Denise Pflum Denise Pflum was a 18-year-old
girl living with her parents, Judy and David and her younger sister, Jenny
in Connersville, Indiana. On 27th March 1986, Denise attended a party on a farmland. As it was
spring break, most students were off and what was supposed to be a small gathering of friends turned into several hundred teenagers. Denise returned to her house that night
but would forget her purse at the party. The next day on 28th March 1986, Denise left her
home to retrieve her purse from the farmland. She had asked her friends to accompany her but
they were busy. She also asked her sister but she couldn’t accompany her as she had a softball
practice. So, Denise decided to go alone. She was not carrying her identification, or the carrying case or cleaning solution for
her contact lenses when she left her home. She would never return back home. Her mother
Judy, later said “We’re not sure why she didn’t want to go alone. She was fearless. Ever since
she was a child. So for her to be uncomfortable to go back to the site of the party is
unnerving. Something wasn’t right.” The owner of the farmland said
Denise never arrived at his property. A friend had reportedly seen her at 2:00
PM at a Fashion Bug store on 30th street. Later that day, a distant cousin of Denise, who
had gone to school with her, returned her purse to Judy. When Denise did not arrive back home by
that evening, her parents reported her missing. The following day, Denise’s cream-colored
1981 Buick Regal was found by a farmer alongside a Tower Road, a rural gravel road
east of Glenwood, Indiana. He stated that the car had been there since between 12:30 p.m.
and 1:15 p.m. the day she went missing. He said he didn’t report it to police earlier as he
thought the car belonged to mushroom hunters. The area where her car was found was
in a rural area across the county from where Denise lived and about
3 miles away from the Farmland. Her family stated they could not think of
any reason that she would have gone to that area. There was no indication that a
struggle had taken place at the scene. Judy said that Denise had recently broken
up with her boyfriend of 3 years and she was trying to be more social. The police carried
out searches using canine as well as helicopters, however, nothing would turn up. There were
multiple suspects according to the police but there was not enough evidence to charge anyone.
Years would go by with no update in the case. Then 34 years later, in 2020, Shawn M. McClung was
arrested and charged with Voluntarily Manslaughter of Denise. Shawn was Denise’s Ex-boyfriend of 3
years. He had been questioned by the police previously but had claimed that Denise was still alive, but more recently,
he admitted to killing her. Shawn pleaded not guilty during a court appearance and his Bond
was set at $500,000. It is still unclear how Denise died and her body has never been found. The
investigation into her homicide is still ongoing. Esther Lucille Westenbarger Esther Lucille Westenbarger was 51-year-old
woman who had just recently moved to Kokomo, Indiana from Fostoria, Ohio to be closer to
her family. She had just gotten a hefty buyout package from Chrysler and was looking
to enjoy some time with her family. On November 12, 2009, she went out
with some new friends to Hoosier's Bar. She parked her gold 2005 Cadillac CTS bearing
Ohio personalized registration plate MSESTER at the bar. She then walked to Miller’s
Tavern in the area. At around 1:30 am, she left the bar and walked on foot towards her
car. This was the last time she was seen again. The next day, Esther had planned a surprise party
for her mother who was turning 73 on November 14. However, when the family tried calling her
they could not reach her ahead of the party. They visited her home but no was there.
She was eventually reported missing. Police launched a search investigation and
found that her car was missing as well. The people with whom Esther was bar hoping
with were questioned but to no avail. There would be no updates
or any leads in the case for 11 years. Then on June 17, 2020, Howard County 911 Dispatch
Center received a call from local fisherman stating that they believed they saw a car covered
in algae at the bottom of a retention pond. The police pulled out the car from the pond and
found human remains inside. The vehicle was identified as a gold 2005 Cadillac CTS bearing
Ohio registration “MSESTER”. An autopsy performed by a forensic pathologist confirmed that the
remains were of Esther Lucille Westenbarger. Foul play is not suspected in her death and it is
believed that Esther had too much to drink and she accidentally drove her
car into the retention pond. Blanca Otero Alvarez Blanca Otero Alvarez was born
in Quitilipi, Argentina in 1952. Both her parents were Spanish and in 1973, her and her two brothers along with their parents
would move back to Saelices de Sabero, Spain. Blanca was working as an elementary school
teacher in Argentina when she moved to Spain. However, she would have a hard time finding job as
a teacher in Spain. So, she decided to change her career and moved to the city of León, where she
found a job in RENFE (A railway company in Spain). She would visit her family
regularly at their family home. But sometime in 1995, Blanca (then 43 years
old) would disappear and would never return to her home in León. When the family didn’t hear from her for few
days, they decided to visit her home in León. When they arrived at her apartment they couldn’t
find her. They asked her friends and colleagues, but no one had seen her. She had left
behind all her belongings in her apartment. However, the family wouldn’t report her missing
until 2 years later in 1997. According to one of her brothers, she was not reported missing because
their father “didn’t want to report her missing.” Shortly after she was reported missing, the
police located her to be living in Gijón. However, Blanca did not want to contact her family and
as she was an adult, the police could not force her to get in touch with her family. Her mother
and the 2 brother decided to visit her Gijón. They found out where she was living but when they
arrived at her apartment, she was already gone. The family would not hear from her for next
8 years. Then in 2005, Blanca would send a letter to her family with a current photo of
herself. In the letter she said that she was fine and asked for her father to forgive
her for leaving. She also wrote that someday she will get in touch with her brothers. Her
father would pass away a year later in 2006. Her family hoped that she would get in touch with
them soon but years would pass and they would hear nothing from her leading them to believe
that she may have died. In 2013, one of the brothers found a police sketch of an unidentified
middle-aged dead woman found on Camello Beach, Santander. The unidentified woman was known as
“La Dama Del Camello” and was found in 2001. The family believed the woman to be
Blanca. However, a DNA test ruled her out. To this day, “La Dama Del
Camello” remains unidentified. In September 2020, a 68-year-old woman named Eva
was reported missing in Pola de Siero, Asturias, Spain by her neighbours after not
hearing or seeing her for few days. The police tried ringing Eva’s doorbell but no
one answered. The door was locked from the inside, indicating that the woman was in the house.
They finally broke into the house to find Eva sitting on the floor, unable to move due to
a problem in her legs. She was conscious but extremely dehydrated and disoriented.
She was transferred to HUCA hospital. In the meantime, the police tried finding
her family to let them know of her condition. However, to their surprise, the identity by
which she was known among the neighbourhood did not coincide with the data that appeared both
in the address and in the HUCA database. Her identity was found to be fake and her true identity
was revealed to be Blanca Otero Alvarez. Blanca had been living in Pola de Siero for years
under name Eva. She made money by babysitting, taking care of pets and house cleaning. In the
recent years, her health had been deteriorating. Blanca’s family has been contacted. Blanca
mother is 90 years old now and lives in a nursing home in Gijón. No information was
given on why she initially disappeared or the motivations behind alluding the
grasp of family for so many years. Shirlene "Cheryl" Hammack Shirlene “Cheryl” Hammack was a young 18-year-old
woman living with her parents in Thomaston, Georgia. In fall of 1981, Cheryl decided to
join a touring fair to earn some money to see the country. She would call the family
3 to 4 times a week after joining the fair. One day though, she told the family that she had met
someone and was planning on moving to Texas. She said that she would return at Christmas and
that they should leave a gift for her under the tree. Cheryl would stop calling after that and the
family got worried when they didn’t hear from her in a week. She would never return to her family
to celebrate the fabled Christmas she spoke of. A few months later, her family received Cheryl’s wallet and driver’s
license in the mail but with no return address. It was this point that her mother decided to
report her missing to police. Despite the investigation into her disappearance the family
would receive no updates on her case for years. In October of 1981, a body of an unidentified
woman was found beside a small, dirt lane entrance to a cornfield in Dixie, Georgia. The victim was
covered slightly with freshly cut branches and foliage to hide her. The police determined she
had been stabbed in the abdomen and strangled. There was no identification found at the crime
scene. They determined the victim was a young white woman, about 5 feet and 2 inches tall,
weighed around 105 pounds with shoulder brown hair and hazel eyes. They estimated that she
was somewhere between 18 and 24 years old. Without any leads as to the woman’s identity, she
was buried in a grave with a headstone which read: “Known only to God.” She
also had a forensic sketch, which the police drew during the
investigation, carved into the slab. Soon, a witness told the police that a motor
home with Alabama License plates was seen near the crime scene. Police found the motor
home and arrested a man named George Newsome. The motor home was later found to
be stolen from an another state. Police searched the motor home and found a
rope that they believe matched the one which was used to strangle the young woman. They also
found the knife that was used to murder her. Initially, George refused to cooperate with
the investigators and said he had nothing to do with the murder. About a week after his
arrest, George escaped from the Brooks County Jail and remained a fugitive for 2 years.
He was finally caught on January 13, 1983. Upon his recapture, he confessed to her
murder but did not disclose her identity. George said he had met the woman at a
travelling fair in Tallahassee, Florida. He said he argued with her about
another man and killed her in Quitman. He pled guilty and was sentenced to
life in prison. He died on August 10, 1988 from natural causes but he never
disclosed the young woman’s Identity. The case went cold for 3 decades. The police tried everything to try and identify
the woman but to no avail. Then on Halloween 2018, 37 years after her
murder, the police received a tip from woman named Kayla Bishop, that the unidentified
woman resembled her childhood friend, known to her as Cheryl Hammack. She told
them that Cheryl had gone missing in 1981 after traveling with a fair. Kayla had seen the
sketch on Facebook and had contacted the police. Following the tip, the police contacted
Cheryl’s surviving family members, her mother and her sisters. The
circumstances surrounding Cheryl’s disappearance provided by the family members
were consistent with their investigation. The victim’s body was exhumed and an extensive
DNA testing was done for 1 and a half year against the samples provided by Cheryl’s family members.
On January 9th 2020, the unidentified woman was finally confirmed to be Shirlene "Cheryl" Hammack.
The case was finally solved after 37 years and her family could finally get some closure Billy Fiegener Billy Fiegener was just 22
years old when went missing. Born in Brooklyn, Billy had been getting into
serious trouble living there. In 1984, his parents decided to send him to a horse ranch
in California owned by a former neighbour in hopes of separating him from bad influences.
He lived and worked there for some time but in late 1984 or 1985 he seemingly disappeared and
the family never got to find out what happened to him. On October 27th, 1985, A father and son were
walking on ranch in Parker County in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area hoping to find a place to
potentially build a new home, when they stumbled upon skeletonized remains. They immediately
notified the police. The remains had been buried in a shallow grave which was partially covered by
foliage and had been dug up by animals. The victim was believed to be between the ages of 15-20. He
had been shot to death and clothes including a pair of “Guess” Blue jeans and a “Union Bay” white
fleece jacket had been strewn across the area. Although clothes were present at the scene, police were unable to find any identification. Sheriff’s deputies began checking missing-person reports, but couldn’t
find anyone matching the description. The victim was given the name “John Parker Doe.”
Years would go by and the case grew cold. Over the years, Authorities tried
everything from Facial reconstruction, DNA phenotyping and Genealogical testing
to try and identify the young victim. In 2018, DNA was extracted and sent to Parabon
Nanolabs to determine the victims characteristics which were previously unknown. Through DNA
phenotyping, John Parker Doe was finally given a face. He had a fair skin, brown or hazel eyes,
brown or black hair, zero or few freckles and was of European ancestry. This disputed their earlier
assumptions that the victim was of mixed race. With the new information, a more accurate
3-D facial reconstruction was made. But, it still did not generate any leads. CeCe Moore from Parabon Nanolabs uploaded
the victims DNA to GEDmatch and over the next 18 months hundreds of hours were spent to try
and find any relative of John Parker Doe. Soon, they found a potential
first and second cousin. However, the cousins were found to be adopted
and did not know their biological Family. The genealogists then tried to find biological
parents of the adoptees to be able to find some lead for John Parker Doe eventually. They were able to find
a possible birth father of one of the adoptees. But, they couldn’t confirm it through
DNA as the man was already deceased. Fortunately, one of the man’s biological
sons agreed to take DNA test and it was uploaded to GEDmatch. In a break through, it was found
that he was the first cousin to John Parker Doe. CeCe Moore then built a family tree and
searched for a male between the ages of 15-20 that had gone missing. She found one name in the New York birth index that seemed like it could be a match No records were available for him after he entered
in his 20’s. His name was Billy Fiegener. Authorities soon tracked down Billy’s
parents who were living in Florida. The family provided a DNA sample and a DNA test
confirmed the victim indeed was Billy Fiegener. Hurricane Sandy had destroyed all the photos
for when Billy lived in Brooklyn. But his family was able to provide a photo
from grade school. Determined to find answers, investigators tracked down
the people who worked with Billy on the California ranch. It was found that while working at
the ranch, Billy met a guy named Forrest Ethington who lived in Dallas Area. Forrest
convinced Billy to join him and travel to Texas where they would perform several robberies. The
pair pulled of some heists together in Texas and then Billy decided to fly solo. However, Billy got
caught and was set to go to court for the robbery. This worried Forrest because Billy might turn
on him and reveal his robberies as well. Forrest then told a witness that
he was going to kill Billy to silence him. Forrest then went to the remote
part of Texas ranch and shot billy once in the back of the head. The detectives were all
set to charge Forrest for Billy’s murder. However, in January 2020, Detectives
found out that Forrest was already dead. After Billy’s death, while performing a
heist at a coin shop In Pantego, Texas, one of the members of the crew that Forrest
had organized, killed the owner of the shop. The FBI caught Forrest after he tried
to sell the coins at a coin show. Forrest served 5 years in jail for
the crime before appealing in 1991. In 2010, he was again arrested. This time for aggravated
sexual assault of a person under the age of 18. He died in prison, in October of 2019. Billy’s disappearance
and his murder was finally solved after 35 years. And although his family did not get the justice they so wanted they got the closure they deserved.
