FL FL - Jean Schoen, 9, Jacksonville, 21 July 1974

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Gina_M

Gina_M

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(Article dated Monday, November 23, 1998)

Jean Marie Schoen was the first little girl to vanish that tragic summer of 1974.

 In all, there were five girls, ages 6 to 12, who disappeared within a three-month span in Jacksonville. Only two bodies were ever found.*


The five abductions - coming so close and apparently unrelated - were unprecedented, said a veteran Jacksonville police officer.


Nine-year-old Jean Marie, known as Jeanie, disappeared July 21 after going to a store near her grandmother's house on West 19th Street in Springfield.


For [Pam] Schoen [Jeanie's mother], the worst part is not knowing her daughter's fate.


''I don't have life or death,'' she said, her voice breaking and her brown eyes staring into space.


Jeanie was an A student at Love Grove Elementary and an eager participant in her Brownie troop's activities, Schoen said.


''She was feisty and hyperactive like me,'' she said. ''She had to be forced. She wouldn't have gone with anyone willingly.''


In the days after Jeanie's disappearance, Schoen and her family distributed 1,000 fliers of the smiling girl with the missing front tooth and had three phone lines installed so one would always be open. Schoen's former husband kept track from his home in Minnesota.


Schoen said she kept her pain inside, causing her to hyperventilate. ''But I had counseling for three months, which saved my life.''


Schoen thinks Jeanie was snatched by someone who wanted a child and clings to the hope she is still alive. Schoen's brother, Ken Maxim, even takes Jeanie's picture with him whenever he travels and displays it in his motel room.


Even today, Schoen breaks down when she sees a blond-haired girl at a mall. ''That's when I say to myself, 'Jeanie, I love you, but I can't talk or think about you right now.' ''


Still, Schoen, who has a 35-year-old son, said she has been able to lead a relatively normal life. She found solace in her jobs as a social worker and apartment complex manager. Ten years ago, she began having heart problems and is now on disability.


Schoen is convinced Jeanie would have been found if the technological advances of today and shows such as America's Most Wanted had been available 24 years ago.



http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/112398/met_2a1disap.html



*The Anderson sisters mentioned in the article are believed to have been killed by serial killer Paul John Knowles; however, their bodies were never found.
 
Gina_M said:
(Article dated Monday, November 23, 1998)

Jean Marie Schoen was the first little girl to vanish that tragic summer of 1974.

In all, there were five girls, ages 6 to 12, who disappeared within a three-month span in Jacksonville. Only two bodies were ever found.*...

... Schoen is convinced Jeanie would have been found if the technological advances of today and shows such as America's Most Wanted had been available 24 years ago.

*The Anderson sisters mentioned in the article are believed to have been killed by serial killer Paul John Knowles; however, their bodies were never found.
Click to expand...


This is a very interesting case, and one which I have not heard of before. It is not on other websites that I quickly scanned. Neither Doenetwork nor National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) list her case. Certainly, that should be done by the family as a start.

I would be very interested to hear more specifics about Jeanie and about who the other four children were and details about their cases. It is quite possible that the cases are connected - if not to each other, then possibly to other child abductions that took place in the mid 1970's.

Regarding Serial Killer Paul John Knowles; He was indeed active during this time, but he was not considered by LE to be a pediphile. Most of his victims were women, but he did not discriminate as to age, physical characteristics, or such. He killed men as well, including a Florida State Trooper.

Most of his known killings were done during a very short "spree" in which he traveled up and down Florida from Jacksonville to Tampa. He also ventured into Alabama and Georgia. He was certainly a viscious individual with no conscience, but I would have to see some specifics about these child disappearances/murders to compare them with Knowles' known victims - all of whom were found murdered.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_John_Knowles

I found this link searching for info on some of the other girls that went missing (could not find anything on Jean Marie)

Interestingly it says that 2 of the girls where strangled and dumped in a swamp by Paul John Knowles, yet the article above implys that they are still missing.

I never know what to believe with wikipedia, because anyone can put info on there and it does not appear to be substantiated as in this case.
 
btw, this also shows that there are other missing girls out there not accounted for on NCMEC or Doenetwork which could be a match for Sharon Marshall (first case that came to mind when I saw this, Jacksonville is not that far from Where FDF lived in GA) or other cases. It would be nice if these counties would add old cases to Doenetwork.
 
More about Paul John Knowles, from the same article:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/112398/met_2a1disap.html

Prosecutors concluded the girls were abducted by self-proclaimed mass murderer Paul John Knowles and closed the case. Knowles, a 28-year-old Jacksonville resident, was killed in December 1974 trying to escape from Georgia authorities.


In tape recordings found after his death, Knowles said he abducted two girls matching the description of the Anderson sisters and buried them in an isolated area at the western end of Commonwealth Avenue. Their bodies were never found despite a massive search.


Lester Parmenter, the former homicide detective who investigated the disappearances, said he and his partner, Sgt. Richard Pruett, never considered the Anderson case cleared. Even so, ''We felt strongly that he probably did it. We couldn't prove it because we didn't have the bodies,'' Parmenter said.




Crime Library tells it a little differently...

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/john_paul_knowles/9.html

(Is the guy's name Paul John Knowles or John Paul Knowles?)

"According to Newton, Knowles fled the scene in her Dodge Dart, using it for less than a week before he decided to dump it after realizing that the police had connected him to the crime and had posted his picture in the media as a wanted fugitive. On the street where he was going to abandon it, he noticed two sisters who knew his family, so he kept the car and kidnapped them. Lillian Anderson was eleven and her sister Mylette was only seven. Because they could identify him, he strangled them both and buried their bodies in a swamp. They were not found until five months later, in January, after Knowles had revealed the crime."

Crime Library says that the bodies of the Anderson sisters were found. However, I tend to think the article from Jacksonville.com is more accurate because it interviews Mrs. Anderson and she talks about how they kept living in the same house all those years just in case the girls came home.
"Her husband, Jack Anderson, was never able to accept the girls' disappearance, she said. The family never moved and kept the same phone number because 'Daddy thought the babies were coming home.' "

 
In all, there were five girls, ages 6 to 12, who disappeared within a three-month span in Jacksonville. Only two bodies were ever found.


The five abductions - coming so close and apparently unrelated - were unprecedented, said a veteran Jacksonville police officer.


Nine-year-old Jean Marie, known as Jeanie, disappeared July 21 after going to a store near her grandmother's house on West 19th Street in Springfield.


Lillian Annette Anderson, 11, and her sister, Mylette, 6, disappeared from their Oceanway home Aug. 1 while their mother was attending a sick relative.


Virginia Helm, 12, disappeared Sept. 27 while going to a convenience store a block from her home on Dean Road on the Southside. A month later, her body was found in a shallow grave south of Beach Boulevard. She had been shot through the head.


And Rebecca Ann Greene, 12, disappeared Oct. 12 after buying soft drinks at a store in her Fairfield neighborhood. Her skeleton was found three years later on Heckscher Drive.



http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/112398/met_2a1disap.html
 
(from the newspaper archives)

Missing girl found in grave

Jacksonville, Fla. (UPI) - The body of a 12-year-old girl found half naked in a makeshift grave touched off a massive search Monday by nearly 200 searchers for gravesites of four other young girls reported missing here the past three months.

Virginia Suzanne Helm who had been missing since Sept. 27 was found buried in a three-feet-deep grave in a heavily wooded section by a couple looking for pine cones for Christmas decorations.

Mr. and Mrs. Richard R. Yoder found the body clad only in a blouse and with a small caliber bullet in the head, police said.

An initial medical examination indicated she was not sexually molested.

Virginia, the fifth young girl to disappear in the Jacksonville area within the past three months, failed to return home Sept. 27 after leaving for a 10-minute walk to a convenience store.
 
from the newspaper archives...same article:

On Oct. 15, Rebecca Ann Green, 12, failed to return home after making a purchase for her mother at a store six blocks from her home.

Police said they arrested a man who had been seen in the store when Rebecca made the purchase following her disappearance, but he was not charged in the case.

Charles Wesley Jones, 58, was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious assault on two other minors and is being held on $25,000 bond.

There was no evidence linking the five disappearances to one another, police said.
 
from the newspaper archives

Sisters missing from home need medication, says father

Jacksonville, Fla. (AP) - Two young sisters with medical problems are missing and police say they fear the girls were taken from their Jacksonville home after being left briefly alone.

Lillian Annette Anderson, 11, and Mylette Josephine Anderson, 6, were last seen by their mother, Elizabeth Anderson, Thursday afternoon, police said.

Lillian is supposed to take thyroid tablets every day and Mylette, who has a slight case of asthma and a weak heart, needs medication whenever she becomes overexcited or overtired, Jack L. Anderson, their father, said Friday.

...

Police said the girls were left alone shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday when Mrs. Anderson and another daughter, 13, left to visit Mrs. Anderson's sister, who had become ill. Police said Mrs. Anderson called home about 7 p.m. to check on the girls and that everything seemed fine at that time.

The girls were gone when [Mr.] Anderson arrived [home from work at 7:20].

Anderson told officers that he found the family's small dog, which usually roamed free in the house, shut in a bedroom. The doors of the house were shut but not locked, Anderson said.
 
Posse searches woods, no more bodies found

Jacksonville, Fla. (AP) - "Now we can keep hoping they're alive," says one of four mothers who waited hours while a posse searched a wooded area where a little girl's body was found.

Pam Shoen, whose daughter Jean Marie, 9, disappeared in late July, said she was relieved when police called off the search Monday without turning up new clues of killings.

...

Police said none of the girls had been a runaway and there was nothing to link the disappearances in different parts of the city.

A 7-year-old girl was picked up by a man in a truck and left in a wooded area north of Jacksonville a week ago. She found her way out by following a power transmission line, police said.

Investigators reported she had been beaten and fondled. They have arrested Earl Taylor Higginbothom, 25, on charges of sexual battery.
 
Gina_M said:
...
A 7-year-old girl was picked up by a man in a truck and left in a wooded area north of Jacksonville a week ago. She found her way out by following a power transmission line, police said.

Investigators reported she had been beaten and fondled. They have arrested Earl Taylor Higginbothom, 25, on charges of sexual battery.
Click to expand...

Where is he now? Check it out. This is a link to the Florida Inmate Locator system.

----------------------------------------------
DC Number: 065950
Name: HIGGINBOTHAM, EARL T
Race: WHITE
Sex: MALE
Hair Color: GRAY OR PARTIALLY GRAY
Eye Color: GREEN
Height: 5'08''
Weight: 130 lbs.
Birth Date: 04/14/1949
Initial Receipt Date: 07/28/1978
Current Facility: WAKULLA C.I.
Current Custody: CLOSE
Current Release Date: 11/02/2024
(Release Date subject to change pending gain time award, gain time forfeiture, or review. A 'TO BE SET' Release Date is to be established pending review.)

Aliases:
EARL T HIGGINBOTH EARL HIGGINBOTHAM
EARL T HIGGINBOTHAM EARL TAYLOR HIGGINBOTHAM

Current Prison Sentence History:
Offense Date Offense Sentence Date County Case No. Prison Sentence Length
10/21/1974 SEX BAT BY ADULT/VCTM UNDER 12 07/28/1978 DUVAL 7404942 99Y 0M 0D

Note: The offense descriptions are truncated and do not necessarily reflect the crime of conviction. Please refer to the court documents or the Florida Statutes for further information or definition.Current Community Supervision History:

Offense Date Offense Sentence Date County Case No. Community Supervision Length
10/21/1974 SEX BAT BY ADULT/VCTM UNDER 12 07/28/1978 DUVAL 7404942 24Y 11M 25D

Incarceration History:
Date In-Custody Date Out-of-Custody
08/10/1978 12/04/1984
09/14/2006 Currently Incarcerated

LINK:
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/ActiveInmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=1&From=list&SessionID=820913877
 
It is debatable as to whether or not Paul John Knowles was involved with the abductions and murders of these little girls. If so, he would have been a very busy killer indeed, considering his known murders around that time frame. Also, the fact that three of the girls were never found, and one carefully buried, does not fit into his MO when compared with his other known kills.

Paul John Knowles has been discussed in another Websleuths Cold Case thread titled: something on unsolved
LINK:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22997

That thread mentions the late British Author, Sandy Fawkes.

She happened to be in the states when Knowles was out of prison. She traveled around with him during the time that he was murdering people, although she claims to have not known about the murders at the time. She later wrote three books about her time with Knowles:

In Love with a Serial Killer (2008)
Natural Born Killer: In Love and on the Road with a Serial Killer (2004)
Killing Time. Journey Into Nightmare (1977)
 
Hi
Do they have a picture of these missing girls.did they ever get them on the Doe network,Charlie Project and other places.Where there any missing or murdered girls found in the Orlando Florida area around this time period?

suzanne
 
NI am 49 and at the age of 11-12, I lived in the Windy Hill area. In 1973/1974 I was riding my bike to the majic market (called that back then) to buy candy before having to catch the bus for school. My brother and I would take turns going because we were not supposed to leave the house and one of us would take turns (this day was my turn). It was real foggy that morning and on a stretch of road called Anders blvd....I car pulled up beside me. A lot of cars that day were heading to work and continued to have to pass this car because he was driving at my bike speed. He said "good morning" to me and I pretended not to hear him...he quickly became very angry and said again" I SAID GOOD MORNING". I started to peddle faster and focused on what was a head of me because the side walk had lots of bumps and cracks and it would be easy to crash my bike and land in the ditch/wooded area of this street. It was right near a place we nicknamed Mud Hills (now is called Peach/Beach park). I finally looked over at this man (mostly to see if he was trying to expose himself, which I had experinced in once or twice in Windy Hill area). When I looked over he was not exposing himself but had the most evil, angry look on his face and a little voice inside my head told me he wanted to really hurt me. I started peddling faster and the man was screaming and moving car closer to my bike like he was going to hit me. I was peddling like I had never peddled before and told him there were houses coming up and I was going to scream! He quickly stopped his car, backed into Mud Hills and parked his car. I was crying now because he stopped his car but I knew this was the only way to get back home from the store. I got to the store and called my brother at home and he told me to start riding back home and he would ride his bike up to meet me somewhere in the middle. I was hysterically crying and did not want to get back on that bike and ride home because I knew he was waiting for me at Mud Hills. I am sure now the little voice in my head saved my life. The man was not going to stick around because he did not want to get caught. I remembered the details to this day although they are not as sharp. My brother made me promise not to tell my mother or my father because he was afraid of getting into trouble...so we didn't!

I was 18 or in my early 20's when my mother and I were talking about the past...when I starting mentioning all the secrets my brother and I kept from her and my dad. I told her about being stuck in the dryer by my brother and how we would dive off the roof of the house into the swimming pool and our conversation went a little more serious. I told her about us being molested by our neighbors son's while baby sitting us one night (again sworn to secrecy by my brother), and then I told her of the time and what happened with the evil man. My mother was in shock thinking about all the things that could have happened to us. She then told me about the two dead girls...and how one of the girls were found in a shallow grave not to far from our neighborhood... now I was in shock because it was the same time frame. I said I know this was the man...don't ask me how but I knew that man wanted to really hurt me. The look on his face, those angry expressions towards me, the way he tried to slide his car towards my bike like he wanted to knock me off or get me to stop.

I called the police and reported what had taken place so many years ago and they patched me through to the original coroners office. I think there was miscommunication because he thought I was talking about the anderson girls, which was believed to have been killed by the serial killer knowles. He told me "I know who you are talking about and he was killed in a shoot out in Georgia." I had described the car and gave him a description of the man, so I left it alone and went on with my life.

A lot of years later a tragic murder of a little girl in orange park would once again bring back those horrifying events that took place many years ago and how lucky I was that day. I was online and hit a story about the 5 missing girls in 1974 and it mentioned knowles. I clicked on his name and a picture of him appeared. I look at his photograph and out loud said "That is not the same man that approached me that day on Anders blvd"! I called the reporter who had written the story and he still had the phone number of investigator who was assigned that case in 1974. Eventually Mr. Prementer would call me and I again advised him of all the details. He had retired but still thought about that little girl found off beach blvd but told me of his thoughts about the different cases and which ones he thought were related or not. How the FBI thought that knowles had killed the anderson girls but he always had his doubts and how he thought Rebecca Green was also not related to the girls in southside area. I explained I felt bad for not speaking up all those years ago and he was sweet and consoled me and we ended our conversation about the how his daughter 4 years later would have a run in with Ted Bundy and how his son actually chased after the van Bundy was in and got the tag number, which led them to the stolen car report and how 2 days later Kimberly would be murdered by Ted Bundy and that not many people knew but Ted Bundy was staying at a rented hotel in Jacksonville, Florida....but something still bugs me about these missing and deceased girls. So you read and decide for yourself and tell me what you think!

Rebecca Green (although she was missing from the Northside area while going to the store...She lived somewhere in my neighborhood for a brief time before she stopped showing up at the bus stop one day. We would stand at the same bus stop. I had always wondered what happened to her because at the end of next year our 7th grade year book had a dedication page with her birth and death date. She never made it to Sandalwood High School. Of course did not mention how she died but at that time I did not know anything about little girls getting killed or missing. I did not read the paper or watch the TV...I was playing with all the other children in my neighborhood. I remember thinking I should have taken more time to get to know the shy little neighbor girl who was my age with my same last name but spelled differently and she seemed to be very sweet and hardly said word.

Jean Marie Schoen I believe she went to Love Grove Elementary which is within 5 miles of my childhood neighborhood on her way to the connivance store.

Virginia Suzanne Helm She was found dead off of beach blvd., less then 3 miles east away from my home. She lived off dean rd, which is in the san soucie area, which again was less then 3 miles west from my neighborhood.

The only case that had no close connection to my neighborhood was the two anderson sisters.

So recently I called the police and I have had no response as of yet.

Do I think it was the same serial child killer I saw that day...I don't know but I question if anyone in cold case cares about my story or perhaps it is just too old. Maybe they think I am a crack pot...or crazy person but I am not. I am trying to make certain my leads are followed up on by the police to bring justice to the girls and their family members who have never given up. What if someone else saw a baby blue car, what if one of family members had a neighbor who drove a baby blue car.

I am willing to go under hypnosis to not only sharpen my memory of that day but perhaps unveil some hidden details that could help solve these cases. These girls and family members deserve to know who, how, why and deserve justice for their girls.

Maybe this man is now dead or serving a life sentence already for the same offences. I need to know too...I have plenty of guilt not telling what happened that day. If I had spoke up then perhaps the other girls would have been spared. Maybe he saw his approach with me did not work and changed his approach. It just haunts me even after all these years I have not forgotten these girls. Maybe like the parents I will only know the truth when my time comes.

If anyone has any suggestion on how I can get someone to listen to me please contact me. If you know one of the family members and they would like to hear what I have to say... I have even thought about calling Mr. Walsh from AMW to see if they can do a segment on his show. He knows the hell...family members go through not knowing.

Thanks and I hope one day these cases can be solved
 
Rebecca Green's "In Memory of" is in the 1974/1975 Sandalwood High School yearbook and does not have dates. (had to pull out my yearbook out of the closet). If she died in October of 1974 in the Northside of of Jacksonville, Florida (which is far away from the Southside part of town), she must of had some connection with family in the Windy Hill area. I am a lot older now and cannot remember if I waited with her for the bus at the start of our 7th grade (September 1974) or perhaps 6th grade when we were bused over to RL Brown 6th grade center at 1535 Milnor Street, Jacksonville, FL 32206
but either way the yearbook ties her to the Southside because Sandalwood yearbook. I would like to know who she was living with in the Windy Hill area and if anyone in her family or a neighbor owned a powder blue american made car (looked new) with navy blue vinyl top (not a convertible). That maybe the tie in to my encounter and who may have killed Rebecca Green, Virginia Helm and the missing Jean Marie Schoen or not. Again I don't know but I think it should be investigated more.

The man had dark hair and looked to be in his mid to late twenties.
Drove a Powder Baby Blue American car but I don't think it was a ford.

I had never seen this car or man before in our neighborhood but I mainly stayed close to my street (Bunnell Drive and Peach Drive down Anders to the store near Southside Blvd. and of course Mud Hills (heavely wooded area with a pond). I wonder if anyone searched that area for Jean Marie Schoen. A lot of homes back up to that area and still back up to that area, which is now a real big wooded park that runs all the way from Beach Blvd to Anders Blvd.
 
this case is not in the missing person database of Namus :)
 
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