There is not much online anymore about Siphat. One blog from 2006 (
From Whispers to Roars-Siphat Chau 19, Missing Dec. 24, 2005 ME.) posted a few articles which no longer have working links (tried one on way back machine, no luck).
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Police Search For Missing Man
Posted: 12/30/2005
Siphat Chau
Police in Portland are asking for the public's help finding a man who's been missing since Christmas Eve.
Siphat Chau hasn't been seen since early Saturday morning.
Chau is 19 years old, an Asian male, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, with black hair and brown eyes.
Police say he may have been wearing a red sweatshirt, black suede jacket, blue jeans, Timberland boots and a beanie-style hat.
Police say Chau left behind all of his personal belongings, including his car.
Anyone with information is asked to call Portland Police at 874-8575.
http://www.wlbz2.com/home/article.asp?id=30099
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UMO Student Still Missing After Two Months
February 14, 2006
It's been nearly two months since a 19-year-old University of Maine student disappeared from his parents' home in Portland, but family members cling to hope that he's still alive.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Siphat Chau vanished during Christmas break, and friends plastered the city with posters of the missing man. His sister, Phuong Neang, said the family is trying to think positively, even though her brother may be dead.
Police investigate hundreds of missing person reports each year. Most are teenage runaways who return safely or are found. But some turn up dead, a result of suicide, accident or foul play. And others are never found, leaving family members to struggle with uncertainty.
Chau, an honor student at Portland High School, did not enroll for the spring semester at Orono. According to his father, Chau had money problems due to gambling on the Internet.
http://www.wlbz2.com/newscenter/article.asp?id=31618
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You can't help but...hope'
By DAVID HENCH, Staff Writer
A poster hanging in a doorway on Middle Street in Portland asks for help in locating Siphat Chau, 19, who was last seen at his East Deering home just before 1 a.m. on Dec. 24. Portland police investigate about 180 to 200 missing persons cases annually.
Phuong Neang is conflicted. Her brother Siphat Chau, a 19-year-old Portland High School graduate, has been missing for nearly two months.
He may be dead, but she feels compelled to hope that he's alive.
"We try to think in a positive way," said Neang, 25. "It was hard for us to accept the fact he was missing. After that, we ran out of ideas of what else we could do. . . . At some point, you have to go on."
Chau is one of the hundreds of missing persons reported to police every year. In Portland alone, police investigate roughly 180 to 200 reports annually. The vast majority are teen runaways who return safely or are found. A few turn up dead, either from suicide, an accident or foul play.
Others are never found. Their disappearances leave family members torn, trapped in a limbo of wanting to be hopeful but facing a grim reality. Some families have struggled to accept their loss and grieve their loved one, despite the uncertainty. Others, like Claire Moulton, cannot let go.
"It's bad not knowing because I keep hoping maybe somewhere she's out there and has amnesia or something," said Moulton, whose 16-year-old daughter Cathy disappeared from Portland in 1971.
Moulton and her husband never moved and never changed their telephone number on the remote chance that their daughter, who would now be 50, might make contact. Moulton concedes it's not a likely or logical hope, but she can't bring herself to give up.
"We have tried to face the reality that chances are she might not be alive, but you can't help but hold out hope," she said. "I certainly hope (Chau's relatives) don't go through years like we did before they find out something."
Chau's case is one of several in Portland each year that do not involve young runaways, said police Lt. Vern Malloch, head of Portland's criminal investigations division.
"Most of them are resolved sooner than this," Malloch said. "People either have left and establish contact on their own, or they are the victim of foul play or met some type of untimely death - suicide, overdose, something along those lines."
Chau, whose parents emigrated from Vietnam, came to Portland as a child. He was an honor student at Portland High, attended the Seeds of Peace camp and earned a partial college scholarship when he graduated in 2005. Friends say he was charming and outgoing.
Chau could be withdrawn, however, when it came to personal problems. And he was uncertain about his future, waiting until the last minute to enroll as a freshman business major at the University of Maine in Orono last fall. He did not enroll for the spring semester.
Chau had money problems as a result of gambling on the Internet, his father said, so he was asked to come home to be close to the family.
"I didn't even know he was doing that," John Chau said of the gambling. "I asked him all the time and he said, 'No more.' "
Siphat Chau was very upset about the situation, his father said, but the pair had grown distant in the past year and he said his son would not listen to his advice.
"He's always thinking he wants to do everything by himself, not depend on family," John Chau said. "I still feel very bad I didn't keep close with him. . . . He's always thinking I don't love him. I love him very much."
Chau was visiting his parents' East Deering home during Christmas break when he disappeared. His sister saw him on the living room couch, with his computer, just before 1 a.m. on Dec. 24. Later that morning, his mother woke and found he was gone. He'd left his car keys and wallet.
After searching the city, friends alerted police to Chau's disappearance on Dec. 27. Friends put up posters around Portland, appealing for help. Police interviewed people who knew him, developing a timeline of the hours and days before his disappearance, and searched tidal waters near the family home.
"So much time goes by, and they haven't reached out to family or friends," Malloch said. "The person just seems to have disappeared, which always raises our concern that the person may have met with foul play or death."
Deputy Chief William Ridge said Chau's disappearance is similar in some ways to that of Margaret Tevanian, a 65-year-old woman who vanished from her home on Cedar Street in 1996.
"We had nothing to work on. . . . If they came into foul play, we found no crime scene for either of them. If it was suicide, they left no notice of that," Ridge said. "I would put every resource I had into this if I knew where to put them."
John Chau thinks searching the shore for his son's body is a logical next step. Finding the truth, even if it's painful, is crucial, he said.
"Sometimes when there's a car around my neighborhood here, they open or close the door, we're thinking 'Oh, my son comes back,' " John Chau said. "If he's missing, we're still thinking from year to year, never able to sleep well, and crying all the time."
Narciso Torres understands that feeling. He has come to accept the reality that his son Angel is dead, though there are times when he reacts expectantly to a telephone ringing, or an answering machine message. Angel "Tony" Torres, 21, was last seen with friends in Biddeford in 1999.
"The more time that has gone by, the more we have accepted that he's gone," his father said. "We got a death certificate from the state of Maine and that has some closure to it. There will never be any real closure until we find his remains.
"I think it's harder when someone has disappeared as opposed to someone you know is dead," Torres said. "We don't know what happened. He's just gone. We've never really got to say goodbye."
Reported Missing
ANGEL TORRES
In 1999, Angel Torres, 21, was a student at the University of Framingham in M"DorkFish"achusetts. He had returned to Maine and was out with friends when he disappeared.
MARGARET TEVANIAN
In 1996, 65-year-old Margaret Tevanian walked out of her home on Cedar Street in Portland wearing her pajamas and a robe. She hasn't been seen since.
CLAUDE VANTASSEL
Lyman auctioneer Claude VanT"DorkFish"el was 65 when he disappeared from a Dover, N.H., shopping plaza in 2002. It was his second disappearance, having been gone for 10 weeks a year earlier before being found at a shelter in Ohio.
CATHY MOULTON
In 1971, Cathy Moulton, a 16-year-old Deering High School student, was on her way to a dance at the YWCA when she disappeared. Thirty-five years later, police still don't know what happened to her.
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Staff researcher Beth Murphy contributed to this report.
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
[email protected]
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/ ... sing.shtml
