IL IL - Paulette Webster, 19, Chester, 2 Sept 1988

[Kat]

The Doe Network:
Case File 1135DFIL

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1135dfil.html

Paulette Webster
Missing since September 2, 1988 from Chester, Randolph County, Illinois.
Classification: Missing



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Vital Statistics

Date Of Birth: June 6, 1969
Age at Time of Disappearance: 19 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'0"; 110 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Brown hair; blue eyes.
Marks, Scars, Tattoos: Webster had no fractures at the time of her disappearance. She has some scars on her lower stomach due to a surgery; a ovary was removed. She has a tattoo of a cross on one of her hands between her thumb and her first finger.
Dentals: Available. Her front teeth are not straight.


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Circumstances of Disappearance
Webster was last seen on September 2, 1988 in Chester, IL. When she disappeared, she left everything behind. A closet full of clothes, a job, her purse and her driver's license.
At the time she disappeared, police suspected Webster had run away; foul play was not suspected at the time.



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Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Chester Police Department
618-826-5454

NCIC Number: M-343864359
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
The Doe Network

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/webster_paulette.html

Paulette is *not* listed in NamUs at this time.

No archived articles for Paulette.

Paulette has been missing almost 22 years. Come home soon.

No date on age progression.

 

[Mom who cares]

Boy, there's not much information out there about Paulette.

 

[Kat]

I know Mom who cares!

I wish I had time to either 1. Try to get her name in Namus. 2. Contact local reporters and ask them to cover a story about her missing.

More often than not, there is so little info to go on with missing persons and it's just so sad for the family.

 

[M86]

Paulette is now in NamUs: NamUs - Paulette Webster

 

[Lulu14]

Menard Correctional Center, known prior to 1970 as Southern Illinois Penitentiary, is located in the town of Chester in Randolph County, Illinois, 50 miles southeast of St. Louis. It is a state prison housing maximum-security and high medium-security adult males. The average daily population as of 2007 is 3,410.[1] Menard Correctional Center opened in March 1878, and is the second oldest prison in Illinois. It also stands as Illinois’s largest maximum-security prison. Menard once housed death row; however, on January 10, 2003 the Condemned Unit closed when former Governor George Ryan granted clemency to all Illinois death row inmates.[2] It is a part of the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Menard Correctional Center's average prisoner age is 34 years old.

Chester, Ill is also the home of Menard Prison. Maybe she was met with foul play if she ran into someone who had just been freed from prison?

 

[criley]

She has a cross tattoo between her thumb and rest of her fingers...and she left all her belongings behind. I don't think age progression does much help for someone who left all their personal belongings behind. She also appears to have a gap between her front teeth. This poor girl needs a bump so people can find her.

 

[alb1on]

There is quite a lot out there now connecting this disappearance to Larry Hall. For an intro to Mr Hall and his crimes a good place to start is

http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc 405/serial killers/Hall, Larry DeWayne.pdf

The Hall connection seems to date to circa 2011 when a book on Hall by Christopher Martin was published. Unusually for such books it was well researched and made new connections. An interview with Martin which summarises the genesis of the book appears here;

http://truecrimediary.com/index.cfm?page=cases&id=174

The interview contains the following paragraph;

"In late summer of 2011, I quizzed Larry Hall about the case of Paulette Webster who disappeared from Chester, Illinois in July of 1988. I was attempting to help her parents find some peace. Larry told me that she was taken from the main east/west road through Chester. She was. He also said she was picked up near a mobile home park. She was. He then said she was taken to a remote location where she was kept and violated sexually for three hours. Hall said she was either cast into the Mississippi River or taken further west and buried. (Paulette would not be the only girl that Larry would cast into a river.)"

The evidence linking Hall and Webster seems to be circumstantial and dependent on whether you believe the claims about the scale of Hall's killings, but it is plausible.

 

[rats]

Today (Sept 2) is the 28th anniversary of her disappearance. May this be the year she comes home :rose::rose:

 

[JerseyGirl]

still missing, see slide 18 http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article210119674.html

 

[JerseyGirl]

Paulette's photo is shown age-progressed to 46 years. She was last seen wearing jeans, a light colored sweater, and white tennis shoes. Paulette has a tattoo of a cross on one hand between her thumb and forefinger, a surgical scar on her abdomen, and a scar under her chin. Her ears are pierced. Paulette may go by the nickname Smurfette.

Bloomington vigil raises awareness about missing, abused children

 

[efilnikufecin]

Looking at Namus after reading More about Larry Hall tonight I stumbled on something that might need more looking at.
Paulette has: "Tattoo of a cross on one hand between thumb and forefinger, surgical scar on abdomen"
NamUs #UP61191 has: "Small cross tattoo in web between thumb and index finger on left hand" and "5 inch horizontal scar on lower abdomen, possibly from a cesarean delivery"

so far a pretty good match, but the big differences:
Paulette shows White / Caucasian, #UP61191 shows Hispanic / Latino
Paulette shows blue eyes, #UP61191 shows brown
Paulette went missing September 2, 1988, #UP61191 was found November 13, 1995
almost 1900 miles between the 2 investigations.

But the tattoo combined with the surgical scar, I think it needs looked into more maybe by someone with more experience than me.

 

[Caring1]

Bumping as it has been 2 years with no activity on Paulette’s thread.

7 Unidentified Person Exclusions

 

[Pennysmom1]

Paulette is still listed as missing

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

Paulette S. Webster – The Charley Project

• 
  
  

Webster, circa 1988; Age-progression to age 46 (circa 2015); Larry Hall

• Missing Since 09/02/1988
• Missing From Chester, Illinois
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 06/06/1969 (55)
• Age 19 years old
• Height and Weight 4'11 - 5'0, 110 pounds
• 
  
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A light-colored sweater, jeans and white sneakers.
• 
  
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Webster has a scar under her chin and scars on her lower abdomen from surgery to remove a growth from her ovaries. Her front teeth were crooked at the time of her September 1988 disappearance, and she has a tattoo of a cross between her thumb and forefinger.

Details of Disappearance​

Webster was last seen walking home from a friend's house in Chester, Illinois at 11:00 p.m .on September 2, 1988. She never arrived home and has never been heard from again. She left behind all her personal belongings, including her clothes, purse, driver's license, and pet bird, dog and cat.

Prior to her disappearance, Webster had occasionally lived away from home; she spent some time with an uncle in Wyoming and stayed for awhile with a roommate in Chester, but she couldn't afford to live away from her parents' home long-term. Her mother believes she was anxious because some of her friends were pregnant, and Webster had had a surgery which she believed had made her infertile. However, she generally seemed happy and satisfied with her life. She worked as a housekeeper in elderly people's homes, and seemed to enjoy this.

The suspected serial killer Larry DeWayne Hall is a possible suspect in her case. He is currently serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison for kidnapping 15-year-old Jessica Roach, whose body was found in an Indiana cornfield in 1993. A photo of Hall is posted with this case summary.

In a letter, speaking of Webster's disappearance, Hall wrote, "If I did it, I would have put her in a river or in a field." He has confessed to killing Laurie Depies, who disappeared from Minnesota in 1992, and Tricia Reitler, who disappeared from Indiana in 1993. Police believe he may killed thirty to forty women, but he hasn't been charged in any cases besides Roach's.

Authorities originally thought Webster had left of her own accord, but foul play is now suspected in her case. Her disappearance remains unsolved.

Paulette S Webster

cookcountysheriffil.gov

<<Paulette may go by the nickname Smurfette.>>
<<Slight overbite, noticeable gap between front teeth>>

 

[spartanx]

11 pm coming home at night... it's late for a woman alone... actually for anyone... the streets are always dangerous, they never leave anything good... something always happens and you never know what really happened... I think she was kidnapped maybe by that trash Larry Hall or maybe who knows...
whatever it is
rest in peace