Last night I was researching stories about women who have gone missing. One of the things that bothers me is that most of these stories are so similar: Sweet Miss Jane goes on date/sees a friend/has a drink at the local bar and never comes back. Sometimes it’s more complicated like the case of Brenda Heist, the mother who ran away from her family because she felt overwhelmed by life’s troubles. Why don’t more women disappear because of business deals gone bad or links to organized crime?
My guess is that women don’t have the financial or organizational power to suffer interesting deaths and disappearances. I couldn’t find any news stories remotely like that. That speaks volumes, but it’s another subject.
Anyway, as I surfed the Internet, I came across Kelly Dwyer. She disappeared in Milwaukee on October 11, 2013 after a night of partying with her boyfriend Kris Zocco. While not formally charged with her disappearance, he’s currently out on bail for charges of child pornography and drug violations. Her poor family. It’s bad enough losing your daughter, but to find out her boyfriend was watching videos of 3-year-old children being sexually violated?
Kelly Dwyer
After I scrubbed my brain with a little spiritual Comet, I continued my research.
This morning Mandy Stadtmiller, the editor of XOJane, Tweeted:
Please share. A father’s quest to find his daughter who went missing 30 days ago after a 1st date. #FindHeatherElvis: http://t.co/6UKZOuOTnu
— Mandy Stadtmiller (@mandystadt) January 17, 2014
Heather Elvis
I love the picture of her with the dog, but it doesn’t really show her face. So, I put her name into the Google image search and found this better photo.
Okay, so, this is just a coincidence, right? Or do the fashionable sociopaths have a “look” they go for that’s in style? I’m sure these two cases aren’t related, even though they took place within a couple months of each other. They are in two totally different geographic regions. Also, Heather is Jesus and Apple Pie compared to Kelly and her boyfriend. The two women might have met similar fates, but it wasn’t because they had similar lifestyles.
My heart goes out to the families of these two women. May they be found and justice be served.
ETA: Here’s another set of cross-state cases about missing blondes that detectives do believe are related.
I’ve been curious about this topic for a while, especially since I noticed while in Peace Corps that the TV cop shows have it wrong. When it comes to assault and murder, usually young men– often young black men–are the victims. We women are more likely to suffer sexual assault, that’s certainly true, but men are more likely to end up dead. And missing. And beaten up. With nobody caring.
I think what you’re noticing here is a disturbing trend commented on recently by sociologists and criminologists, which is that the *media*, not the criminals, has a type. When it comes to missing little kids, the media cares about pretty little white girls, preferably blondes. And when it comes to missing adults, the media cares about pretty young women (especially those of college age). Boy, does it care. Anybody else who’s missing, well, their loved ones are hard put to get the media to so much as take an ad, let alone do a spot on the news or in the paper.
What is even more disturbing is that this all seems to be part of a Little Red Riding Hood kind of narrative in which young women are warned in graphic detail, by both fictional and “non-fiction” stories, about horrible things that happen to them if they try to venture out into the Big Bad World. Then there’s the added bonus that only pretty girls even appear in the narrative. The rest of us? Are invisible.
Paula, basically this in a nutshell: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/129492/cnn_loves_blondes/