CUE Center's 2008 On the Road to Remember Tour update

Among the many missing persons (and a few homicide victims) who are being included in the tour are a few that have been posted on this blog: Audrey May Herron (from Catskill, New York), Audrey Lyn Nerenberg (from Brooklyn, New York), William "Billy" Smolinski, Jr. (Waterbury, Connecticut), Cynthia Day (East Saint Louis, Illinois), and Jason Jolkowski (Omaha, Nebraska). In total there are 110 missing people and six murder victims featured.

So far there are stops planned in the states of North Carolina, West Virginia, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee.

For a complete list of both stops and featured people, as well as some background information on the event, see http://www.angelsthatcare.org/OTRT__List_and_Info.doc.

Note: Locations for missing people are according to those given in the document, so they may different from what is stated elsewhere on this blog.

Karen Adams missing from Independence Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania

I first found out about Karen on the Porchlight International message boards. She has been on the index of this blog for a little while, but this is my first post on her. She has started making the news again!
From http://kdka.com/local/Missing.Beaver.County.2.609601.html:

Dec 12, 2007 9:48 pm US/Eastern
FBI Probes Case Of Missing Beaver Co Woman
BEAVER (KDKA) ―
The FBI i is now involved in the case of a woman from
Beaver County who disappeared without a trace nine months ago. Karen Adams was
last seen in March when she left her home in Independence Township apparently on
her way to Mountaineer Gaming Resort in West Virginia.
There has been no
activity reported on her cell phone or credit cards since she went missing.
She lived with her brother, John Adams, who fears the worst. He says she
would have never left her beloved dog Amy behind.
"When I'd take a vacation,
she'd take a vacation just so the dog wasn't left alone for a long time. I just
don't believe that she left on her own, that something, somebody got her," he
tells KDKA.
When they last spoke the night of her disappearance, Adams
pleaded with his sister to stop blowing money at the casino. He holds out hope
that he will speak to her again someday.
"You know, I just say a little prayer and say, you know, maybe, 'Hope come on home, me and Amy miss you,' and that's it," he said.
Crews from the Independence Township Police Department
and the Hancock County Sheriff's Office launched another search for the missing
woman – this time using a helicopter in their efforts.
The search centered around New Manchester, West Virginia – which is just across
the Beaver County line.
Investigators say it's still an open case.

The most recent update on the search from http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07347/841305-57.stm:

Chopper searches for missing Independence woman
Thursday, December 13,
2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
With the help of a state police helicopter,
authorities in Independence searched for evidence in the disappearence of a
Beaver County woman nine months ago.
Karen Adams has been missing since she
left her Independence home in March to go to the Mountaineer Race Track &
Gaming Resort in West Virginia.
Local police have found no activity on her
cell phone or credit cards since, and now they are hoping the FBI will help with
the investigation, Independence police Officer Lance Malobabich
said.
Yesterday, police traced the routes Ms. Adams could have taken on the
way to the casino to see whether her maroon car or any other evidence could be
spotted.
"They thought they'd see if maybe she went over a bank somewhere,"
Officer Malobabich said. "But they didn't find anything."
First published on
December 13, 2007 at 12:00 am

Another article with description and contact information (http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=32534):

Authorities Search West Virginia for Missing Pennsylvania Woman
Posted Wednesday, December 12, 2007 ; 09:00 PM
Updated Wednesday, December 12, 2007 ; 09:19 PM
Read description below
and call police with any information.
Story by Leigh Ann Towne
CHESTER -- Local sheriff's deputies aided Pennsylvania
authorities on Wendnesday in searching for a woman who was last spotted in
Hancock County, West Virginia, according to Hancock County 911.
911 added, a
helicopter was used in an aerial search and some deputies even searched a wooded
area on foot.
Authorities are looking for Karen Adams, 54, of Pennsylvania.
Adams was reported missing earlier this year. She was last seen at
Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort, driving a four-door maroon Suzuki with
license plate number ETD5587.
Adams is described as a white female with
green eyes, brown hair. She is 5'4" and weighs 120 pounds.
The search on
Wednesday turned up nothing. If you have any information please contact
Independence police at (724)378-7774.

According to an older article from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Karen was seen leaving the casino on surveillance videos at 4:00 AM on March 12. Someone also accessed her cell phone voice mail at 4:35 AM.

Jerry Cushey Jr.: Article in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently featured a lengthly article on Jerry Lee Cushey Jr. Apparently last weekend was his birthday. The article includes a photo, law enforcement contact information, and a detailed history of the case. Bravo, Post-Gazette!

After five years, family continues to seek closure
Sunday, December 24, 2006
By Janice Crompton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Jerry Lee Cushey
Jr.
You can help
If you have information about the disappearance of Jerry Cushey, please
contact investigator Jan Chico at 724-366-3188 or state police in Belle Vernon
at 724-929-6262.
This weekend, Jerry Cushey Jr. would have celebrated his
35th birthday.
He is spoken of in the past tense because his family believes
Jerry is dead.
They have worked tirelessly for closure, for the Christian
burial they believe Jerry deserves, but loved ones say they have been foiled and
frustrated at every turn by a police investigation they say was mishandled from
the start.
"I have cried so many tears so many nights," said Sonya
Helmantoler of Monongahela, Jerry's older sister by 15 months. "I don't know why
they won't do anything with this case. I will not go away. I want to know what
happened."
Jerry disappeared five years ago on the day he was moving into a
new apartment with an old acquaintance, Christopher Myers. The pair made plans
to move into an apartment above a tattoo business that Mr. Myers owned, Totally
Tattoos on Second Street in Monongahela.
Jerry didn't go to work on Oct. 12,
2001, because he planned to do some work on the apartment with Mr. Myers,
according to family members. He picked up his paycheck from the local
construction company he worked for and cashed it at a local beer distributor
after making plans with some co-workers to meet at a local social club later
that night.
Jerry never made the rendezvous with his co-workers, and was
last seen by a friend outside the tattoo shop early in the evening.
Since
that time, Mr. Myers has been arrested for impersonating Jerry in phone calls to
his mother and police, a possible eyewitness has come forward and new evidence
has been unearthed by a private investigator, but no arrests have been made in
Jerry's disappearance to the dismay of his family.
In the days after Jerry
vanished, a Jeep Wrangler that Jerry often borrowed from his father was returned
to the home of the elder Mr. Cushey, who saw a man who was not his son park the
vehicle in his yard.
When family members asked Mr. Myers where Jerry was,
they said he told them Jerry stole his van and $1,500. He reported the van
missing on Oct. 16, 2001, but the vehicle had already been found the day before
by West Virginia police over an embankment near Cheat Lake. A stick was lodged
against the accelerator and a tree kept the van from plunging into a stream.
During the next several weeks, Jerry's mother, Ilona Boyd, along with the
Pennsylvania State Police and Union Township police, received several phone
calls from a person claiming to be Jerry and giving several excuses as to why he
left town, including that he was going to Arizona with a girlfriend and that he
owed someone $10,000 and was living in West Virginia. The voice was not Jerry's,
Mrs. Boyd said.
Mr. Myers made the phone calls, state police later
determined. Police charged him in October 2004 with three counts of tampering
with evidence for impersonating Jerry and one count of obstructing the
administration of law or other governmental functions for secretly returning
Jerry Cushey Sr.'s Jeep the day after Jerry Jr.'s disappearance, then denying
it.
When confronted by police about returning the Jeep, Mr. Myers said: "OK.
In the beginning I denied it because I was scared. I just didn't want to get
involved," according to a criminal complaint filed by police.
In the
complaint, Mr. Myers also commented about being caught placing the crank phone
calls: "Okay. You were on me hard," said Mr. Myers, who has a juvenile criminal
record for burglary. "I knew that because of my prior past. I was trying to get
you guys off of me, not to look at me. I know I look bad."
When Mr. Myers
was arraigned on the criminal charges, he was jailed on a $75,000 straight cash
bond, but a month later, the bond was dropped by Washington County Common Pleas
Court Judge Katherine Emery. Mr. Myers was released on his own recognizance with
the condition that he report weekly to state police.
It's unclear if Mr.
Myers has kept up his part of the bargain, but court records show numerous trial
continuances requested by his lawyer.
Beginning in October 2005, Mr. Myers'
lawyer, Dianne Zerega, has requested and been granted five delays, citing
ongoing cooperation with the county district attorney's office.
In court
papers filed Oct. 6, 2005, Ms. Zerega asked the court for a continuance,
stating: "The defendant came to an agreement with the district attorney's office
which has not been completed."
A month later, on Nov. 2, 2005, Ms. Zerega
requested and was granted a continuance for the same reason, and on May 22,
2006, court filings by Ms. Zerega state: "The defendant has not completed his
activity for the commonwealth."
On Sept. 6, 2006 and Nov. 21, 2006, Ms.
Zerega had appealed to county Common Pleas Court Judge John DiSalle for more
continuances, stating that Mr. Myers has entered plea agreement negotiations
with the district attorney's office.
None of the records include details of
Mr. Myers' cooperation.
His next hearing before Judge DiSalle is scheduled
for Feb. 26, 2007.
Mr. Myers and District Attorney John C. Pettit could not
be reached for comment, and Ms. Zerega declined comment.
Jerry's family
can't understand why Mr. Myers hasn't been charged in Jerry's disappearance, or
why more information about other possible suspects hasn't been forthcoming since
his arrest more than two years ago.
State police Cpl. Brian Barnhart said he
couldn't disclose Mr. Myers' level of cooperation, but said he has sympathy for
the Cushey family.
"I feel terrible for them," he said. "It's very
difficult."
Cpl. Barnhart said the investigation still is active and
interviews are ongoing.
Jerry's family has gone to incredible lengths to
find the answers that still elude them, including consulting five psychics and
undertaking an investigation of their own.
The family raised $3,500 during a
fund-raiser to hire a private investigator, but said they "never received a
shred of paper" from the Pittsburgh agency. This summer, they consulted private
investigator Jan Chico of Newell, Fayette County, who has taken on the case at
no charge.
Ms. Helmantoler said Ms. Chico has been indispensable to the
case, gathering new evidence and information that hopefully will yield results.
The family continues to hang missing posters on utility poles in
Monongahela, Charleroi, and outside of another tattoo business Mr. Myers owns in
Connellsville.
"They will always see my brother's face," Ms. Helmantoler
said.
The family pushed police to search Cheat Lake, along with the
Monongahela River, which was scoured last summer, but the family also has formed
and organized search parties that provided police with possible evidence, such
as an Adidas ball cap they believe Jerry was wearing.
Ms. Helmantoler took a
four-week leave of absence from work and, along with several members of her
family, spent every day searching the area near Cheat Lake where Mr. Myers' van
was found. They came up with several items, including rubber gloves and a towel
covered with an unknown substance. Ms. Helmantoler said they turned the items
over to police but never heard anything more about them.
Most recently, Ms.
Helmantoler sent a mass mailing to local and state politicians and government
officials requesting help in the case. Several sent back responses, she said,
and indicated they would try to assist.
She also sent a complaint to the
state Judicial Review Board over the continued delays in Mr. Myers' case. The
agency said it would investigate.
Ms. Helmantoler said it took several weeks
for her brother's apartment to be searched once he was reported missing, and her
family continues to be frustrated over the weeks and months it takes for police
to follow up on leads that they believe are important.
Ms. Helmantoler said
it's not fair that her brother's killer continues to roam free while her family
got together yesterday to celebrate Jerry's birthday without him yet again.
"I'm at my wits end now," she said. "We just have that empty seat. It's not
fair."
Ms. Helmantoler is convinced her brother is dead because she felt his
spirit visit her once while she was standing in her kitchen. Since then, he
signals her and other family members by dropping dimes in shoes, pockets and
other unexpected locations, she said.
"He told me I would bring him home
when it was time," she said. "And, that's when I knew he was gone. We still had
hope, but I knew then."
A family member recently installed a memorial stone
for Jerry in the Venetia Cemetery between the graves of his uncle and cousin so
the family would have a place to visit until his remains are located.
"I
believe the time is coming close," she said. "I have promised my family members
that I would bring him home."
In the meantime, Ms. Helmantoler tries to keep
a positive outlook by sponsoring monthly teen dances at the Finleyville
Community Center in honor of her brother, who she said "always wanted to do
something like that."
"This is something he would have loved to have done,"
she said.
(Janice Crompton can be reached at jcrompton@post-gazette.com or
724-223-0156. )

Article at http://www.postgazette.com/pg/06358/748063-58.stm.
I can't find a poster of him, though. His Charley Project profile (http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/c/cushey_jerry.html) might work, although it takes two sheets of paper.

Jerry Cushey, Jr.--Monongahela, Pennsylvania

Jerry Lee Cushey, Jr. went missing almost five years ago, but his disappearance still occasionally makes local headlines. (Just try doing a Google search of "Jerry Cushey".) An account of the most recent development from KDKA:

Jun 24, 2006 11:50 pm US/Eastern
Divers Search Mon For Man Missing For 4 Years

David Highfield
Reporting
(KDKA) MONONGAHELA Divers were in the Monongahela River Saturday
looking for clues into the disappearance of a man more than four years ago.
Jerry Cushey disappeared from the streets of Monongahela, Washington County.
Now, his family is praying that they may be getting closer to some answers.
KDKA's David Highfield reports that the Mon River could hold clues into
Cushey's disappearance.
His family, who watched divers search, is holding
out hope.
"It's just been a hard five years," said Cushey's sister Gina
Thorn. "We just want, as a family, to have some closure and bring him so we can
have someplace to go visit him."
Cushey was last seen on 2nd street in
Monongahela heading to a club
He was only 1.5 blocks from river at the time
but the river has never been searched until now.
"We have been pushing that
we wanted a river search here," said Sonya Helmantoler, Cushey's sister. "We
have dealt with psychics and they have been telling us there is something down
here in the river."
The head of the dive team tells KDKA that they are here
at the request of state police but he won't say what prompted the search at this
time.
He also won't say what divers may have discovered.
"All I can
comment on is that we've recovered some items and that were going to be turning
them over to state police investigators," said Sam Woncheck of Mon Valley
Divers.
When describing her brother, Cushey's sister now speaks in past
tense.
"He had a big heart. He was a wonderful person," said Helmantoler.
She just hopes that after years of searching for answers, she can fulfill a
promise to her family.
"I promised them that I would find him and thats what
I'm set out to do," Helmantoler said.
There have been some strange things
happen in this case.
Cushey's car was delivered anonymously to his dad's
house one night.
Another time the family received a phone call telling them
to "back off."
Now, they are hoping whatever was found in the river will
provide some answers.

**I personally do not believe in psychics, but I am including the article because of the river search taking place.**
More details on Jerry's case from the Charley Project:

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
Missing Since: October 12,
2001 from Monongahela, Pennsylvania
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: December 23, 1971
Age: 29 years old
Height and
Weight: 5'9, 170 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Black hair; brown
eyes. Cushey had a moustache and goatee at the time of his October 2001
disappearance. He has a self-designed tattoo of a jester on his left shoulder.
Cushey has two additional tattoos on his back and on his right calf.

Details of Disappearance
Cushey resided in Union Township,
Pennsylvania in 2001. He was employed at Forward Construction Inc. at the time.
Cushey was staying with a friend, Chris Myers, at an apartment above Totally
Tattoos in the 200 block of Second Street in Monongahela, Pennsylvania in
October 2001. Myers and Cushey had not seen each other for ten years before they
had a chance encounter the week before Cushey vanished and Myers invited him to
stay at his apartment. Cushey was last seen inside Totally Tattoos on October
12, 2001. He has never been heard from again. He was supposed to go to a bar
that night, but never showed up.
Myers's vehicle was discovered over an
embankment on Morgan Run Road in Morgantown, West Virginia, in the Cheat Lake
area, on October 16, four days after Cushey disappeared. A stick had been placed
on the van's gas pedal and the vehicle crashed into a tree at the bottom of a
30-foot embankment. There was no sign of Cushey or anyone else at the scene.
After the vehicle was found, Myers reported that Cushey had stolen it and some
money from him. Authorities returned the van to Myers shortly afterwards.
Cushey had borrowed his father's Jeep prior to his disappearance. At 11:00
p.m. the day after he vanished, the vehicle was found parked outside Cushey's
father's residence. It had been wiped clean of fingerprints. Cushey's sister
reported that someone called her claiming to be Cushey and stating he was in
Oklahoma and safe, but she did not believe the caller was actually her brother.
Authorities searched a portion of Cheat Lake in West Virginia in November
2001 in an attempt to locate evidence pertaining to Cushey's case. They found a
hat that Cushey's family members believe was his, but nothing else. In 2006,
investigators searched the Mon River, which is a block and a half from where
Cushey was last seen, and some items were located, but additional information
about the search was not released. Cushey's family hired a psychic, who said
that her visions of Cushey's whereabouts were connected to the lake. His
relatives suspect that foul play was involved in his case. They said that it is
uncharacteristic of Cushey to leave without warning. During the search for him,
Cushey's sister received a threatening phone call from an anonymous person who
warned them to "back off" and stop searching for Cushey or "something would
happen." The individual has never been identified. Cushey's case remains
unsolved.

Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Uniontown City, Pennsylvania Police Department
724-348-6262
OR
Pennsylvania State Police Morgantown Station
215-285-3200

Unfortunately, I haven't found any real "posters" for Jerry. His North American Missing Persons Network profile might work, although the contact numbers appear on a second page and would have to be re-attached to the bottom of the first page.

There is one last quote I want to leave you with. I stumbled across it today while doing a Google search on Jerry. It comes from a 2003 year in review article for Washington County from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"Where did I go wrong?/ Never wanted to hurt no one./ No excuse for the
things I've done./ Only wanted to be someone./ Wanted friends and a little fun."
Haunting poem written by Jerry Cushey Jr., 29, of Monongahela, who has been
missing for two years and is presumed to be a murder victim. June 29.