to prove that it was Kristen that he met in Nicaragua.
I have also been confused about the significance of the personal ad. At one point in time, we asked Dennis about it in the guest book where several of us were discussing it. I had always thought that it was the ad itself, either cut out or circled that they found in her belongings. But, he said that it was just a copy of the Guardian that happened to have this ad in it. It sounds like Kristen so it may have come from her or she may have answered it, but we really don’t know. Since we don’t really know, we can’t put much emphasis on this point. I initially thought that may have been how she came into contact with Onuma – through the person that placed or answered that ad (the blonde woman seen with her.) But, there is also the possible connection between Onuma through Lampo’s ex-boyfriend, Matthew Luque.

 

[Jade]

Is Tristin the male that she got a ride home from when she was stranded after a concert? If so, he was cleared because he immediately came forward to police and gave them all the information that he could. The police verified this information and said he was cleared. Perhaps he even had an alibi, but whatever he said, it was enough for LE to clear him. If you're not referring to the male at the concert, could you please tell us more about Tristin because this is the first time I've heard this name?[/QUOTE]

Yes, the male she got the ride home with. Thanks rooftopny.
Do we know anything more about the description of the blonde? Was probably Lampo in a wig or weave......there is that connection to Spinellis. But no offence to S.F. but it seems that there would be many connections to sick individuals in such a large & unusual city.
Another question - how did Lampo and therefore Onuma afford the home in Hawaii? Family money, good jobs, Durst?

 

[Litlstar04]

I don't think we should continue thinking that Lampo was the blonde seen with Kristen in the Crocker Galleria. Obviously anything is possible, but for reasons that we may not know, Dennis does not feel that this is the case. He knows the most about the case, so I tend to agree with him.
There is the chance that Kristen was hurt by a complete stranger, but statistics (and I'm not sure of exact numbers here) show that the majority of the time the perp is someone the victim knows. With Kristen only being in SF a short amount of time, there was a limited number of people that she came into contact with.
I do not know how Onuma made a living, so I do not know how he or Lampo paid for their apartments, possessions, etc. I assume that LE knows this and probably Dennis also. Supposedly an investigator has been checking into a possible Durst connection to this case. Other than the initial article posted on the first page of this thread, I have not heard any follow-up on this. I think Durst was too much of a loner to be connected to Onuma, so if Durst has something to do with Kristen’s disappearance, I believe that it’s all on his own.

 

[rooftopny]

Speaking of Randal Davis, I saw a post that he placed on I believe Dennis' site, and he said definitively with authority "When I met Kristen..." and it just bothered me. I can't even imagine what her family or close friends would feel like when they read that, considering that his claim has been discounted and he is giving people false hope ... What do others think about this guy? I mean, is he mentally unstable or something? Because I can't imagine a mentally sound person making such an unfounded claim. I know it's been speculated that he is in cahoots with the perpetrator in this case, like he's trying to throw LE and the Mods off with his crazy story. But perhaps it's more likely that he's just challenged or delussional.

 

[Litlstar04]

I don't know what to think about this guy, either. Because the Mods and Dennis give enough credit to his story to place it on the website, I think maybe we should to. I've even seen the Mods place a message on the Peace Corps site asking anyone that was in Nicaragua at that time to contact them if they have any info. or can verify that Kristen was there. On the other hand, I've often thought that it could be a woman he mistook for Kristen. I only know Kristen through the website and articles and the pictures found there, but she looks different in some of them. I have often, probably out of wishful thinking, thought I've seen someone who looks exactly like Kristen and I think might be her. This a perfect example of the effect Randal's story has had - some part of me still thinks she might be out there somewhere. This is just another part of what makes Kristen's case so strange and frustrating. It is almost like she just disappeared off the face of the earth.

 

[Jade]

I wondered if LE had tried to run another personal ad and see who took the bait. I have my doubts about her running the ad becouse she seemed outgoing and already had two jobs where she probably met people. Responding to one maybe... When I was in SF I picked up one of those free papers and the ad section was pretty shocking and graphic. I would think a straight arrow like K. would steer clear.The ad in question itself seemed innocent enough.

The details on the case are so sketchy that there really isnt anything to chew on as far as sleuthing.
As I read further I see the Mods. want to keep the details off the net.

Quote from the Mods:So why don't we keep posting monthly, weekly or even daily updates? As much as we appreciate the sincere interest that each and every one of you has in knowing what is going on in our search for Kristen, there is a very real potential downside to revealing too much…showing our hand so to speak. We have never doubted that someone knows what happened to Kristen on June 23, 1997. As time marches on it appears that this someone is totally devoid of a conscience and any sense of doing what is morally right. So we have made a conscious decision not to outline every new step our investigators are taking, or what the latest piece of evidence is, or what's the latest word on the street that could ultimately expose those who know. We have faith. Good things are happening behind the scenes. When the time is right, those responsible for Kristen's disappearance will be brought to justice and we will have our answers.

Maybe it is time to blow it wide open. Throw the cards down on the table.

 

[Litlstar04]

I'm not quite sure what you mean, Jade...
Do you mean that you think the case is close to being blown wide open, or do you mean that maybe it's time for more information to be provided about this case?
One of the most frustrating things about this case is that it's hard to decipher fact from fiction. For example, I've always thought that is was fact that Kristen went to the Lands End area that day. Recently it's been revealed that the police only traced her scent to a bus stop, then presumed that she took the bus to the Lands End area that day. Maybe if they'd continued to follow the scent, they would have traced her to Onuma's house, which was located nearby. I only hope that LE really knows fact from fiction and the ambiguity is left for the rest of us in order to not tip of who is responsible.

 

[Jade]

I was thinking maybe it is time for more information. It could rekindle interest and gossip that might lead to something. Look at Laci's case. No hiding under a rock over there!
Insiders must know more -there are just so many questions.

I am leaving to go out of town for a work retreat for a week. I will check back on the thread when I get back.