Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

MISSING CHILDREN

Families still searching

‘The worst thing is not knowing’ what happened to their children

By Ben McCanna bmccanna@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

Claire Moulton is one of a handful of parents in Maine who is waiting for a missing child to come home.

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There are six unsolved missing children cases in Maine dating back to the early 1970s, according to the national organization charged with tracking the cases.

• Douglas Charles Chapman of Alfred was 3 when he was reported missing June 2, 1971. Today he would be 43.

• Cathy Marie Moulton of Portland was 16 when she was reported missing Sept. 24, 1971. Today she would be 56.

• Kurt Ronald Newton of Manchester was 4 when he was reported missing Sept. 1, 1975. Today he would be 40.

• Bernard Ross of Ashland was 18 when he was reported missing May 12, 1977. Today he would be 53. (According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a federal provision allows the center to classify missing persons between 18 and 21 as missing children, if requested by the parents or police.)

• Kimberly Ann Moreau of Jay was 17 when she was reported missing May 11, 1986. Today, she would be 43.

• Ayla Bell Reynolds of Waterville was 20 months old when she was reported missing Dec. 17, 2011.

In Maine’s history, 283 children have been reported missing and 275 of those children were recovered, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization that serves as a federally mandated clearing house for all U.S. missing children cases.

Of the eight reported cases that remain, six children are still missing and the other cases were closed because they were unfounded.

At a glance, reports of missing children throughout the United States are staggering.

In a 2002 study, the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that about 800,000 children were reported missing during a one-year period — an average of about 2,000 children per day.

The report estimates that 340,500 of those children were reported missing for “benign” reasons, and 357,600 children either ran away or were kicked out of their homes. Almost 62,000 of the cases involved children who were lost or injured and unable to come home when they were expected.

The study's individual estimates add up to more than the total because children who were involved in multiple events were included in every category that applies to their case.

Almost 62,000 of the cases involved children who were lost or injured and unable to come home when they were expected.

The remaining cases involved abductions, which are broken into two categories: family and nonfamily ones. The study estimates that 56,500 children were abducted by family members and 12,100 were abducted by non-family members.

According to the study, a small minority of missing-child cases are because of so-called stereotypical kidnappings. Those kidnappings involve “someone the child does not know or a slight acquaintance who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom or intends to keep the child permanently,” according to the study.

Abducted children in those cases were 115 out of nearly 800,000, or about 0.01 percent.

The same study offers a breakdown of ages for the 800,000 children who were reported missing:

• 12 percent were younger than 5 years old

• 14 percent were 6-11

• 30 percent were 12-14

• 44 percent were 15-17

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was established by the U.S. Congress in 1984. It was charged with providing programs and services for cases of missing and exploited children, including the national clearing house.

According to Robert Lowery, executive director of the center’s Missing Children’s Division, the center’s database began in 1986. Many children who were reported missing before 1986 have been added to the database at the request of parents or investigators, but there are still gaps, he said.

Kurt Ronald Newton of Manchester, missing since 1975, is one example of a missing child who hasn’t been added to the database.

The center has been involved in more than 182,000 missing-child cases. Of those cases, more than 169,000 children have been recovered. Lowery said the center will not give up on finding missing children, even if parents or police believe a child has died.

“The policy of the National Center is we will not close a case until the child has been physically found, regardless of the circumstances,” he said.

Department of Public Safety Spokesman Steve McCausland said the Maine cases remain open. “As new information comes in, detectives are assigned to follow that information up,” he said.

Moulton's daughter, Cathy Marie Mouton was 16 years old when she was last seen on Sept. 24, 1971. Today, she would be 56. Every day, for more than 40 years, Moulton's mother is preoccupied with thoughts of her missing child.

"You never forget," she said. "I mean, every day I pray that somehow, somewhere, we'll find her."

There are six unsolved missing children cases in Maine, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization, and state police. Four of the children disappeared in the 1970s, one disappeared in the mid-1980s and 22-month-old Ayla Reynolds of Waterville disappeared seven weeks ago.

Parents of three of the missing children describe an unending ordeal that haunts their thoughts every day. Without closure, it's difficult to live a normal life, they said.

"It's a nightmare," Moulton said. "We've been living with this for a long time now."

Cathy is the oldest of the Moultons' three daughters. She was last seen walking on Forest Avenue in Portland, according to the Charley Project, an online database for missing person cases.

In the early days after her daughter's disappearance, Moulton developed a ritual. "Our house had a sun parlor on the front, and every day I used to go out on parlor and look up and down the street expecting her to show up," Moulton recalled. "I just couldn't believe she wouldn't be coming home."

The ritual persisted for decades, she said.

"I kept doing it right up until a year ago when we moved. But, I had not-as-high hopes in recent years," she said.

Moulton and her husband still live in Portland. They are in their 80s.

"At this point, we're concerned whether we'll ever know what happened to her before we die," she said.

Hope for closure

Devorah Goldburg, public relations senior manager at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said the parents of missing children struggle with the uncertainty.

"It is very difficult," she said. "Parents tell us repeatedly that the worst thing is not knowing."

Goldburg said the center never gives up hope of finding missing children.

"No case is closed until we either find the child or learn with certainty what happened to the child," she said. "We work very hard to keep hope alive, and to remind communities that the child is still missing."

Carol Ross said her hope wavers.

In 1977, her son, Bernard Ross Jr., was 18 when he drove off in his aunt's pickup truck in Presque Isle. Ross was reportedly despondent when he left. The truck was later found, but Ross is still missing.

Today, he would be 53.

"I go from thinking he's out there somewhere -- maybe in a hospital or carrying on a new life," Carol Ross, 74, said. "Other times, I think he must be gone, because he would have called us."

Ross and her husband, Bernard Ross Sr., 76, live in Portland.

Recently, the Rosses got a glimpse of what their son might look like today after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children developed an age-progressed image. The center combined the parents' and siblings' facial features with their son's high school senior portrait to show what a middle-aged version of Bernard Ross Jr. might look like.

"It's still kind of strange to look at it," the father said.

He added that news of missing children, like Ayla Reynolds, stirs old feelings.

"It brings up some pain, some grief and hope for that child," he said.

When a missing child is a toddler

In addition to Ayla Reynolds, there are two unsolved missing children cases in Maine that involved small children. Two young boys vanished in the early 1970s in separate incidents.

On Sept. 1, 1975, Kurt Ronald Newton of Manchester vanished from Natanis Point Campground in Chain of Ponds in western Maine near the Quebec border. He was 4 at the time. Today, he would be 40.

Kurt was last seen riding a Big Wheel tricycle near his parents' campsite, according to the Charley Project.

Department of Public Safety Spokesman Steve McCausland said efforts to find Kurt were historic.

"One of the largest searches of the decade was mounted up there to try to find him," he said. "All they found was his tricycle."

After the search concluded, Kurt's parents mailed missing child posters with Kurt's photo to every school district in the United States.

His parents, Ronald and Jill Newton, who still live in Manchester, declined a reporter's request to be interviewed.

Four years before Kurt Newton disappeared, Douglas Charles Chapman was last seen playing in a sand pile outside his parents home in Alfred on June 2, 1971.

He was 3 at the time. Today, he would be 43.

A search dog followed Douglas' scent from the home, "through a field, past an apple orchard onto a farm, and down the driveway to the main road," according to the Charley Project.

The ensuing six-day search was one of the largest ever for a missing person in York County, according a 1993 Associated Press story. It included about 3,000 volunteers, aircraft from the Navy and National Guard, and scuba divers.

Officials even pumped local wells dry to look for the boy, the story reported.

In 1993, the boy's father, Gary Chapman, successfully pleaded with police to deepen the investigation.

He said police had been convinced Douglas had wandered off, died and would eventually be found, but Chapman wanted investigators to consider abduction.

The boy's parents are divorced. His mother, Carole Allen, moved to New York, and his father to Waterboro. Neither could be reached for comment.

Someone has answers, Allen said in 1993.

"It doesn't make sense that a child should disappear and nobody saw anything," she said.

In 2001, Chapman told the Hartford Courant that his son's disappearance was difficult for the community to accept.

"People want to believe that these things don't happen and kids just don't disappear," he said. "Well, kids disappear way too often."

McCausland said police still get tips on both missing boys.

"We, from time to time, have received inquiries from people who either think they themselves could be Douglas or Kurt, or thought they recognized one of them," he said. "None of those leads have panned out."

Never give up

Richard Moreau's daughter vanished nearly 26 years ago. Every day, he wonders what happened to her.

Kimberly Ann Moreau was last seen in May 1986 in Jay when she climbed into a white Pontiac Trans Am driven by a man she had met earlier that day, according to the Charley Project. She was 17 at the time. Today, she would be 43.

The driver of the car is considered a person of interest in the case, but he was never charged.

Richard Moreau, 69, said he and his wife knew right away that something was wrong when their daughter wasn't at home at dinnertime. The next morning, the Moreaus reported their daughter missing, but police didn't get involved for another 48 hours, he said. When they did, police said the girl had probably run away.

Moreau and his wife didn't agree with police, so they performed their own investigation with the help of two family members. The Moreaus talked to people in the area, took statements and compiled a folder of evidence that they eventually turned over to detectives.

"We could not rely on anyone else to get it done," he said.

Four months later, state police took over the investigation, Moreau said.

"They realized this was something more than just a child that ran away, and they listed her as exploited and endangered, which, as far as I know, is how she remains listed today," he said.

Those initial years were difficult, Moreau said.

Soon after Kimberly disappeared, Moreau and his wife concluded that their daughter was dead. Within a year, Kimberly's grandfather died from heartbreak, Moreau contends. A year later, Kimberly's mom died of cancer.

"I had three years of what I classify as total hell," Moreau said. "Pardon my language, but that's the best way I know how to put it."

A few years later, in 1991, Moreau took matters into his own hands again after he was encouraged by private investigators to spread awareness of his daughter's disappearance.

Moreau began taping missing child posters onto utility poles throughout the area, he said. Also, as a supervisor in the shipping department of International Paper Co., Moreau would insert missing posters into shipments. Those posters have been sent to cities in Asia, Europe and South America.

"She's basically been around the world," he said of his daughter's image.

Moreau estimates he has distributed more than 50,000 posters, and that number continues to climb.

As recently as last month, Moreau was hanging new posters in Jay, he said. Whenever posters deteriorate from weather, Moreau replaces them with fresh copies.

Moreau said he hopes his daughter's remains will be found so she can be buried in the local cemetery next to her mother, grandmother and grandfather. He wants the opportunity to visit his daughter's grave and talk to her. And he's imagined countless times what it would be like to have that kind of closure.

"It would be like taking 10 tons off my shoulders," he said. "I'd be able to go to bed at night, lay down and get a full night's sleep without ever waking up.

"I would be able to say, 'Darling, I know you're home, and I love you.' "

Ben McCanna -- 861-9239

bmccanna@centralmaine.com