New Jersey Nightly News; Gone Without a Trace

<v Kent Manahan>There are an estimated 10000 missing persons in New Jersey. <v Kent Manahan>Most of them eventually return home. <v Kent Manahan>Some are runaways, while others are victims of foul play. <v Kent Manahan>Tonight, producer Janice Sellenger and I begin a special three part series on missing <v Kent Manahan>persons. We begin with some cases of young people who have simply vanished. <v Kent Manahan>Randy Johnson, Michael McDowell, Melvin Pittman, Ernest Taylor and <v Kent Manahan>Alvin Turner, all five, disappeared from a park in Newark in 1978. <v Kent Manahan>Princess Doe approximate age 16 years, real identity unknown, <v Kent Manahan>found dead in Blairstown in 1982. <v Kent Manahan>Her body was so badly disfigured, police had to reconstruct her face between <v Kent Manahan>22 year old Konstantine. James Bellows, junior known as Dean, last <v Kent Manahan>heard from on February 28, 1982, in eastern Arizona. <v Constantine Ballos>I keep his picture on my desk here at home. <v Constantine Ballos>I used to have his picture on my dresser, but I didn't want to look at the picture all <v Constantine Ballos>the time OK. <v Constantine Ballos>And I didn't want to arise in the morning and go to bed at night and

<v Constantine Ballos>see things. These picture leads have come up against a blank wall. <v Helen Ballos>There isn't really. There's nothing nothing to go by just <v Helen Ballos>[unclear] <v Kent Manahan>Dean had been traveling cross-country alone. <v Kent Manahan>Police found his jeep abandoned on Highway 395 in Mammoth Lakes, California. <v Kent Manahan>He was supposed to travel on Highway 10, but his jeep was found 300 miles north and <v Kent Manahan>east of his destination, a cousin's house in Costa Mesa, California. <v Kent Manahan>Dean last spoke to his parents by phone on February 28, 1982. <v Kent Manahan>On March 3rd, the police called to ask the balances of Dean's jeep had been reported <v Kent Manahan>stolen. Officials had tagged the vehicle on the shoulder of the highway because it had <v Kent Manahan>been there for three days. <v Constantine Ballos>And they said, well, is it possible that he's out backpacking or hiking? <v Constantine Ballos>Yes, I said, sure. He could be doing that. <v Constantine Ballos>He had a two person tent with him. <v Constantine Ballos>Didn't particularly have the kind of gear or a backpack or a camper would have in <v Constantine Ballos>terms of cooking utensils, etc.

<v Constantine Ballos>But he was on no fixed schedule. <v Constantine Ballos>He was in round to visit his cousin in Costa Mesa, California, and being <v Constantine Ballos>a young man, age 22. <v Constantine Ballos>It's possible he changed his mind and headed north. <v Constantine Ballos>Well, I thought it was somewhat unlikely. <v Kent Manahan>Dean lived here with his parents in Morris Township. <v Kent Manahan>He was never really away from home much except to go to school. <v Kent Manahan>At first, when his parents didn't hear from them, they weren't that concerned. <v Kent Manahan>Then, after almost two weeks had gone by a ground, an aerial search was begun in the <v Kent Manahan>Sierras. But all of the fresh clues that might have been there in the first crucial 24 <v Kent Manahan>hours were long gone. <v Kent Manahan>Both Morris Township and California police were very cooperative in the Ballos case. <v Kent Manahan>Often when a person is missing, authorities refuse to start searching until 48, <v Kent Manahan>72 or even more hours have gone by. <v Kent Manahan>Some refuse to start an investigation unless foul play is suspected. <v Kent Manahan>And if the person is an adult, it is often assumed that he just doesn't want to be found. <v Constantine Ballos>anything, anything is possible. You can you can list all the alternatives and <v Constantine Ballos>they'll be as long as your arm.

<v Helen Ballos>I can't believe that though. I can't believe it. <v Helen Ballos>He was a- he liked his home, he liked his family. <v Helen Ballos>Just can't believe he would do that. <v Kent Manahan>Today, Dean's room is as he left it almost two years ago. <v Kent Manahan>Nothing has been moved or discarded because Mrs. Ballos says she doesn't know <v Kent Manahan>what else to do. <v Constantine Ballos>In the absence of having proof of his death, <v Constantine Ballos>his body, we're hopeful. <v Kent Manahan>Nationally, almost two million people are missing. <v Kent Manahan>That number may seem high. But families tend to report a missing loved one. <v Kent Manahan>But not when they return. Dean's case is similar to many that turned up in New <v Kent Manahan>Jersey each year. The cases that are reported here tend to be mostly teenagers <v Kent Manahan>and young adults. Most are solved, like the one involving 13 year old Charles <v Kent Manahan>Dyson of Highland's, who was kidnaped in November of last year and taken to a homosexual <v Kent Manahan>club in Massachusetts. He was discovered several weeks later roaming at the Port <v Kent Manahan>Authority terminal in New York.

<v Kent Manahan>Often when teenagers and young adults are missing, police in New Jersey and elsewhere <v Kent Manahan>assume they are runaways and decide not to become involved. <v Kent Manahan>That's a crucial mistake, according to this man. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>If a person is missing, it's incumbent upon us to locate that <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>person. If no note is there. <v Kent Manahan>Sergeant Richard Ruffino heads up Bergen County's Missing Persons Bureau. <v Kent Manahan>He's worked on 350 cases since his unit was founded in 1976. <v Kent Manahan>All but seven are solved. <v Kent Manahan>Although specifically in charge of Birkins missing persons, Ruffino doesn't turn down <v Kent Manahan>requests from outside the area for help. <v Kent Manahan>And on a recent trip to California, he met with the local sheriff's department to check <v Kent Manahan>out leads on Dean's disappearance. <v Kent Manahan>They are continuing their investigation and what ruffino to come to California again and <v Kent Manahan>help out. Ruffino has been called Mr Missing Person. <v Kent Manahan>He has worked the talk show circuit and was on hand in the Rose Garden on October 12th, <v Kent Manahan>1982, when President Reagan signed the Missing Children Act into law. <v Kent Manahan>The Act established a national clearinghouse for information on missing children.

<v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>People want answers. OK, I don't. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>I don't. I'm no expert by no stretch of the imagination an expert. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>If I were an expert I'd have an answer for everybody. I don't. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>All I could tell you is that I'm concerned about people that are missing. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>I'm concerned about the people who are left behind. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>Devastated. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>If there is something that I could do that would make them feel better, <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>then I'm going to do it. <v Kent Manahan>Tomorrow night in part two of our series, we'll hear the tragic story of a six year old <v Kent Manahan>boy named Adam, whose kidnaping spurred passage of national missing persons legislation. <v Kent Manahan>And we'll meet a man whose family finally found him after 17 years of searching. <v Kent Manahan>In 1979, the country was shocked when six year old Etan Patz <v Kent Manahan>was kidnaped. Recently, a television movie about the real life horror story <v Kent Manahan>of six year old Adam Walsh renewed concern about child snatching. <v Kent Manahan>Adam disappeared July 27, 1981, from a Florida department store <v Kent Manahan>while his mother was just 150 feet away in another department.

<v Kent Manahan>Two weeks later, after an extensive search, Adam's head was found. <v Kent Manahan>Just recently, the person allegedly responsible was apprehended. <v Kent Manahan>Tonight, producer Jana Sellenger and I continue our series. <v Kent Manahan>Gone Without a Trace with Adam's father, John Walsh. <v John Walsh>The ultimate form of child abuse is abduction and murder. <v John Walsh>And a subtle form of child abuse is the apathy toward <v John Walsh>the problem of missing children. <v Kent Manahan>John Walsh has made missing children his personal crusade. <v Kent Manahan>He pushed for enactment of the Missing Children Act, which requires an information on <v Kent Manahan>missing persons be entered in a national computer system. <v Kent Manahan>And he had his own story about a missing child made into a movie. <v Speaker>The FBI can locate your stolen truck, but not your stolen child. <v Speaker>[unclear] The FBI will go after stolen cars in this country, but they won't search

<v Speaker>for my son. <v Kent Manahan>John Walsh tells parents to teach their children that kidnapers can be casual <v Kent Manahan>acquaintances as well as total strangers. <v John Walsh>People worry about creating a little paranoia with their children. <v John Walsh>Fifty thousand children were never heard from again last year in this country that were <v John Walsh>taken. I would rather have my child and I have a new daughter, <v John Walsh>one year old, be a little more paranoid and aware that it's 1983 than to <v John Walsh>go identify her body in a morgue. <v Kent Manahan>Whatever the merit of Walsh's numbers, police in New Jersey say this state does not have <v Kent Manahan>an Adam or an Etan Patz. <v Kent Manahan>In fact, our survey of police departments turned up not a single case of a very young <v Kent Manahan>missing child, except where it's assumed that a youngster has been taken by a parent. <v Kent Manahan>There are 32 of those cases outstanding and there are thousands of cases of missing <v Kent Manahan>teenagers and adults, people who run away because they can no longer cope with <v Kent Manahan>day to day pressures. <v Allen Matrin>Hello. <v Allen Matrin>Can I speak to Harold Matrin please?

<v Harold Martin>This is him speaking <v Allen Matrin>Hey, How are you doing? <v Allen Matrin>How come it took me so long to find you? <v Harold Martin>Well, I was abducted Really. <v Harold Martin>You know, because I saw the police leave a note, right? <v Harold Martin>and i thought [unclear] in New York <v Allen Matrin>I said there was never any warrant that I know of. Not out of Union County. <v Allen Matrin>Never. No. <v Allen Matrin>That was one of - That was one stumbling block is when we were trying to locate you all <v Allen Matrin>those years <v Kent Manahan>Harold Martin's case is typical of many New Jersey cases involving people who apparently <v Kent Manahan>want to disappear. Seventeen years ago, Harold Martin vanished from his home in <v Kent Manahan>Elizabeth. He returned briefly in 1969, then disappeared again. <v Kent Manahan>His brother Allen, a Union County undersheriff, enlisted the help of detectives to locate <v Kent Manahan>Martin. And in 1981, the Harold Martin case became the test case for the <v Kent Manahan>newly formed Union County Missing Persons Bureau. <v Kent Manahan>Even though authorities knew early on that Martin was living in Chicago, it was a tough <v Kent Manahan>case to crack.

<v Charles Harris>If they really want disappear and keep themselves away, they <v Charles Harris>could just pick up and go, stay out of the limelight, make sure they take jobs <v Charles Harris>with no fingerprint or whatever. <v Kent Manahan>By law, authorities cannot use a Social Security number or a tax return to <v Kent Manahan>track someone that makes it pretty easy for an individual to sneak off to another town <v Kent Manahan>and start over. <v Gary Decker>I'm looking for a missing person. a Carol Decker. <v Gary Decker>She called you on May 20th at 12:05 p.m. <v Kent Manahan>The Decker family has been devastated since Sunday, October twenty third. <v Kent Manahan>That's when Carol Decker went out to a neighborhood store in Neptune City around 11 <v Kent Manahan>o'clock at night and never came home. <v Kent Manahan>She left a husband and three children, Samantha three, Melanie, seven, and Tiffany, <v Kent Manahan>fourteen. <v Tiffany Decker>I had to take on a lot of responsibility <v Tiffany Decker>so far, I had a sister and mom to them. <v Gary Decker>I smoke a hell of a lot more. <v Gary Decker>I don't really eat- I am up at three o'clock in the morning thinking about

<v Gary Decker>what happened. It's just knowing that I don't know what happened. <v Gary Decker>And it's unbelievable. <v Kent Manahan>Gary Decker had no hint that his wife was thinking of leaving. <v Kent Manahan>But since her disappearance, he's discovered a number of troubling clues. <v Kent Manahan>Carol Decker's hobby was writing. <v Kent Manahan>Gary recently found these thoughts, which she wrote down two years before her <v Kent Manahan>disappearance. What causes women to run away from home? <v Kent Manahan>Carol wrote. I know it's because they have three children and one husband. <v Kent Manahan>That is why women run away from home. <v Kent Manahan>Gary also discovered a loan and a charge card which he never knew existed. <v Kent Manahan>And a pile of unpaid bills. <v Kent Manahan>A cryptic message on a card sent to daughter Tiffany began to make the puzzle pieces come <v Kent Manahan>together. And the song Every Breath You Take by the rock group Police, <v Kent Manahan>which Carol bought the day before she disappeared, haunts Gary. <v Kent Manahan>[music plays] <v Gary Decker>I miss her very much.

<v Gary Decker>And I just want her back home where she belongs with the whole family. <v Gary Decker>You know, it's I will never throw anything in front of a face on it or anything like <v Gary Decker>that. I would never bring it up because I never want to see it happen <v Gary Decker>again. And I will never. To me, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a <v Gary Decker>person, especially a guy. <v Kent Manahan>Finding a missing person like Carol Decker might be easier if proposed legislation <v Kent Manahan>in New Jersey becomes law. A bill which unanimously passed the state Senate and <v Kent Manahan>Assembly would have set up a centralized missing persons center and a 12 man task force. <v Kent Manahan>But the governor recently veto the measure because it didn't contain provisions for <v Kent Manahan>funding. Tomorrow night. In the last part of our series, we'll see just how <v Kent Manahan>easy it is to be gone without a trace. <v Kent Manahan>Searching for a missing person can be frustrating. <v Kent Manahan>Full of dead ends, unanswered questions and complications. <v Kent Manahan>Sometimes it can seem hopeless. <v Kent Manahan>Tonight, in part three of our series Gone Without a Trace. <v Kent Manahan>Producer Jana Sellenger and I begin with a look at a magazine originally formed to help

<v Kent Manahan>locate missing juveniles. But that project has grown over <v Kent Manahan>the past four years. Charles Sutherland has published Search, a nationwide magazine <v Kent Manahan>to help law enforcement in hospitals and tracking missing people. <v Kent Manahan>The magazine has published Quarterly and Englewood Cliffs. <v Kent Manahan>But even with the aid of a publication like Search, locating a missing person is not <v Kent Manahan>an easy task. One big problem- families often don't have up to date photographs. <v Charles Sutherland>Here is a classic example. <v Charles Sutherland>Here's a gentleman that we were looking for. He's now 31. <v Charles Sutherland>You'll notice he's got a beard and a mustache. <v Charles Sutherland>By comparison, there's the same <v Charles Sutherland>individual, a different older photograph. <v Kent Manahan>He's changed a great deal. <v Charles Sutherland>He's changed a great deal because of his hair, a beard, a mustache. <v Charles Sutherland>But the face is still the same. <v Charles Sutherland>Now, tell us, what does he look like now? <v Kent Manahan>And you may never know. <v Charles Sutherland>And you may never know.

<v Kent Manahan>Families sometimes hold back information vital to an investigation. <v Kent Manahan>They're embarrassed to say the person suffers from mental illness or to disclose that the <v Kent Manahan>person has run away before or has a criminal record. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>For instance, if I ask a parent, has your husband or your wife or your son or your <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>daughter ever been arrested? And they say to me, no, I would then have to assume that <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>there's no fingerprints on file, fingerprints being a good identifier if they were to <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>tell us the truth. We can immediately file for those fingerprints and then immediately <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>have them compared to those people who have been incarcerated. <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>So they actually what they do is they're short cutting their own investigation to get <v Sgt. Dick Ruffino>answers. <v Kent Manahan>Dick Ruffino, whom we met in part one of our series, heads Bergen County's Missing <v Kent Manahan>Persons Bureau. His interest in the issue is both professional and personal. <v Kent Manahan>At the age of nine, I was an abducted child. <v Kent Manahan>I know what it is to be held against your will. <v Kent Manahan>I didn't like it. I didn't like what was tried. <v Kent Manahan>Every year, search runs approximately 500 pictures of missing young children, teenagers <v Kent Manahan>and adults. <v Kent Manahan>Seeing these pictures kind of leaves you with a sick, empty feeling inside.

<v Kent Manahan>James William Hires age 20, last seen a 1980 run in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, <v Kent Manahan>tries winter aged 16. <v Kent Manahan>Last seen in 1982 in Bellevue, Washington. <v Kent Manahan>If these people were members of your familyor mine, the thought of not knowing would be <v Kent Manahan>unbearable. <v Kent Manahan>That's what the Ballos family lives with each and every day. <v Kent Manahan>Their son, Dean, has been missing since February 28, 1982. <v Kent Manahan>Police found his jeep in Mammoth Lakes, California. <v Kent Manahan>But no sign of Dean not knowing has taken a heavy toll on the family. <v Helen Ballos>Maybe he didn't disappear. <v Helen Ballos>Maybe something was- he was harmed, harmed in some I dont know. <v Kent Manahan>As a result of your experiences. <v Kent Manahan>What would you like to see done in this area? <v Constantine Ballos>Well, I think the most effective thing would be would <v Constantine Ballos>be to have a widespread spread search effort by <v Constantine Ballos>knowledgeable, experienced police authorities <v Constantine Ballos>conducted immediately upon notification of a missing

<v Constantine Ballos>person and not to wait for evidence of foul play <v Constantine Ballos>or a body or whatever. <v Kent Manahan>Authorities believe Dean may have met with foul play, but there are people who choose <v Kent Manahan>to disappear, simply step and leave, while others go to the trouble of changing their <v Kent Manahan>identities. They'll take the name off a tombstone, get a birth certificate and become <v Kent Manahan>that person while others steal a driver's license, go to a neighboring state and get <v Kent Manahan>another license issued in the new name. <v Kent Manahan>Does it require a lot of planning for a person to be missing without a trace? <v Charles Sutherland>No. It can be accomplished very quickly, very easily <v Charles Sutherland>on a literally a moment's impulse. <v Charles Sutherland>or it could involve a lot of planning, too. <v Charles Sutherland>If you want to wipe out all of your savings <v Charles Sutherland>and converting converted to cash. <v Charles Sutherland>You can pick up from New Jersey and go to California, use a different <v Charles Sutherland>name, provided you're not doing this for the purpose of evasion of taxes

<v Charles Sutherland>or debts. Not abandoning your family. <v Charles Sutherland>There is no reason why you shouldn't do that. <v Charles Sutherland>You're entitled. <v Kent Manahan>Carol Decker left her husband and three children on the evening of October Twenty third. <v Kent Manahan>Just recently, her car was found in Perth Amboy with a note written in her handwriting <v Kent Manahan>to contact her husband, Gary. <v Kent Manahan>Gary and Carol's father had been getting phone calls where they here typing, and then the <v Kent Manahan>caller hangs up. Gary believes it's Carol. <v Gary Decker>I think maybe she she's just afraid unless everything's <v Gary Decker>backed up so much. And she tried to take. <v Gary Decker>Now, to pay this one like pay take from Peter to pay Paul <v Gary Decker>and and maybe she got so afraid or something. <v Gary Decker>She did this without my knowledge that she'd just couldn't take any <v Gary Decker>more, I guess, and just left. <v Kent Manahan>Unless a missing person returns, it's often next to impossible to know why he or she <v Kent Manahan>decided to run away. But those who work with the missing and their families can

<v Kent Manahan>draw some conclusions. <v Charles Sutherland>Certainly financial stress could be a reason. <v Charles Sutherland>Emotional problems, perhaps <v Charles Sutherland>the pull and tug of a family relationship certainly <v Charles Sutherland>involves emotional relationships and the decision, hey, <v Charles Sutherland>I'm not enjoying the way I live. <v Kent Manahan>Should these people be found? Their whereabouts may not necessarily be reported to their <v Kent Manahan>families as long as they haven't broken the law. <v Kent Manahan>They have the right to be gone without a trace. <v Kent Manahan>If you're interested in locating a missing person or if you believe you know where one of <v Kent Manahan>the missing from our report is, please contact Search magazine at area <v Kent Manahan>code two 0 one five six seven four 0 four 0 and search will direct you to the correct <v Kent Manahan>agency. That's area code two 0 one five six seven four 0 four 0. <v Kent Manahan>And now that we've completed this special, we would like to acknowledge the fine work of <v Kent Manahan>our editor for the series Patts and Gemito Mark.