Gone without a trace? Misery, mystery linger in these Alabama missing child cases

Jennifer Rickett has followed closely the disappearances of 3-year-old Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney and 19-year-old Aniah Blanchard.

Rickett, like most, has been gripped by the high-profile cases over the past month. She is devastated at the tragic ending in Kamille’s case. She prays for a better outcome for Aniah Blanchard.

Rickett knows all-too-well the pain of their families and is thankful for the massive efforts put into finding Kamille and Blanchard. She wishes, however, that the 2018 disappearance of her teen son had gotten a fraction of the attention by law enforcement officials.

To this day, Daniel’s parents, who have four other children, have no concrete proof of what happened to their son and where he is. “I feel so neglected by the City of Birmingham and that’s been more devastating than anything,’’ Rickett said. “I’m going to bury my child, believe me. If it’s the last thing I do, with or without them, I’m going to bury my child. It’s killing me.”

Daniel, a senior at Carver High School, was set to graduate with plans to join the U.S. Air Force like his father, who is now retired from the service.

Daniel was last seen Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018. He had spent some time with his older sister that day and then they went their separate ways in the 1100 block of 12th Court North. Daniel had eye surgery the day before he disappeared after he had been hit in the eye by a rock on the interstate.

The family said it was not like him to disappear. “The first day, I asked God, ‘Is he dead?’ said Rickett. “The second day, I sat on the side of my bed and a part of me dropped out of my heart. I knew my child was gone.”

Birmingham police distributed a flyer and family members organized searches for Daniel, but to no avail. “I promise you one thing. I’m going to fight for my baby to the end,’’ Rickett said. “I’ve asked God to let me bury my baby before I die, and I know He’s going to give that to me.

“If they think it’s going to be a cold case,’’ she said, “it’s going to be a cold day in Hell before I let that happen.”

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States -- roughly 2,000 per day. Of those, there are 115 child “stranger abduction” cases each year, which means the child was taken by an unknown person. NCMEC assisted law enforcement and families with more than 25,000 cases of missing children in 2018.

The agency lists more than 40 teens and children as active missing persons cases in Alabama, many dating back decades. Many of them are believed to be victims of foul play. Here is a look at some of them:

Carla Rebecca Corley is one of the Birmingham Police Department’s oldest unsolved missing persons cases where foul play is expected. Carla, 14, vanished in August 1980 from her home in the Eastwood public housing community on Airport Highway in Birmingham. She and her mother, Nelda Corley Leopard, were watching television together that night, and then her mother went to bed. She woke up about 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 12 to find the apartment doors open and Carla gone. Chairs had been pushed back from the table and a soda bottle was overturned. Her new shoes were near the couch where she had put them the night before, and her belt was lying on the ground outside the front door. Carla was 5-feet, 1, and weighed 120 pounds. She was epileptic and was last seen by her mother wearing blue corduroy pants and a blouse with a Peter Pan collar. A month before her disappearance, a group of men had abducted Carla for about three hours, taking her to Lake Purdy where she was raped. Her mother didn’t find out about the rape until later. About a week before Carla’s disappearance, the men came banging on her door but couldn’t get in. In 1998, a psychic claimed there was evidence connected to Carla’s case buried in the vicinity of a small lake near Palmerdale but a search did not produce any results. Carla has since been declared legally dead.

Jason Sims Jr., 15, was discovered missing in February 2015 in what Fairfield lawmen have described as one of the most bizarre situations they’ve encountered. "It’s one of those made-for-TV kind of things where people make up the strangest thing they can and then write a story about,'' said former police Chief Leon Davis. Authorities first began looking into the Sims’ family and child neglect claims in October 2013. During that initial probe, police were aware of two children – ages 10 and 12 – living in the home with the parents – Natasha Wright and Jason Sims Sr. They had no idea the 15-year-old existed, or another child, 9, until the investigation progressed. The latter two had never been enrolled in school nor had any medical records. Based on the condition of the home and the situation, authorities issued four arrest warrants charging the parents with aiding to the dependency of minors, which means they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do for the children as their parents. Those charges were eventually dismissed.

They tried to serve those arrest warrants in October 2014, but nobody was at the 59th Street home. The family was believed to be on the run. In January 2015, the mother, Wright, was found unconscious in the home with a medical condition. Three days later, three of the children were found with relatives in Mulga and placed in DHR's custody. Wright briefly regained consciousness and asked authorities about her teen son. She said the last time she saw him was at their home, but she couldn't say when. The dependency charges have not yet gone to trial. In 2015, Wright filed a protection from abuse order against Sims. In April 2016, Sims was charged with failure to report a child missing, which is a felony. He was indicted on that charge in 2016 and is set to soon go to trial.

Brenda Kay Green disappeared on July 2, 1988, at 15. She left her family’s home in Brookwood with a male friend and told her mother she was going to visit friends in Abernant, about 10 miles away. She was last seen that day at a home on Highway 216. Her friend dropped her off there. Though the people she was going to visit weren’t home, she wanted to wait for them and was last seen standing at the front door. She called her mother to say she wouldn’t be home until later. She was never heard from again. She had run away previously but didn’t stay gone long. Police believe foul play was involved in her disappearance.

Sherry Lynn Marler, 12, was last seen at approximately 9:30 a.m. on June 6, 1984 in downtown Greenville, Alabama. She and her stepfather were at the First National Bank and he gave her a dollar to buy a soda. Sherry left the bank and was last seen crossing the street to a Chevron gas station. When her stepfather returned to his pickup truck 15 minutes later, Sherry was gone. Investigators got information that Sherry may have been in the St. Stephen, Alabama area, near Betaw Road, later that month. There were three reported sightings of Sherry by three different people after her disappearance. Each time, she was accompanied by a man, described as about 50, 5′8” with a husky build, a weathered complexion, and crow’s feet around his eyes. One witness who saw her at a truck stop in Conley, Georgia said Sherry called the man B.J. All three of the witnesses stated that Sherry was noticeably upset, disheveled and appeared dazed. The last sighting was in a mall in New Orleans later in 1984. None of the sightings were confirmed. Sherry is described as a tomboy who enjoyed farm work in 1984 and knew how to drive a tractor. Her mother does not believe she ran away; she had been looking forward to watching her favorite television show and visiting her grandmother on the day of her disappearance, and she didn’t have any significant problems in her life. Her case remains unsolved and is classified as a non-family abduction.

Kimberly Arrington, 16, was last seen in the parking lot of the CVS Pharmacy on the corner of Third Street and Forest Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama on Oct. 30, 1998. She had gone to the pharmacy at 4:00 p.m. to purchase candy and a soft drink. She never returned to her family’s residence and has not been seen since. Her parents reported her missing after they looked for her themselves for several hours without result. Kimberly is described as a friendly and well-behaved teenager. She enjoyed children, music, dancing and computers. She was planning her Christmas shopping on the day of her disappearance and spoke to her father about it. She was a 10th-grader at Jefferson Davis High School in 1998. Her case was originally investigated as a possible runaway due to her age. Investigators now believe she may have been abducted, but the circumstances surrounding her disappearance are unclear, as there are no known witnesses and no concrete evidence of foul play. Kimberly’s mother died in 2005, but her father is still alive and searching for her. Her case remains unsolved.

Tarasha Benjamin, 17, was last seen in Selma on June 26, 2010. She said goodbye to her mother and left home at 10 a.m. to go to a flea market. On the way there, she stopped at a yard sale and met with a relative who borrowed her cellular phone to make a call. It’s not clear whether Tarasha ever arrived at the flea market. She never returned home and has never been heard from again. It’s extremely uncharacteristic of Tarasha to leave without warning, and foul play is suspected. Authorities don’t believe she’s still in the area, as extensive searches turned up no sign of her. Her case remains unsolved. The car she was driving, a gray Mazda Tribute she’d borrowed from a friend, was found abandoned on the Cecil Jackson Bypass, one mile from the flea market and facing the opposite direction. Two windows on the driver’s side were missing and the driver’s side door handle was broken.

Christina Lynn Carter, last seen in Hueytown on Sept. 17, 1973, was 3 when she disappeared. She lived alone with her mother, Janet Gail Carter, who was employed with an insurance company in Birmingham. Both disappeared at the same time. Janet Carter and Christina’s father had gotten divorced two months before, and Christina’s father was seeking custody of the child. According to The Charley Project, Janet Carter was dating a married man at the time of her disappearance, and said she was going on a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains with him.

Less than a month later, on Oct. 7, Janet Carter’s nude, bound body was found inside a duffel bag on Clingmans Dome Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She had been killed by suffocation the same day she was found, but her remains were not identified for a month. It was then that authorities realized Christina was missing. An extensive search of the park failed to turn up Christina. Authorities have surmised that Janet Carter may have given Christina to someone else to care for prior to her murder and that Christina might still be alive. Janet Carter’s murder was never solved and there has been no sign of Christina since 1973.

Daniel Barter, 4, was last seen playing near the banks of Perdido Bay between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. on June 18, 1959. The mobile boy had gone camping at Perdido Bay with his parents, a cousin and three of his six siblings. His other siblings were staying with relatives. The campsite was about an hour’s drive from the Barters’ home, according to The Charley Project.

Daniel is believed to have wandered away from the rest of his family while his parents were preparing some fishing equipment. He was carrying a bottle of Nehi soda. His mother, Maxine Barter, began searching for him 10 or 15 minutes after she last saw him, but didn’t find him. He has never been heard from again. The area Daniel disappeared from is swampy and infested with alligators and snakes. Authorities investigated the theory that the child had been attacked by an animal and even killed and gutted two alligators to look for remains but found no evidence of such an attack. FBI agents reported they were told by family the boy didn’t like the water and didn’t believe he would have gone into the bay voluntarily. A month before Daniel’s disappearance, his mother reported seeing a mysterious vehicle parked in front of their home. She approached the car and the driver, a man, immediately covered his face with a newspaper, then drove away. One evening not long afterward, a neighbor saw a strange man peering into a Barter bedroom where Daniel was asleep. A neighbor told Daniel’s mother and they went to the place where the man had been standing. He was gone, but there were footprints in the dirt under the window. The police made casts of the prints and took photographs, but it is unclear whether this evidence still exists. On the morning before Daniel’s disappearance, Maxine Barter drove Daniel and another son to the store, leaving the boys in the car. While she was gone, a man drove next to the Barters’ car and stared at the boys for a while without speaking to them, then drove away. Daniel’s brother told Maxine about it when she returned. These incidents have led the Barters to suspect Daniel was kidnapped by someone who had been stalking the family for some time. His case was reopened nearly 50 years after his disappearance. Many of the original investigative files have since been lost or destroyed in the intervening decades. Both of his parents have died.

Andrea Gonzalez was just 5 when she disappeared in north Alabama. The girl’s father and stepmother reported her missing Nov. 20, 1993, initially claiming Andrea walked away from their trailer in Franklin County. In the end, the stepmother, Kim Gonzalez, admitted she scalded and accidentally killed her stepdaughter and the father, Paul Gonzalez, said he helped dispose of the body by tossing it off the Mon Dye Bridge at Upper Bear Creek Lake. Paul Gonzalez pleaded guilty to manslaughter, served two years of a 10-year sentence and was released in 1997. That same year, Kim Gonzalez was found guilty of child abuse and served time in prison until 2001. Andrea’s body was never found. The case remains open at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Haleigh Breann Culwell, 11, and her mother, Kimberly Whitton, were last seen on June 21, 2007. They lived in a log cabin on a 40-acre property in north Alabama. The driveway leading up to the residence had two locked gates and as a result, the cabin can only be reached on foot. The day she went missing, Whitton went to work at Cloverdale Manor Nursing Home in Scottsboro to pick up some papers. She called a friend on the way back home to the town of Section, but they were unable to talk because the connection was bad. Whitton promised to call her friend back in five minutes. She never did. Her coworkers reported her missing on June 28, a week after she was last seen. Authorities interviewed her husband, Barry Van Whitton, who is Haleigh’s stepfather. He said his wife and stepdaughter left their home in a white Ford van or truck with Alabama license plates shortly after Kimberly arrived home from work. He said he gave his wife $20,000 in cash, and he never saw them after that. He stated they may have gone to Montana. They have never been heard from again. In 2015, Barry Van Whitton was convicted in the murder of his first wife, Michelle Townson Whitton, who had disappeared in 1997. She was found in a shallow grave about six weeks later. It was later determined she had been beaten to death. Her husband was suspected but never indicted until December 2014. He was serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison for weapons violations when the murder charge came through. During the trial, the jury and Judge John Graham heard testimony from investigators, relatives, acquaintances, and Whitton’s former cellmate. He was sentenced to life in prison and is suspected – though never charged – in the disappearance of his second wife and stepdaughter.

Fred Wright, 13, was last seen at his family’s residence in Tuskegee, Alabama on Dec. 6, 1998. He disappeared during the evening hours and was last seen by an man who was inside the house at the time. Fred has never been heard from again. There is a suspect in his disappearance who is now deceased. Few details are available in his case.

Brittany Robinson, 14, was last seen when her aunt dropped her off at her father’s home on McCovery Road in Mobile at 9 a.m. on June 14, 2012. It was supposed to be a two-day visit. She has never been heard from again. Her father, Demetric L. Hooper, left Mobile immediately after her disappearance, and six weeks later a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was later found at a mental health facility in Arkansas, according to The Charley Project. Hooper suffered from schizophrenia and had sought treatment there. In the years prior to Brittany’s disappearance, he had been hospitalized in Alabama several times for his mental illness and for drug problems. Brittany wasn’t with her father when the police found him in Arkansas, and he was charged with felony custodial interference. Authorities determined he traveled extensively throughout the southeastern U.S. after Brittany vanished. Hooper was carrying Brittany’s pink iPod, as well as knives and a rope, when arrested. He denied any involvement in his daughter’s disappearance. He initially pleaded not guilty to interfering with child custody. He changed his plea to guilty in August 2014 and a Mobile County Circuit Court Judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Evan Eric Chartrand, 15, and his mother, Susan Osborne, were last seen in Elmore County’s Holtville on May 29, 2017. They lived on Waterview Lane near Highway 111 with her second husband of four years, Jerry Marshall Osborne. They have never been heard from again. Susan Osborne’s family lived out of state and, after two months without being able to contact the pair, they reported them missing on July 29. She had never gone more than a day or two before with calling or texting them. When the police went to the house to investigate the disappearances, her husband told them that his wife had decided to leave him, and a man had picked her up, according to The Charley Project. The next day, he said, the man returned to the house and removed furniture and other belongings. Susan’s car was left behind, however. Evan was supposed to start his sophomore year at Holtville High School in the fall. The two cases remain unsolved and foul play is suspected.

Kemberly Ramer, 17, disappeared Saturday, August 15, 1997, while staying at her father’s house in Opp. She had played in a high school softball game the day she went missing, and was last seen as she was heading home from her boyfriend’s house around 10 p.m. FBI investigators told the Associated Press in 1997 that they believed the Opp teen made it back to her father’s house and was either taken or left between midnight and 5 a.m. Ramer left behind her car, contact lenses, glasses, jewelry, keys, clothes and money. There have been multiple searches for her since her disappearance. She vanished four days before she was due to start her senior year of high school. She planned to attend the University of South Alabama and major in physical therapy. In May 1998, an FBI diving team scoured a 35-foot deep pond known as “Steep Hole” in Walton County, Florida. The tip came from a resident of Holmes County. Tannic acid, which blackens water to the point of near opaqueness, hampered the search effort. In July 2006, an anonymous phone tip prompted a search just a handful of miles West on Highway 90, in a sinkhole near Ponce de Leon, Florida. Once again, dogs and divers were unable to retrieve remains from the water. Ramer’s mother and sister reportedly watched at the scene. In 2016, her case was featured on NBC Dateline Cold Case Spotlight.

Hoover Jerome Morris, 18, Morris was last seen at his home on Thomas Street in Heflin on Nov. 22, 1991. His mother had just had surgery on her knee, so he and his younger sister were helping her out. A red sports car pulled up as Morris’s sister was cooking dinner. He went and spoke to the driver, a woman he knew. His mother had told him to stay away from the woman. When he came back inside, he said his older brother had sent the woman to get him. Morris’s mother gave him permission to leave. He has never been heard from again. When his older brother came to the house later that evening, Morris’s sister asked where Morris was. It turned out his brother didn’t know and hadn’t sent anyone to come and get him. Morris was a high school senior when he disappeared and was known for being a good football player. His dream was to attend the University of Alabama on a football scholarship and eventually play professional football, like his uncle Ike Grant, who played for the New York Jets. However, his younger sister stated he’d become involved with drugs by the time of his disappearance. He and his sister were close, but he wouldn’t talk to her about it. In 2016, his case was featured on NBC’s Dateline. According to the broadcast, Heflin Police Chief A.J. Benefield, was reopening the case. Benefield and Morris went to high school and the two had played football together. “He worked out together, he was a phenomenal athlete,” Benefield told Dateline. “I remember when reports started coming out that he was missing. We were the same age. It’s really sad because he did have a bright future ahead of him if he got through high school and went to college. Maybe even the NFL.” Morris’s case remains unsolved and foul play is suspected.