Identified! CA - Huntington Beach, WhtFem 40UFCA, 18-30, poss name Andrea, Apr'90 - Andrea Kuiper

[rosesfromangels]

This case is truly griping. Did they eventually cremate her remains and scatter them at sea as they said they would? Out of curiosity, how long are Doe,s stored before laid to rest?

Here is where my thinking is going at the moment. The stone and hair ring make me think of some sort of coven. The substance abuse and general inconsistencies as well as her age lead me to believe that some form or degree of mental illness had manifested. That said, the cocaine could have brought forth or exaserbated that instability. Perhaps she was cocaine paranoid, who knows.
The one possible aquaintance from the punk scene says she had a Seattle area accent. Well could that have been Vancouver instead? Perhaps she is Canadian?

If her dental work was carefully documented, I still say that will be the point if discovery. Work like that is still a luxury today. A full mouth of porcelein crowns today is a good 50 grand

 

[sheraa]

I too have wondered if she could be on Canadians

 

[Roselvr]

Canada Missing

 

[webrocket]

when looking at a situation that I find perplexing, I try to place myself in someone else's head and think what would someone do, even if it's not something I would do myself.

we know for a fact that this "Andrea" had access to expensive dentistry so that portion of her tales that her parents were well off appears to be true. also, while "Andrea" had no money other than what was given to her by a kindly stranger, she was not starving as she was rather full figured. she also had some access to drugs and alcohol, but where she got them from is unknown at this time.

I am not convinced that "Andrea" is the same as Big Mouth Andrea, although she could be one in the same. alot of the personality traits described by MontanaMan seem to closely resemble the description given by the people in So. Cal. as related to "Andrea". Big Mouth Andrea seemed to have access to funds as she was never starving and was never asking the other goths for money. (per MontanaMan)

so getting back to my starting point, assuming that "Andrea" was raised comfortably in an adoptive home, and she hit some age where she copped an attitude and wanted to go west to find her birth mother, it is possible that her parents sent her money via Western Union. it is not something I would do for an ingrate teenager (or older) but maybe "Andrea" played some guilt trip on them and they figured she's be back home after she got this thing out of her system.

I assume the parents must have reported her missing at some point in time, perhaps not until sometime well after "Andrea's" death. as with many of these MP cases, it might have sat in the local police dept with the mindset that "she's really not missing from here, so there's not much I can do" and it just was forgotten.

who knows?

 

[deca]

I went through the canadasmissing website the last few days. There aren't that many MP on there yet- and in any case, no one that looks like Andrea I can find. JMO of course. Another WSer should double check.


Another background theory: she was from a working class family that was very unstable. Maybe she traveled between a few different houses: mom, aunt, grandparent- as she got older she started couch surfing at friend's places. She went to a dental clinic and got her teeth fixed with some money her grandparents gave her. Maybe she would turn tricks here and there for cash if she couldn't get any from her friends/family. She was a nice person and people didn't mind helping her out the first few times, but when they got sick of it, she would move on. I have known a few people like this. When they move on you lose track of them (especially before cell phones/email was wide spread) and they never get reported missing.

For 1990 LA area IIRC her clothes wouldn't have been too unusual to see.

 

[mjak]

The only missing canadian girl I found that made me look twice was this girl

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/312dfon.html

I excluded her because while one picture has a resembalnce to Andrea the other one looks nothing like Andrea. However, when searching for other pictures of this girl I found a post by a half sister who did mention adoption, thus I thougt it was worth posting this girl here.

mjak

 

[deca]

The only missing canadian girl I found that made me look twice was this girl

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/312dfon.html

I excluded her because while one picture has a resembalnce to Andrea the other one looks nothing like Andrea. However, when searching for other pictures of this girl I found a post by a half sister who did mention adoption, thus I thougt it was worth posting this girl here.

mjak

:rocker: I looked at that one twice myself last night. I finally decided she didn't "work" because her nose and jawline looked wrong.

OT- one thing that is a little strange about the canadasmissing site is that they have a section for condition of teeth- with options like "good" "staining" etc. They also have a section for build- "heavy" "slim" etc. Since these are so subjective I am not sure how much use they will get.

 

[mjak]

:rocker: I looked at that one twice myself last night. I finally decided she didn't "work" because her nose and jawline looked wrong.

OT- one thing that is a little strange about the canadasmissing site is that they have a section for condition of teeth- with options like "good" "staining" etc. They also have a section for build- "heavy" "slim" etc. Since these are so subjective I am not sure how much use they will get.

I keep looking at this girl and it is like she dosent' quite match but she dosen't not match. From what I read from her half sisters post who is looking for here, she was a runaway, known to stay in motels and was adopted. Also I noticed her clothing in the picture looks black and there is a bit of a goth feel to her appearance. Just interesting. Oh her listing also said her teeth were in good condition.

mjak

 

[CarlK90245]

I did another revision to the two recons (short and long hair) to attempt to better depict the description of her clothing. It's quite difficult to incorporate a black dress, a red tee-shirt, and a hot-pink sweater into a head and shoulders portrait, but here it is. I did another revision to her eyes also. She still looked too Hispanic in the previous versions.

 

[zwiebel]

I don't know quite why, but these revisions have really helped me to see Andrea as that 'so young' girl everyone talked about it in the articles.

Re: Carrie Potts; I don't think the nose matches but the bit about her leaving everything behind in a hotel room made me think.

Andrea was living like a homeless person while she was in CA. I believe those transients who came forward and said they knew her were telling the truth. But I don't think she had been living like that long. Where was her bag, or all those precious survival things homeless people have to secrete about their person so they don't get stolen? She didn't even have a spare pair of underwear.

Maybe Andrea left her things behind in a hotel too. Maybe she was robbed. Maybe she ran a way from home so quick she had no time to take anything, and maybe she was too young to have ID?

 

[nannymo]

So we have
Virginia
East Coast
New York
Seattle/across the water from Seattle

As possible locations for Andrea. All the coroners in CA concerned with her case have also stated they thought she was from out of state.

Andrea was wearing 'punky', 'garish' clothing. It made a 29-year-old coroner in 1990 sure she was a party girl, part of a scene that 'used to be punk' but 'isn't anymore'. She had cocaine and alcohol in her system.

MontanaMan knew a girl who looked a lot like Andrea in Seattle and she was a part of a party scene that was goth/about-to-be grunge and where drugs abounded. She was known as big mouth Andrea and seems to have been quite 'loud'.
Our Andrea is reported as saying she was 'adopted', 'adopted and brought up in an orphanage' and that her adopted(or bio?) parents 'were pretty well known'.

Our Andrea seemed to stick in the mind of everyone who met her, but there are no reports of her being 'loud' or 'pushy'. Rather the opposite -people seemed to find her vulnerable and very young.

BBM-I have been following this thread since it was listed as a cold case and I don't remember Montanaman reporting Big Mouth Andrea as being "loud". In fact he stated she was very private which implied to me she didn't talk a lot. Maybe I misunderstood, but my impression of her from Montanaman is right on to our Andrea. Can you link where you read she was quite "loud"? I thought big mouth might have implied just that. She does have a rather large mouth/lips. Montanaman has not posted in awhile. Maybe he can verify if he reads this.

Also, Big Mouth Andrea worked for an elderly lady in or around Seattle and always seemed to have money. I would think she probably worked and got money in other ways too.

I wonder if there might be a social security index of workers in the Seattle area in the years she was there from Montanaman's recollection that might have last names that could be cross-referenced to missing persons? I'm not any good at research but someone else might be.

 

[webrocket]

I got the impression that Big Mouth Andrea let her presence be known. maybe I read into it knowing all the loud mouth Italians I do here in NJ and MontanaMan thought she was Italian.

 

[nannymo]

Hey folks, been reading the latest posts and I will do my best to clarify the Andrea I knew back in our Goth days in Seattle. Webrocket, you asked if I could approximate her age when we met and hung out in SEA together. She would have been somewhere around the age of 16, 17 or 18 when I met her. That's only a guess. I didn't ask her what her real age was back then and she never told any of us. Of course, she wore an extraordinary amount of makeup as we all did back then so it's kind of hard to guess what her age was. I do think she was likely between the ages of 16 to 20 even. She could have been younger or older but with the type of makeup she wore and that most of us wore, we all could look much older than we were. My Andrea had hazel eyes, I do know that and she looked very Italian or an admixture of Italian or perhaps even Middle Eastern such as Jewish, Lebanese, Greek, etc. mixed with a more light skinned ethnicity. I'm olive skinned myself but that doesn't mean much as I am of Scottish, Czech, Norwegian, German and French heritage. Andrea had the same olive skin but she would pale herself out with makeup to get that Goth look that we all were going for. After she left that scene, she could have done anything and gone anywhere. The sketch above by Carl looks like a younger person than I would think of my Andrea as. But then again, I never saw her without a lot of makeup and black clothing that was layered. And I can't forget all the jewelry she used to wear. My feeling is that the Andrea I knew came from a family that had money but either she chose to leave and was a runaway or she possibly could have had parents that didn't care much about her. My Andrea must have had more money earlier in her life as she did have dental work that looked to be quite good and perhaps expensive. It seemed to me that even when we were hanging out together that she had access to money from somewhere since she never asked for any from me or anyone I knew. She was always able to pay her way into the underage clubs that we used to hang out at which were all in Seattle. The Monastery, Skoochie's, City Beat and later, Club Broadway. She wore a lot of silver but we all did. I have no idea where she got it and as I said in an above post, she never seemed to have her own home but she did tell me that she worked taking care of an older woman in Burien and perhaps she lived with her. It makes sense, actually. At this same time period, we had the Green River Serial Killer running around down by Burien and Seatac and Renton. All those area's. I always wondered if Andrea was getting money that way too. By prostitution. I doubt it but I wouldn't rule it out at all. She always seemed very streetwise too. I hope this has helped and if there are any other questions anyone may have for me, just let me know. My impression is more and more gearing towards that this girl is not my Andrea because she looks too young in the sketch but I still can't rule it out. There is a very uncanny resemblance. Especially the eyes and nose. Maybe I just don't want it to be the Andrea I knew and who was a friend during a very bumpy period in my life. But the main goal is getting this young lady identified one way or the other. I know we will all succeed eventually. Thanks everyone and take care. You can call me MountainMan or MontanaMan, Webrocket. Both apply! Cheers.

BBM

I am bringing Montanamans post forward to show some important information I think. First of all, her age. If she left home before she was 16, she probably would not have had a driver's license. If she was living on her own and on the street, she would not have been able to get one. I am assuming she probably had her SS card since she said she was working, but then again she could have been working for cash as an undocumented worker. That could be a very good reason she did not have any ID.....

And I had forgotten about "all the jewlery she was wearing". Maybe this is how she was getting money. Pawning her jewelry. If she didn't have anything with her, she was out of jewelry to pawn therefore out of money. Montanaman said she was in Seattle around 88/89 which is just a year or so before she died. If it was truly silver jewelry she could probably live a while off of each post.

I just feel this Andrea and Montanamans Andrea are the same person. Too many similarities and the stories she told him seem so much like this Andrea. This girl is so close to being identified, but I am not smart enough to figure out how to find the last name of Big Mouth Andrea.:banghead:

 

[zwiebel]

My computer's not letting me thank people's posts. It's driving me crazy.

I'm a bit too tired to read through all the posts now, nannymo, but you may very well be right. I cannot recall MontanaMan actually mentioning Andrea was loud, I just presumed it from the 'big mouth'. It didn't occur to me that might actually apply to a physical feature.

My own feeling is, Andrea is going to be found through searches of girls who went missing in 1989 to 1990. I just don't think she had been on the street that long. It may be simplistic but, I figure if someone cared enough about her to pay for 'excellent' dental care (coroner in an OC article), then they would have cared enough to report her missing.

 

[CarlK90245]

My own feeling is, Andrea is going to be found through searches of girls who went missing in 1989 to 1990. I just don't think she had been on the street that long. It may be simplistic but, I figure if someone cared enough about her to pay for 'excellent' dental care (coroner in an OC article), then they would have cared enough to report her missing.

I don't think she is among any current listings of missing persons. From what she told her new friends, it appears that she left her adoptive family to search for her birth parents.

If she was reported missing, the Police probably saw this as no sign of foul play, and therefore, no urgency. It is very possible that even if her adoptive parents showed up at the police station to report her missing, they would have told them that she's an adult and has the right to go missing.

But I suspect that her adoptive parents didn't even do that. They may have just decided that she had left them and found her birth family and didn't want to come back.

 

[sfbaynancydrew]

I wonder if when she said her parents were "well known" if she meant her birth parents or adopted family? It sounds like from the phrasing she was referring to her birth parents.

But I agree that could have been a fantasy.

 

[webrocket]

I wonder if when she said her parents were "well known" if she meant her birth parents or adopted family? It sounds like from the phrasing she was referring to her birth parents.

But I agree that could have been a fantasy.

she had to have been referring to her adoptive parents. I can't imagine a scenario where a 'well known' couple gave up a child for adoption. if her birth parents were in fact 'well known' then she would have been able to find them much easier.

maybe someone else can help me here. I know a couple of people posted here that they were adopted but what I'm trying to understand something. I understand family ingtrigue, I do alot of ancestry work, but how was it so hard for "Andrea" to understand that in the mid to late 1960's her birth mother was probably an unwed mother in the days before abortion was a legal option. so she gave birth and either through the state or the myriad social service/church group agencies, handed her over so that she could be raised in a family that was better equipped to provide a proper upbringing for her. at the time, privacy was guaranteed as most of these birth mothers wanted to move on with their lives and not be reminded of the "mistake" (not my value judgment, just societal norms of the time) they made. in most cases the last thing they wanted in their more mature years was to have some kid knocking on their door saying "hi mom!"

 

[killarney rose]

she had to have been referring to her adoptive parents. I can't imagine a scenario where a 'well known' couple gave up a child for adoption. if her birth parents were in fact 'well known' then she would have been able to find them much easier.

maybe someone else can help me here. I know a couple of people posted here that they were adopted but what I'm trying to understand something. I understand family ingtrigue, I do alot of ancestry work, but how was it so hard for "Andrea" to understand that in the mid to late 1960's her birth mother was probably an unwed mother in the days before abortion was a legal option. so she gave birth and either through the state or the myriad social service/church group agencies, handed her over so that she could be raised in a family that was better equipped to provide a proper upbringing for her. at the time, privacy was guaranteed as most of these birth mothers wanted to move on with their lives and not be reminded of the "mistake" (not my value judgment, just societal norms of the time) they made. in most cases the last thing they wanted in their more mature years was to have some kid knocking on their door saying "hi mom!"

With most adoptions(and I realize this is a generalized statement), the unwed mother did not want to give up her child, she was forced by her parents to do so.

As for the child, most of us were not under the illusion that we would have this wonderful new family where everything would be perfect. I loved my adoptive family, and to me they will always be my parents (and aunts, uncles, cousins, etc). But unless you are adopted, you can't understand that, hole, that empty, aching, need, to just KNOW. Where are you from? Who are you like? Do you have siblings?

I was nothing like my adoptive family. But I am the image of my bio mother. And when I finally saw a picture of my bio father, I looked into my eyes....

My mother and I shared so many interests and had the same talents. and had the same mannerisms. It felt so good to find out these things, to just know. I saw a picture of my nephew at my sisters house. I thought it was my son...I was trying to figure out how she got it and where it was taken it was uncanny...when she told me who it was.....

In an adoptee, there is an empty place where these things should be. Finding out fills that place. It did for me, and gave me peace.


My bio mother was thrilled to have me back in her life. She never thought it would happen. I still have the most touching letters she wrote to me back then, telling me how much I was loved and wanted. I needed to hear(or read!) that. As for my father. I was older when he found out, but I remember him visiting me as a little girl along with his dad- of course I had to put 2+2 together when I was older...I just thought he was a nice man who was a friend of my daddy's who paid a lot of attention to me and gave me candy.

 

[webrocket]

thanks Killarney for that insight. if I may ask, was yours through a private placement adoption where the parties make the rules as to what is disclosed and whether there is contact or was this through the state which back in the day sealed all records?

 

[killarney rose]

thanks Killarney for that insight. if I may ask, was yours through a private placement adoption where the parties make the rules as to what is disclosed and whether there is contact or was this through the state which back in the day sealed all records?

Yes, mine was private. And my adoptive father made sure that as soon as I was old enough that I knew who my mother was. And both my adoptive parents made sure from the start that I knew I was adopted, and I got the chosen story and was told how they got to choose me etc for as long as I could remember. They might have messed up on some parenting issues, but they got the adoption stuff right.

This was in the mid 50s, and had it not been for my adoptive parents being truthful to me, I would have never known. After I was grown, they encouraged my relationship with my bio mother.