OR OR - Katrina Dawn Sweaney, 25, Grants Pass, Mar 98

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Katrina Dawn Sweaney – The Charley Project
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Katrina Dawn Sweaney
  • katrina_dawn_sweaney_1.jpg
Sweaney, circa 1998

  • Missing Since03/05/1998
  • Missing FromGrants Pass, Oregon
  • ClassificationEndangered Missing
  • Date of Birth12/04/1972 (46)
  • Age25 years old
  • Height and Weight5'2, 110 pounds
  • Distinguishing CharacteristicsCaucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Sweaney has a scar on her right cheek and tattoos on her right hand near her thumb, on her ankle, on the back of her right shoulder and above her left breast.
Details of Disappearance
Sweaney was last seen in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 5, 1998. She told her mother she was driving to Roseburg, Oregon with her husband and a friend in the car to keep her awake. She said she would be home that night or the next morning. She has never been heard from again.

Sweaney left behind three children, and her family doesn't think she would have abandoned them. She was involved with drugs at the time of her disappearance, and there was a history of domestic violence in her life; she got restraining orders against her partner in 1995 and 1996. Her case remains unsolved.
 
Details of Disappearance
Sweaney was last seen in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 5, 1998. She told her mother she was driving to Roseburg, Oregon with her husband and a friend in the car to keep her awake. She said she would be home that night or the next morning. She has never been heard from again.

Sweaney left behind three children, and her family doesn't think she would have abandoned them. She was involved with drugs at the time of her disappearance, and there was a history of domestic violence in her life; she got restraining orders against her partner in 1995 and 1996. Her case remains unsolved.

The part BBM makes it sound like the three people in the car were Katrina, Katrina's husband, and a friend.

But according to NamUs, Katrina was "with a friend and her husband." Could this mean the people in the car were Katrina, Katrina's (female?) friend, and the husband of Katrina's friend?

And to add to the confusion, the Doe Network says only "with a friend..." so only two people in the car, and no husband?

I think the distinctions are crucial because if Katrina's husband was present, then I'd be suspicious of him, given the "history of domestic violence in her life." But if we're talking about two completely different people (or just one, that of the friend), then I'd want to know more about what happened when they reached their destination, she dropped them off, continued alone etc.
 
Katrina Dawn Sweaney – The Charley Project
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Katrina Dawn Sweaney
  • katrina_dawn_sweaney_1.jpg
Sweaney, circa 1998

  • Missing Since03/05/1998
  • Missing FromGrants Pass, Oregon
  • ClassificationEndangered Missing
  • Date of Birth12/04/1972 (46)
  • Age25 years old
  • Height and Weight5'2, 110 pounds
  • Distinguishing CharacteristicsCaucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Sweaney has a scar on her right cheek and tattoos on her right hand near her thumb, on her ankle, on the back of her right shoulder and above her left breast.
Details of Disappearance
Sweaney was last seen in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 5, 1998. She told her mother she was driving to Roseburg, Oregon with her husband and a friend in the car to keep her awake. She said she would be home that night or the next morning. She has never been heard from again.

Sweaney left behind three children, and her family doesn't think she would have abandoned them. She was involved with drugs at the time of her disappearance, and there was a history of domestic violence in her life; she got restraining orders against her partner in 1995 and 1996. Her case remains unsolved.

I can't find anywhere if the friend or husband have been found or if they were ever missing.
 
Bumping up for Katrina.
I wonder why she was traveling and who she was really with that night. How much was LE able to investigate?
 
Katrina's husband was Gary D Sweaney according to a marriage record on Ancestry and they married in September 1989 in Reno. Her maiden name was Bushnell. I am pretty sure both Katrina and her husband were born in California and there are online records for a Gary D Sweaney in California and with a past address in Oregon - but such databases are often out of date so this does not confirm either that he is still alive or that he is the same person.
It is odd that there is so little out there.
 
Katrina has been missing for 24 years today.
 
Katrina's husband was Gary D Sweaney according to a marriage record on Ancestry and they married in September 1989 in Reno. Her maiden name was Bushnell. I am pretty sure both Katrina and her husband were born in California and there are online records for a Gary D Sweaney in California and with a past address in Oregon - but such databases are often out of date so this does not confirm either that he is still alive or that he is the same person.
It is odd that there is so little out there.
An article from 2008 cites him as being wanted for assaulting two women in Eureka CA.

 
Katrina has 3 exclusions:


Case Photo

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP8419
Date Body FoundJanuary 16, 2001
StateVA
CountyIsle of Wight

Case Photo

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP12683
Date Body FoundJune 06, 2014
StateVA
CountyNewport News

Case Photo

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP2159
Date Body FoundMay 09, 2001
StateWV
CountyGreenbrier
 
Katrina has 3 exclusions:


Case Photo

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP8419
Date Body FoundJanuary 16, 2001
StateVA
CountyIsle of Wight

Case Photo

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP12683
Date Body FoundJune 06, 2014
StateVA
CountyNewport News

Case Photo

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP2159
Date Body FoundMay 09, 2001
StateWV
CountyGreenbrier
Kind of a bummer that none of those exclusions are in the state that she vanished from
 
Today would be Katrina's birthday. This post here gives a lot more info on her disapearence and states some sources say she was traveling with a couple she'd only recently met and her parents had no reason to be suspicious of them at the time so didn't pay much attention to it..until she didn't come back. This explanation of her disapearence makes a lot of sense. She didn't really know them and her family didn't, so it was easy to get her trust and then presumably murder her, and be very untraceable. The question, if that is true is why? Or perhaps she got to know them better, and found they didn't get along, which led to an argument, which led to..that could have happened too. I had meant to post this for a few months and decided to finally do it, and then by chance this morning without remembering, as I read about a lot of missing persons and Doe cases, happened to notice it was Katrina's birthday, after I found this link again and read it. Whatever happened to her, I hope someday it is solved. Katrina Sweaney
 
She should definitely be compared to the unidentified woman from Astoria, OR. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) The face and physical description that is provided are the same. They were skeletal remains
According to the Doe Network, they don't have dental records for Katrina. That would make it extremely hard for the state medical examiner to compare her remains to this Doe. I'll bring it up to her, but I have a gut feeling that she's not going to be able to make a comparison unless this Doe becomes one of the cases out of Oregon that's picked up by their Parabon grant thing.
 
Just popping in here to let the thread know that I am attempting to request a redacted copy of Katrina Sweaney's missing persons file from the Grants Pass Police Department <modsnip> I know it isn't likely that the individuals she was traveling with will be directly named in whatever copy of the report that I receive, but I'm hoping that there will be context clues, anything that will sort out this mystery a little bit more.
 
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Everyone. I think that we may have been misinterpreting the NAMUS entry for Katrina this entire time.
So, in the circumstances, NAMUS states that "Katrina stated to her mother that she was going to Roseburg with a friend and her husband."
It just hit me that whoever wrote this was actually using proper syntax.
Some of us have been going with the presumption that the differentiation between 'friend' and 'her husband' meant that it was Katrina's husband being referred to in the report.
But what if the NAMUS entry meant that the husband was actually the friend's husband, not Katrina's?
That would make a lot more sense, given that other sources state that she was traveling with two people who she didn't know very well.
 
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