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Ruth Egnoski
Missing since 1966 from Delavan, Walworth County, Wisconsin
Classification: Endangered Missing
Vital Statistics
Age at Time of Disappearance: 18 years old
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Dark hair.
Circumstances of Disappearance
Ruth Egnoski disappeared in 1966. Private investigators hired by the family said she took a bus from Delavan to Chicago, but they lost her trail there.
Police found Egnoski's driver's license and Social Security card in the custodian's office of Wileman Elementary School in Delavan in 1973. Her father worked there as a custodian.
In 2002, police dug a 12-foot-wide pit behind 1014 Center St., Delavan, the house Egnoski lived in since it was built in 1962. Her family sold the home in 1971. Police found a crawl space under the family room of the house but no evidence connected to Egnoski's disappearance.
Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Delavan Police Department
309-244-8226
Source Information:
The Week Extra
Janesville Gazette
http://www.doenetwork.org/
Missing since 1966 from Delavan, Walworth County, Wisconsin
Classification: Endangered Missing
Vital Statistics
Age at Time of Disappearance: 18 years old
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Dark hair.
Circumstances of Disappearance
Ruth Egnoski disappeared in 1966. Private investigators hired by the family said she took a bus from Delavan to Chicago, but they lost her trail there.
Police found Egnoski's driver's license and Social Security card in the custodian's office of Wileman Elementary School in Delavan in 1973. Her father worked there as a custodian.
In 2002, police dug a 12-foot-wide pit behind 1014 Center St., Delavan, the house Egnoski lived in since it was built in 1962. Her family sold the home in 1971. Police found a crawl space under the family room of the house but no evidence connected to Egnoski's disappearance.
Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Delavan Police Department
309-244-8226
Source Information:
The Week Extra
Janesville Gazette
http://www.doenetwork.org/
http://www.gazetteextra.com/missingpeople080507.asp
When Search Parties Grow
(Published Saturday, August 4, 2007 10:11:21 PM CST)
By Mike Heine and
Frank Schultz/Gazette staff
Kelly Nolan-a 22-year-old UW-Whitewater student.
Mahalia Xiong-a 21-year-old UW-Green Bay student.
Francine Tate-a 50-year-old Madison woman.
They didn't know each other, but they had one thing in common.
Each went missing.
Both college students were found dead weeks after being last seen. Tate ran away and was found alive near Phelps, more than 200 miles north of Madison.
Each case drew national media attention and had hordes of police and volunteers out looking.
Why? Because their circumstances were different than the majority of reported missing person cases, police said.
Most missing persons are found, usually rather quickly, said investigators for the Janesville Police Department and the Rock and Walworth county sheriff's departments.
"I have to assume that it's unusual for these people to disappear," Dana Nigbor, Walworth County Sheriff's Department captain of investigations said of the three recent Wisconsin cases.
"Typically, we may have people with mental health issues that leave their home or people from bad homes," Nigbor said. "These appear, at least on the surface, to be educated women. It's unusual for them not to be in touch with family. That's what prompted the large response from law enforcement."
Most missing-person cases are juvenile runaways who are usually found within one or two days, Nigbor said. Most of the time it's the runaway returning or calling home that closes the case.
Usually, investigators find reasons for the absences-a poor home life, arguments with parents, dementia, depression, drug or alcohol binges, or a family or friend who leaves the area, taking someone with them.
The scope of a search is determined in large part by the circumstances, investigators said.
All three agencies said that when they get a missing-persons call, they send an officer to interview family and friends and search places the person is likely to go to.
There's no waiting for 24 or 48 hours before getting serious about it, said Janesville police Lt. Tim Hiers. It's a priority call, meaning an officer is sent as soon as one is available.
"Right from get-go, they try to make the determination, 'What's the gravity here?'" Hiers said.
The gravity determines investigators' next steps. The more serious it is, the more resources are thrown into the case.
"You've got to listen to the details on each one. Each one's a little different," said Lt. Todd Christiansen of the Rock County Sheriff Department.
A Teletype is sent out to area police, and descriptions are often broadcast on police radios, Nigbor said.
In Rock County, they call it a "bolo," or be-on-the-lookout notification that appears on squad-car computer screens.
If the missing persons are believed to be in danger, the case is also entered into state and national online databases so they are available to other police departments. Juveniles who disappear are entered on those databases right away.
Both sheriffs' departments said they can issue fliers for their cases, splashing the missing person's face around the community.
Hiers said Janesville police welcome any independent efforts to post leaflets about missing loved ones, as well.
An unexpected missing person receives more attention. Often, the age or ability for a person to care for themselves is a factor in the scope of the search, Nigbor said.
"If we get a call from someone that says, 'I've lost my 4-year-old. I can't find them,' everybody's out there," she said.
Abduction was suspected when two Janesville boys failed to show up for school last fall. Multiple detectives and officers were on the case almost immediately, Hiers recalled.
It turned out that one boy hurt his ankle while climbing a tree. They were on their way home when an officer spotted them.
Such cases require an inside-out search, said Elkhorn Police Chief Joel Christensen. Responding officers search the immediate area where a child was last seen and move outward from there. Oftentimes a child was just hiding or wandered to a neighbor's house.
"They like to go a lot of places they're familiar with; a friend's or neighbor's (home)," Christensen said. "Quite often that's where they head."
Searches that last longer may include retrieving a person's fingerprints and dental records, checking with hospitals and coroners offices and interviewing family, friends, co-workers, schoolmates, teachers and anyone else who may have had contact with the person.
Hiers said the Janesville police will post dental records on a nationwide database if circumstances warrant.
"You hope the person is found alive," but the facts may indicate the worst has happened, Hiers said. Families often find it difficult to face that possibility when the request comes for dental records.
Cases with unusual disappearance circumstances are rare, Nigbor said. The last such case investigated by the Walworth County Sheriff's Department was when Wanda Greenlee of Walworth went missing unexpectedly. She was found murdered in a remote area near the Fontana municipal well in late 2001.
"That started as a missing person. When that complaint came in, there was suspicion all over the place," Nigbor said. "Her vehicle was found at Menard's in Janesville. She left to be with her boyfriend and didn't return.
"Is there a line in the sand that says this is what we do during this situation or this is what we do in that situation? Yes, but we also relied on common sense that we needed to do more on this one," Nigbor said.
After juvenile runaways, the most common type of missing person is one with mental disabilities who leave a controlled environment, such as a group home, Nigbor said.
"Chances are we find these people very quickly," Nigbor said. "It's just more obvious when they're out and about. They're not able to take care of themselves sometimes. Even walking down the road draws attention, or they try to break into someone's house because they get scared."
It's rare that missing persons are never heard from again. Sometimes, bodies are found months later. Such was the case of Janesville's Arlando Cardenas, 28.
Cardenas' body was found July 8 in an abandoned rural garage after being missing more than seven months. Foul play is not suspected. Investigators are awaiting autopsy results.
Hiers said he is satisfied with the tools police have at their disposal. He couldn't point to any particular investigative problems.
"You know what the frustrating part of it is, it's that you're not finding them right away," Hiers said. "It's frustrating for the family, and it's frustrating for us."
Local missing persons cases
Janesville police have four cases listed in the missing-persons file of the National Crime Information Center:
-- Mary E. Golbuff, who lived at 1039 S. Pearl St., was 71 when she was last seen Nov. 14, 1996 near the bank of the Rock River. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Police believe she drowned in the river.
-- Michael J. Black, who lived at 104 Glenview Court, was 48 when he was last seen Nov. 16, 2002. He had made suicidal statements. Black was an ophthalmologist at Dean Riverview Clinic and a scuba diver. His Ford Expedition with an empty boat trailer was found Nov. 21, 2002, parked at Harborside Yacht Club along Lake Michigan south of Milwaukee.
n John K. Moseley, who lived at 233 N. Washington St., was 56 when he was last seen Nov. 13, 2003. Police believe he might have been depressed and/or suicidal.
-- Andrew S. Ambrose, 42, of 161 Linn St., was last seen July 3, 2007. He had told family members that he was going to visit relatives in Missouri.
The Rock County Sheriff's Department has no current, unsolved cases, but missing-persons Web sites list these cases that originated in other jurisdictions:
-- James A. "Steve" Clemons was 72 when he went missing June 17, 2000. He may have been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Clemons was a New York City resident and a truck driver. He became stuck in the mud near Rochester, Minn., on June 17, 2000, and police helped get him back onto the road and gave him directions to his destination near Milwaukee.
He was last seen walking away from the vehicle near the interchange of Interstates 90/39 and 43 in Beloit. The dump truck he was driving was found on Millington Road.
-- Nyleen Kay Marshall was 4 when she disappeared June 25, 1983, from Clancy, Mont. Marshall was with her family on a picnic in the Helena National Forest when she disappeared while walking with playmates.
In 1986, someone sent investigators a letter saying that they had picked up "a girl named Kay." The letter included details that had not been released to the general public. The writer said he taught Kay and traveled with her. He said he loved her and did not want to give her up. The letter was postmarked from Madison.
An anonymous caller who claimed to be the author of the letter called the Child Find Network about the case several times. The calls were traced to phone booths, including one at a pharmacy in Edgerton. There was also a possible sighting of Marshall in a restaurant in Janesville.
Walworth County missing persons include:
-- Ruth Egnoski was 18 when she disappeared in 1966. Private investigators hired by the family said she took a bus from Delavan to Chicago, but they lost her trail there.
Police found Egnoski's driver's license and Social Security card in the custodian's office of Wileman Elementary School in Delavan in 1973. Her father worked there as a custodian, school officials told The Janesville Gazette.
In the mid-1980s, a school employee found two blue, hard-sided suitcases hidden above the suspended ceiling in the custodian's office, according to newspaper reports.
In 2002, police dug a 12-foot-wide pit behind 1014 Center St., Delavan, the house Egnoski lived in since it was built in 1962. Her family sold the home in 1971. Police found a crawl space under the family room of the house but no evidence connected to Egnoski's disappearance.
-- William Brooks of East Troy disappeared in the 1930s. Local lore says he often fished on Lake Beulah.
He failed to show up at the Wilmers Point boat landing one day. A rowboat with a paddle Brooks made was found beached on the north shore of the lake, directly across from the landing.
In August 2005, two divers found human bones 57 feet deep in the lake. Coins from the 1930s were found nearby. Authorities believe the bones could be Brooks, but the Walworth County Sheriff's Department does not have the resources to conduct DNA testing to verify the suspicion. That would require exhuming Brooks' deceased mother or sister to get necessary DNA from the female side of the family.
"We suspect it's that person," Capt. Dana Nigbor said. "We took the investigation as far as we could for a missing persons case."
-- The unidentified remains of a white man were found along Bowers Road, about a mile from Alpine Valley Music Theater, on March 26, 2002.
The man is believed to have been between 40 and 55 years old and between 5-foot-7 to 6-foot-2.
The bones were probably there for three to 10 years. Investigators believe a blow to the head killed him, and the case remains an unsolved homicide. The man's description did not match anyone missing from Walworth County, Nigbor said. However, people sometimes go missing and aren't reported, she added.
-- Larry L. Zink of Delavan has not been seen since Sept. 27, 1995, according to the missing persons Web site charleyproject.org. His car was found abandoned in a gravel pit 40 miles north of Pickle Lake, Ontario, Canada, according to the Web site, which spelled his last name "Zinc."
The Walworth County Sheriff's Department's issued Zink a verbal warning for a traffic violation in 1994, Nigbor said. It was the last known police contact with him. Zink would be 69 now. Ontario Provincial Police are investigating.
-- Georgia Jean Weckler, an 8-year-old girl from Fort Atkinson, was last seen May 1, 1947. She was dropped off at her home after school by a neighbor. She got the mail and was walking up the driveway and was never seen again, according to newspaper accounts and charleyproject.org.
Several witnesses reported seeing a black, 1936 Ford in the area that afternoon. Police once considered notorious serial killer Edward Gein as a suspect because he had a 1937 black Ford, according to the Web site.
Fifty years later, former Delavan Town Chairman Ed Lindloff said he believed Weckler is buried under a city floral shop and greenhouse off Highway 11. He was working on a nearby farm when the shop was being built in 1947 and said he saw two men put an object about the size of a child in the ground and cover it with dirt, according to newspaper reports.
When Search Parties Grow
(Published Saturday, August 4, 2007 10:11:21 PM CST)
By Mike Heine and
Frank Schultz/Gazette staff
Kelly Nolan-a 22-year-old UW-Whitewater student.
Mahalia Xiong-a 21-year-old UW-Green Bay student.
Francine Tate-a 50-year-old Madison woman.
They didn't know each other, but they had one thing in common.
Each went missing.
Both college students were found dead weeks after being last seen. Tate ran away and was found alive near Phelps, more than 200 miles north of Madison.
Each case drew national media attention and had hordes of police and volunteers out looking.
Why? Because their circumstances were different than the majority of reported missing person cases, police said.
Most missing persons are found, usually rather quickly, said investigators for the Janesville Police Department and the Rock and Walworth county sheriff's departments.
"I have to assume that it's unusual for these people to disappear," Dana Nigbor, Walworth County Sheriff's Department captain of investigations said of the three recent Wisconsin cases.
"Typically, we may have people with mental health issues that leave their home or people from bad homes," Nigbor said. "These appear, at least on the surface, to be educated women. It's unusual for them not to be in touch with family. That's what prompted the large response from law enforcement."
Most missing-person cases are juvenile runaways who are usually found within one or two days, Nigbor said. Most of the time it's the runaway returning or calling home that closes the case.
Usually, investigators find reasons for the absences-a poor home life, arguments with parents, dementia, depression, drug or alcohol binges, or a family or friend who leaves the area, taking someone with them.
The scope of a search is determined in large part by the circumstances, investigators said.
All three agencies said that when they get a missing-persons call, they send an officer to interview family and friends and search places the person is likely to go to.
There's no waiting for 24 or 48 hours before getting serious about it, said Janesville police Lt. Tim Hiers. It's a priority call, meaning an officer is sent as soon as one is available.
"Right from get-go, they try to make the determination, 'What's the gravity here?'" Hiers said.
The gravity determines investigators' next steps. The more serious it is, the more resources are thrown into the case.
"You've got to listen to the details on each one. Each one's a little different," said Lt. Todd Christiansen of the Rock County Sheriff Department.
A Teletype is sent out to area police, and descriptions are often broadcast on police radios, Nigbor said.
In Rock County, they call it a "bolo," or be-on-the-lookout notification that appears on squad-car computer screens.
If the missing persons are believed to be in danger, the case is also entered into state and national online databases so they are available to other police departments. Juveniles who disappear are entered on those databases right away.
Both sheriffs' departments said they can issue fliers for their cases, splashing the missing person's face around the community.
Hiers said Janesville police welcome any independent efforts to post leaflets about missing loved ones, as well.
An unexpected missing person receives more attention. Often, the age or ability for a person to care for themselves is a factor in the scope of the search, Nigbor said.
"If we get a call from someone that says, 'I've lost my 4-year-old. I can't find them,' everybody's out there," she said.
Abduction was suspected when two Janesville boys failed to show up for school last fall. Multiple detectives and officers were on the case almost immediately, Hiers recalled.
It turned out that one boy hurt his ankle while climbing a tree. They were on their way home when an officer spotted them.
Such cases require an inside-out search, said Elkhorn Police Chief Joel Christensen. Responding officers search the immediate area where a child was last seen and move outward from there. Oftentimes a child was just hiding or wandered to a neighbor's house.
"They like to go a lot of places they're familiar with; a friend's or neighbor's (home)," Christensen said. "Quite often that's where they head."
Searches that last longer may include retrieving a person's fingerprints and dental records, checking with hospitals and coroners offices and interviewing family, friends, co-workers, schoolmates, teachers and anyone else who may have had contact with the person.
Hiers said the Janesville police will post dental records on a nationwide database if circumstances warrant.
"You hope the person is found alive," but the facts may indicate the worst has happened, Hiers said. Families often find it difficult to face that possibility when the request comes for dental records.
Cases with unusual disappearance circumstances are rare, Nigbor said. The last such case investigated by the Walworth County Sheriff's Department was when Wanda Greenlee of Walworth went missing unexpectedly. She was found murdered in a remote area near the Fontana municipal well in late 2001.
"That started as a missing person. When that complaint came in, there was suspicion all over the place," Nigbor said. "Her vehicle was found at Menard's in Janesville. She left to be with her boyfriend and didn't return.
"Is there a line in the sand that says this is what we do during this situation or this is what we do in that situation? Yes, but we also relied on common sense that we needed to do more on this one," Nigbor said.
After juvenile runaways, the most common type of missing person is one with mental disabilities who leave a controlled environment, such as a group home, Nigbor said.
"Chances are we find these people very quickly," Nigbor said. "It's just more obvious when they're out and about. They're not able to take care of themselves sometimes. Even walking down the road draws attention, or they try to break into someone's house because they get scared."
It's rare that missing persons are never heard from again. Sometimes, bodies are found months later. Such was the case of Janesville's Arlando Cardenas, 28.
Cardenas' body was found July 8 in an abandoned rural garage after being missing more than seven months. Foul play is not suspected. Investigators are awaiting autopsy results.
Hiers said he is satisfied with the tools police have at their disposal. He couldn't point to any particular investigative problems.
"You know what the frustrating part of it is, it's that you're not finding them right away," Hiers said. "It's frustrating for the family, and it's frustrating for us."
Local missing persons cases
Janesville police have four cases listed in the missing-persons file of the National Crime Information Center:
-- Mary E. Golbuff, who lived at 1039 S. Pearl St., was 71 when she was last seen Nov. 14, 1996 near the bank of the Rock River. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Police believe she drowned in the river.
-- Michael J. Black, who lived at 104 Glenview Court, was 48 when he was last seen Nov. 16, 2002. He had made suicidal statements. Black was an ophthalmologist at Dean Riverview Clinic and a scuba diver. His Ford Expedition with an empty boat trailer was found Nov. 21, 2002, parked at Harborside Yacht Club along Lake Michigan south of Milwaukee.
n John K. Moseley, who lived at 233 N. Washington St., was 56 when he was last seen Nov. 13, 2003. Police believe he might have been depressed and/or suicidal.
-- Andrew S. Ambrose, 42, of 161 Linn St., was last seen July 3, 2007. He had told family members that he was going to visit relatives in Missouri.
The Rock County Sheriff's Department has no current, unsolved cases, but missing-persons Web sites list these cases that originated in other jurisdictions:
-- James A. "Steve" Clemons was 72 when he went missing June 17, 2000. He may have been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Clemons was a New York City resident and a truck driver. He became stuck in the mud near Rochester, Minn., on June 17, 2000, and police helped get him back onto the road and gave him directions to his destination near Milwaukee.
He was last seen walking away from the vehicle near the interchange of Interstates 90/39 and 43 in Beloit. The dump truck he was driving was found on Millington Road.
-- Nyleen Kay Marshall was 4 when she disappeared June 25, 1983, from Clancy, Mont. Marshall was with her family on a picnic in the Helena National Forest when she disappeared while walking with playmates.
In 1986, someone sent investigators a letter saying that they had picked up "a girl named Kay." The letter included details that had not been released to the general public. The writer said he taught Kay and traveled with her. He said he loved her and did not want to give her up. The letter was postmarked from Madison.
An anonymous caller who claimed to be the author of the letter called the Child Find Network about the case several times. The calls were traced to phone booths, including one at a pharmacy in Edgerton. There was also a possible sighting of Marshall in a restaurant in Janesville.
Walworth County missing persons include:
-- Ruth Egnoski was 18 when she disappeared in 1966. Private investigators hired by the family said she took a bus from Delavan to Chicago, but they lost her trail there.
Police found Egnoski's driver's license and Social Security card in the custodian's office of Wileman Elementary School in Delavan in 1973. Her father worked there as a custodian, school officials told The Janesville Gazette.
In the mid-1980s, a school employee found two blue, hard-sided suitcases hidden above the suspended ceiling in the custodian's office, according to newspaper reports.
In 2002, police dug a 12-foot-wide pit behind 1014 Center St., Delavan, the house Egnoski lived in since it was built in 1962. Her family sold the home in 1971. Police found a crawl space under the family room of the house but no evidence connected to Egnoski's disappearance.
-- William Brooks of East Troy disappeared in the 1930s. Local lore says he often fished on Lake Beulah.
He failed to show up at the Wilmers Point boat landing one day. A rowboat with a paddle Brooks made was found beached on the north shore of the lake, directly across from the landing.
In August 2005, two divers found human bones 57 feet deep in the lake. Coins from the 1930s were found nearby. Authorities believe the bones could be Brooks, but the Walworth County Sheriff's Department does not have the resources to conduct DNA testing to verify the suspicion. That would require exhuming Brooks' deceased mother or sister to get necessary DNA from the female side of the family.
"We suspect it's that person," Capt. Dana Nigbor said. "We took the investigation as far as we could for a missing persons case."
-- The unidentified remains of a white man were found along Bowers Road, about a mile from Alpine Valley Music Theater, on March 26, 2002.
The man is believed to have been between 40 and 55 years old and between 5-foot-7 to 6-foot-2.
The bones were probably there for three to 10 years. Investigators believe a blow to the head killed him, and the case remains an unsolved homicide. The man's description did not match anyone missing from Walworth County, Nigbor said. However, people sometimes go missing and aren't reported, she added.
-- Larry L. Zink of Delavan has not been seen since Sept. 27, 1995, according to the missing persons Web site charleyproject.org. His car was found abandoned in a gravel pit 40 miles north of Pickle Lake, Ontario, Canada, according to the Web site, which spelled his last name "Zinc."
The Walworth County Sheriff's Department's issued Zink a verbal warning for a traffic violation in 1994, Nigbor said. It was the last known police contact with him. Zink would be 69 now. Ontario Provincial Police are investigating.
-- Georgia Jean Weckler, an 8-year-old girl from Fort Atkinson, was last seen May 1, 1947. She was dropped off at her home after school by a neighbor. She got the mail and was walking up the driveway and was never seen again, according to newspaper accounts and charleyproject.org.
Several witnesses reported seeing a black, 1936 Ford in the area that afternoon. Police once considered notorious serial killer Edward Gein as a suspect because he had a 1937 black Ford, according to the Web site.
Fifty years later, former Delavan Town Chairman Ed Lindloff said he believed Weckler is buried under a city floral shop and greenhouse off Highway 11. He was working on a nearby farm when the shop was being built in 1947 and said he saw two men put an object about the size of a child in the ground and cover it with dirt, according to newspaper reports.
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