Jefferson County mom believes missing daughter is dead
Sherry Hallett believes, deep in her heart, that someone is hiding the truth about her missing daughter.
Someone knows what happened to Joey Lynn Offutt on July 12, 2007, as her Sykesville home burned, leaving the charred remains of her 6-week-old son in the ruins, Hallett insists. Someone had to see the 33-year-old mother, somewhere, before she vanished without a trace.
Although state police report no leads in the case, Hallett hopes investigators will get a break in her daughter's disappearance, which will be featured at 9 tonight on the Fox television program "America's Most Wanted."
"I believe that someone in that little town knows what happened," said Hallett, who lives in Warrenton, Va. "It's taken me more than a year to run it through my mind, but I believe it's somebody that she knew. I believe that she's dead, and I want to bring her back to bury her with her son's ashes.
"Maybe this show will help."
In her pain, Hallett is not alone.
Thousands of adults are reported missing each year, according to the FBI's National Crime Information Center. The center reported that as of Dec. 31, 2007, there were 105,229 active missing persons records -- including an estimated 50,500 adults -- in its files.
Family and friends of missing adults must cope with confusion and uncertainty, according to the National Center for Missing Adults. The Arizona nonprofit estimates 400,000 family members of missing adults are living with the effects of trauma from ambiguous loss.
Founder Kym Pasqualini said each missing person leaves behind "a family that is experiencing unimaginable despair of not knowing" where a loved one is or whether they will see that person again. Experts say the uncertainty grows as time passes.
Police reports show it happens in small towns and big cities, when adults disappear with no explanation.
In Central Pennsylvania, a high-profile case has stumped investigators for three years. Police report no leads in the search for Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar, 59, of Bellefonte, missing since April 15, 2005.
His friend and successor, District Attorney Michael Madeira, hoped that Kroll Ontrack, a firm that recovered data from hard drives aboard Space Shuttle Columbia when it disintegrated during re-entry in 2003, would find clues on Gricar's computer hard drive. However, the hard drive recovered from the Susquehanna River yielded nothing.
"It remains a source of frustration," Madeira said. "We're at the point now where we're following crazy leads."
Police investigating Offutt's disappearance say they're following several leads, but have discovered nothing to explain why she vanished.
Four days after the fire, Offutt's red Saturn coupe was found abandoned in State College, about 70 miles east of her Jefferson County home. Although investigators learned the fire was set with some type of accelerant, the county coroner could not determine the infant's cause of death.
"As time goes by it's looking more and more grim, but you want to hope that she's OK," said Trooper Bruce Morris, public information officer for Troop C of the Pennsylvania State Police.
"It's as if she fell off the face of the planet."
Hallett, who believes someone killed her daughter, said Offutt struggled in life.
As a 3-year-old, she was traumatized by her parents' divorce. While attending high school in Virginia, she was shy and socially unsure, with a sweet, almost childlike innocence, her mother said.
She studied journalism for a year at Shepherd University in West Virginia, but left after earning poor grades. She had trouble holding jobs, maintaining relationships and establishing roots; she preferred playing in the park with her daughters to housework.
In 1994, Offutt married and moved to Texas, but within two years she ended what her mother called a "volatile relationship" and returned to Virginia. She was unmarried when she gave birth to her children.
Offutt moved often, spending time in State College, Philadelphia and in Virginia with her mother. Then, Hallett bought the blue vinyl-sided home in Sykesville, a quiet borough of 1,100 people employed in metal manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs.
"The whole idea for the house was to give Joey a centerpoint, some stability," Hallett said.
Hallett said Offutt was a good mother to her two daughters, then 2 and 9, who were staying with relatives when the fire happened. She was planning to marry the father of her infant son, a baby named Alexis.
"She was happy there and loved her children. She never would have hurt her baby and she wouldn't have left her daughters," said Hallett, who is offering $15,000 for information that leads to her daughter's whereabouts.
Hallett said it appeared as though authorities at first blamed Offutt for the baby's death and for setting the fire.
Offutt's nephew, Jason Hungerford of Ithaca, N.Y., said his aunt's purse was found in her house after the fire. That, and the way her abandoned car was parked, led him to discount theories that she left willingly.
"She was a bad driver. That car was backed into a parking place perfectly. It stood out to me because that's something she'd never do," Hungerford said.
Looking back, Morris said police explored all options.
"This case is definitely unique," Morris said. "Usually there is some trail to follow. We're still working on it, still following different leads, but there is nothing new at all."
Law enforcement officials concede that missing adults often fall through the cracks. Many times, it is up to relatives to submit a missing person's picture and information to search organizations and Internet sites.
There is no comprehensive list of missing adults because cases fall under various law enforcement jurisdictions, according to FBI Special Agent Bill Crowley in Pittsburgh. He said the FBI focuses on missing adult fugitives and kidnapped and missing children.
Crowley said cases involving children get more attention from law enforcement authorities because they are more vulnerable.
He said many adults disappear because they are dissatisfied with their lives and want to start anew; others are cases of suicide. For those reasons, law enforcement authorities with tight budgets are reluctant to stretch thin resources, he said.
"Unless there's a crime committed, we don't get involved with missing adults," Crowley said. "We've had cases before where a guy goes missing and has a wife and three kids at home worried sick, and we find out he's living in Vegas."
Morris said it is possible that Offutt could be "alive and well, living somewhere," but no one has reported seeing her and her financial accounts haven't been used. She has not tried to contact her family.
Morris said police are open to other scenarios, such as that she committed suicide or that someone hurt her. The case will be revisited every 60 days, he said.
"There's no doubt in my mind that somebody knows something or has seen something and discounted it," Morris said. "There's something out there that could bring this to a conclusion."
