CA CA - Elizabeth 'Beth' Funchess, 6 mos, San Jose, 9 Sept 1977

[shadowangel]

A search of Ancestry.com yielded an Elizabet D. Funchess, born Feb 20th, 1977, in Santa Clara County CA. Mother's maiden name is Crooke. I believe this may be the missing daughter.

 

[Richard]

A search of Ancestry.com yielded an Elizabet D. Funchess, born Feb 20th, 1977, in Santa Clara County CA. Mother's maiden name is Crooke. I believe this may be the missing daughter.

Is that a birth record, or something later? If she was born 20 Feb 1977, it would make the abduction somewhat later than that date. Also, was there only one child, or more? Strange that she is not in the NCMEC data base.

Knowing exactly when the abduction took place and whether or not the baby was also taken, might give a clue as to motive and suspects.

There are Adoption Search Websites on which adoptees and birthfamily attempt to relacate eachother. I wonder if this child might have been adopted under another name, but with a similar birth date, and might now be searching? Just a thought.

 

[gardenmom]

A search of Ancestry.com yielded an Elizabet D. Funchess, born Feb 20th, 1977, in Santa Clara County CA. Mother's maiden name is Crooke. I believe this may be the missing daughter.

Good find!

 

[shadowangel]

Is that a birth record, or something later? If she was born 20 Feb 1977, it would make the abduction somewhat later than that date. Also, was there only one child, or more? Strange that she is not in the NCMEC data base.

Knowing exactly when the abduction took place and whether or not the baby was also taken, might give a clue as to motive and suspects.

There are Adoption Search Websites on which adoptees and birthfamily attempt to relacate eachother. I wonder if this child might have been adopted under another name, but with a similar birth date, and might now be searching? Just a thought.

This info came from the California Birth Index, 1905-1995 Record.

 

[wondering22]

I have spent the last week researching newspaper archives, missing person web sites and I am very concerned regarding this case. There appears to be no record of Elizabeth Funchess, the daughter, in any of the missing person or police web sites. The best site for a missing person, especially a child, is the Doe Network. There is no record of her listed on this vast site (thousands listed). Even more puzzling is the fact that this case is not listed on the State of California Missing persons web site. This site allows you to put in the person's name or the county, the date, etc, but nothing came up for Elizabeth Funchess. This site had missing person cases datig back to the 1950s. I really got concerned when her name is not even listed on the San Jose Police Dept. web site which also provides the web user to search the various cases by name. They too had cases older than this one.

I tried entering this case on the Doe Network but it won't accept your information without a photo of the missing person. If someone has a photo, I can direct you to the Doe Network site and you or I can enter the necessary information.

I don't have time to list other information that I have discovered in my research but there is a lot of things that we can discuss if we can get Elizabeth listed. I suppose there is a possibility that Elizabeth was found but neither my wife nor I can remember reading anything about that in the San Jose paper. And, enigma, who knew the family also wondered whatever happened to the daughter.

Do the birth records indicate which hospital that the daughter ELIZABET was born in, and is that the correct spelling, or was the final 'h' excluded by error?

I'm thinking that her medical records might contain a photograph....

Did anyone ever find out why the local jurisdiction didn't have her listed as a missing child?

That, I believe, is very peculiar.

 

[wondering22]

A search of Ancestry.com yielded an Elizabet D. Funchess, born Feb 20th, 1977, in Santa Clara County CA. Mother's maiden name is Crooke. I believe this may be the missing daughter.

Was that the correct spelling?

Elizabet -- not "Elizabeth??

 

[2random4chance]

I worked with Diane in 1970 at First Valley Bank in the Data Processing department. She was abducted I believe on September 9, 1977, that might have been the date of the article, but I think it is the actual date of the abduction. A similar case happened while I was living in the Sacramento area in 1991 which caused me to go and look up the info. Across from the State Capitol are the state archives which has newspapers from all over the state. I knew that it had happened before I moved out of San Jose in November of 1977, so I just went back to the date I left (11/17/77) and started working back. I printed off a copy of the article from the San Jose Mercury but I can't find it at the moment. When my wife and I were considering moving back to California in late 1981 and early 1982 we started getting the Santa Cruz paper and during this time is when Dian'e body was found near the Santa Cruz Summit on Highway 17. As far as I know the baby was never found and the baby was about 6-7 months old when the abdution happened. I knew when I first read about it in the paper that when her glasses were found it was not good as she could not see very well at all without them. As far as I know the case is still open with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department, at least it still was when I checked with them in 1991. I turned over all the information I could to the Placer County Sherriff's Department because of the similarities between the two cases. The other case that I'm refering to is that of Cindy Wanner of Granite Bay that happened on 11/25/1991. Her body was found two weeks later in the Sierra foothills in an area similar to where Diane's body was found. There were simliarities between the two women as well the manner of abduction. They were roughly the same age at the time of their abductions (earlu 30's), height (5-8 to 5-10), were rather plain in appearance and taking care of young children at the time of their abduction. In the other case the child wasn't taken. Diane from my memory of her belonged to a fundementalist church as did the other woman. There were some differences in that the community that Cindy Wanner was abducted from was pretty upscale from the description in the paper while Rainbow Drive in San Jose was not any thing too fancy from my recollection of the area at that time. Actually I was somewhat surprised to hear that she was living in San Jose because when I knew her she was living off Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the 'Chateau' and loved living up there.
Engima, thanks for bringing this case up as it has bothered me for years. She had an influence on my life as quite often we talked about religion and relationships at work. She acted like an older sister to me in giving me advice even though I was her supervisor, but I was a little bit younger. My parents were seperated at the time and most of the people that I knew at the time seemed unable to maintain relationships. Diane was always very positive about her marriage and her husband and I knew that she wanted to have children. Which is one of the reasons why I think I get so upset about this case. Here she is 7 years later with a young child finally and this happens. I was very glad when the husband was cleared as that would have been too upsetting for me to handle, plus we, the husband and I, share the same first name. What is another oddity for me is that my wife and I named our daughter Elizabeth which I didn't realize until I went back and re-read the news article in 1991. I may have some other information that may be useful but can't think of it right now, so please feel free to contact me. Thanks again engima, it is nice to know that someone else still cares about Diane other than her family.

 

[enigma]

I worked with Diane in 1970 at First Valley Bank in the Data Processing department. She was abducted I believe on September 9, 1977, that might have been the date of the article, but I think it is the actual date of the abduction. A similar case happened while I was living in the Sacramento area in 1991 which caused me to go and look up the info. Across from the State Capitol are the state archives which has newspapers from all over the state. I knew that it had happened before I moved out of San Jose in November of 1977, so I just went back to the date I left (11/17/77) and started working back. I printed off a copy of the article from the San Jose Mercury but I can't find it at the moment. When my wife and I were considering moving back to California in late 1981 and early 1982 we started getting the Santa Cruz paper and during this time is when Dian'e body was found near the Santa Cruz Summit on Highway 17. As far as I know the baby was never found and the baby was about 6-7 months old when the abdution happened. I knew when I first read about it in the paper that when her glasses were found it was not good as she could not see very well at all without them. As far as I know the case is still open with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department, at least it still was when I checked with them in 1991. I turned over all the information I could to the Placer County Sherriff's Department because of the similarities between the two cases. The other case that I'm refering to is that of Cindy Wanner of Granite Bay that happened on 11/25/1991. Her body was found two weeks later in the Sierra foothills in an area similar to where Diane's body was found. There were simliarities between the two women as well the manner of abduction. They were roughly the same age at the time of their abductions (earlu 30's), height (5-8 to 5-10), were rather plain in appearance and taking care of young children at the time of their abduction. In the other case the child wasn't taken. Diane from my memory of her belonged to a fundementalist church as did the other woman. There were some differences in that the community that Cindy Wanner was abducted from was pretty upscale from the description in the paper while Rainbow Drive in San Jose was not any thing too fancy from my recollection of the area at that time. Actually I was somewhat surprised to hear that she was living in San Jose because when I knew her she was living off Highway 9 in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the 'Chateau' and loved living up there.
Engima, thanks for bringing this case up as it has bothered me for years. She had an influence on my life as quite often we talked about religion and relationships at work. She acted like an older sister to me in giving me advice even though I was her supervisor, but I was a little bit younger. My parents were seperated at the time and most of the people that I knew at the time seemed unable to maintain relationships. Diane was always very positive about her marriage and her husband and I knew that she wanted to have children. Which is one of the reasons why I think I get so upset about this case. Here she is 7 years later with a young child finally and this happens. I was very glad when the husband was cleared as that would have been too upsetting for me to handle, plus we, the husband and I, share the same first name. What is another oddity for me is that my wife and I named our daughter Elizabeth which I didn't realize until I went back and re-read the news article in 1991. I may have some other information that may be useful but can't think of it right now, so please feel free to contact me. Thanks again engima, it is nice to know that someone else still cares about Diane other than her family.

Thank you so much for the information. As I said earlier, I was a teenager at the time and the memory is not really clear. I also felt like Ken and Diane were a big brother and sister to me. I know that Ken eventually moved to Florida and would come back periodically (sp?) hoping to find his daughter. From what I know the baby was never found.
Again, thanks.

 

[HollywoodBound]

I looked on intelius and there is an Elizabeth Funchess living in FL age 32. Does any have a DOB of the child? It would be very unlikely if she was abducted as an infant that her name was not changed by the abductor so this is probably not her.

 

[rosesfromangels]

I believe the key to solving this case is with the Locatelli Ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. Her husband worked for them at one time, and her body was found close to the ranch in a shallow grave I believe. Oddly enough, the police were working with a psychic <mod snip> who gave some eearily accurate details of where the body could be found. She said the baby was alive.
My memory is foggy on all the above points after so many years, but I believe the above is accurate.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

I believe the key to solving this case is with the Locatelli Ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. Her husband worked for them at one time, and her body was found close to the ranch in a shallow grave I believe. Oddly enough, the police were working with a psychic <modsnip> who gave some eearily accurate details of where the body could be found. She said the baby was alive.
My memory is foggy on all the above points after so many years, but I believe the above is accurate.

Thank you for bumping this back up the list. I had not read this and it's so sad Here's to hoping someone has some new information!

 

[bbclayton]

I knew Diane when she lived in Pompano Beach, Florida, in the '60s. Has anyone any new info? I'll be glad to share what I know - which isn't much, I'm afraid. She's been on my mind all these years also.

 

[bbclayton]

Hope this message gets to you. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I knew Diane when she lived in Pompano Beach, Fl. back in the '60s. Please write me.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/show/6089

Elizabeth Funchess Missing page.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

also, three or four stories came up regarding a Diane Funchess and her missing child at the following link, however I do not have a membership and well, Christmas has me strapped for cash on buying the stories. If anyone can read the whole story please let me know what it say's. Thanks!

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/SearchResultsV3.aspx?lname=Funchess&fname=Diane

 

[Marie]

also, three or four stories came up regarding a Diane Funchess and her missing child at the following link, however I do not have a membership and well, Christmas has me strapped for cash on buying the stories. If anyone can read the whole story please let me know what it say's. Thanks!

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/SearchResultsV3.aspx?lname=Funchess&fname=Diane

I have a subscription and will check into this later ok.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

I have a subscription and will check into this later ok.

awesome! would you mind sharing what you find if it's outside of what we know? Thanks in Advance!!

 

[Marie]

awesome! would you mind sharing what you find if it's outside of what we know? Thanks in Advance!!

Of course Wanted to work on it tonight but I'm not feeling my best. Hopefully tomorrow. And I will check and/or recheck the newspaper archives for all the names mentioned in this case. I'll save any article that might be of interest (something we don't know) and just give a brief synopsis here of everything I find. Will take a while so I want to feel better before I start.

 

[Marie]

Now my son is sick. Has not been a good week for us. Will get to this though, asap.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

Now my son is sick. Has not been a good week for us. Will get to this though, asap.

I hope he feels better soon! I also hope your week looks up!