Thursday, December 20, 2007

Julia Shimkus now missing 35 years, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Julia is one of the most recent additions to the index of this blog. Unfortunately there do not seem to be very good photos or descriptions of her, but hopefully that will not make too much of a difference. (No offense to the people who posted her information!)
Maybe you can help fill in the blanks??
From http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/shimkus_julia.html:


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
Missing Since: December 20, 1972 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Classification: Endangered Missing
Age: 54 years old
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female.
Medical Conditions: Shimkus suffered from depression after her husband's 1965 death, but her family does not believe she was depressed at the time of her disappearance.

Details of Disappearance
Shimkus was last seen in the Esplen section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1972. She left her house in the 200 block of Oregon Street at 5:00 p.m. to walk to work. Shimkus was employed as a cook at the Rockwood Lounge in the McKees Rocks Shopping Plaza at the time. She has never been heard from again. She did not take any personal belongings with her.
The new owner found bone fragments in the crawl space of Shimkus's former home in 1995, but they turned out to be from an animal. Shimkus's husband died of cancer in 1965. In 1972, Shimkus lived with her daughter. Her adult son was married and lived elsewhere in Pittsburgh. Shimkus was on good terms with both of her children at the time of her disappearance and was considering marrying her boyfriend.
There are some indications that Shimkus is remained alive for an extended period of time after she went missing, but there have been no confirmed sighting of her since 1972. Her case remains unsolved.

Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Kentucky State Police
800-222-5555


Or, you can call the Pittsburgh Police Department at (412) 665-4020.

Julia did get mentioned in a 2005 news article about another missing person from Pittsburgh, Patrick Kenney. An excerpt from that (full article at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05136/505176.stm):
Erin Bruno, a case manager at the National Center for Missing Adults, a
nonprofit organization based in Phoenix that provides support and guidance to
the families of missing people, said she creates missing persons fliers and
explains law enforcement procedures to families.
"We're kind of like an
intermediary, a middle man between law enforcement and those families," Bruno
said. "A lot of time, law enforcement has so many things going on, so we're able
to answer those questions for the families."
Joseph S. Shimkus contacted the
organization in November, desperate for a revival of his mother's case.
It
has been 32 years since Julia Shimkus left her Esplen home on a December evening
on her way to her job as a cook at the Rockwood Lounge in the McKees Rocks
Shopping Plaza.
But Joseph is still searching.
Through the years, he's
written letters to the television show, "Unsolved Mysteries," lobbying to have
her story featured on the show, and he's traveled to Atlanta, where he surmised
his mother may have traveled with a male companion, knocking on doors and
talking to local police.
In 1995, the owners of the home where Julia Shimkus
lived when she disappeared, found bone fragments in a crawl space beneath the
kitchen. The family was hopeful they would finally have some closure.
But the
coroner ruled they were animal bones.
"It's been terrible," Shimkus, 63, of
Valencia, said. "I want closure on the darn thing. I take that pic with me a lot
of places when I'm down Florida or vacationing in Canada, I'm always looking.
When I'm on a cruise. I'm always looking."

(See http://betweenlifeanddeath.blogspot.com/2006/02/my-missing-people.html for a list of the still-missing people I have posted about, as well as more cases that I am following but have yet to post. Do not let the date fool you; it is updated continually!)

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