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| Kryszak, Kirsten Joy 1-1-2001 TN; Memphis | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 1 2008, 08:26 PM (960 Views) | |
| Ell | Jan 1 2008, 08:26 PM Post #1 |
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Heart of Gold
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Pair now give conflicting tales of last time missing girl was seen By Don Wade Tuesday, January 1, 2008 "Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said." -- Mark Twain Seven years ago today, Kirsten Kryszak and the van she supposedly stole disappeared from the planet. Josh Anders and Brent Wolverton, who once played in a local band called Interstate, are by their own admission two of the last people to see 18-year-old Kirsten Joy Kryszak and that 1988 blue Ford Aerostar van. "I could see her taking off, to like, California," says Wolverton, who at the time was Kirsten's latest quasi-boyfriend and is now 31, married and living in a Southaven apartment complex. "She probably sold the van. I'd say for drugs," says Anders, 28, who shares a small Byhalia, Miss., house with his wife. "If she was smart, she'd head out of the city. Because if you steal somebody's vehicle. ..." You vanish forever? Wherever she is, she hasn't used her Social Security number in seven years, hasn't called her family, hasn't followed her pattern when she still lived in Indiana and would run away. "She always came back," says Jeffery Brown, 24, a friend who lives in the same Chesterton, Ind., subdivision as Kirsten's mother. In fact, just days before she disappeared after the New Year's Eve party, Kirsten had gone back to Indiana to visit family. Part of that time, Brown says, she was "frantic looking for coke." But part of that time, she was a little girl again. Her mother, Karen St. Mary, and sister, Ashley Kryszak, recall the three of them spending Christmas morning snuggling and giggling, finding a precious moment when all was still right with the world. The previous year, even amid the drama in her own life, Kirsten called Ashley on her 15th birthday and sang on the answering machine. "She loved her sister," says Wolverton. "She showed me a picture a couple of times, said her sister looked up to her." Is this somebody who chooses to disappear? "I don't see Kirsten killing herself or just taking off," says Brown, her Indiana friend. But suppose she was ready to run. Would she leave behind all her other clothes and belongings? Would she drive away on a snowy winter's day in a miniskirt and a light jacket -- the clothes Anders and Wolverton recall her wearing? Seven years ago, Josh Anders and Brent Wolverton more or less told matching stories concerning Kirsten Kryszak's disappearance: She was at the same Midtown New Year's Eve party they were, near Wolverton's apartment on Clark Place. Bradford S. Toland -- "Tolly," the owner of the blue Ford Aerostar van -- also was there. A band was playing up in the attic at the party and Wolverton was working the lights. Kirsten was "high." As Wolverton recalls events, Kirsten kept playing with the lights and he told her: "You're (expletive) up the show." Wolverton took Kirsten outside the party. But Anders says Wolverton became irritated for other reasons. "I remember Brent saying, 'Don't act like this is a strip club,' " says Anders. Fast forward to mid-morning New Year's Day 2001. Kirsten asks Anders for a ride home and he borrows Tolly's van. Anders, according to what he and Wolverton told police then, drove Kirsten around for several hours and she couldn't find the house she was looking for. So they came back and parked near Wolverton's pad on Clark Place. When Anders walked up to Wolverton's front door, she slid behind the wheel and took off. But seven years later, Anders and Wolverton tell conflicting stories in vivid detail. The New Year's Eve party went late. Wolverton says after he escorted Kirsten from the party, he next saw her at 3:30 a.m. standing outside where people were milling about. "I didn't go anywhere else," he says. "I probably sat around my apartment and (shot the bull) with a few folks." Anders says Kirsten awakened him about 10 a.m. on New Year's Day. He had slept on the couch at the Midtown apartment of Tolly's brother, Bobby. Taking Wolverton's and Anders' stories together, that leaves an unexplained gap from 3:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. "There's this whole lapse of time when no one seems to know where she was or what she did," says her mother, Karen St. Mary. Karen and Kirsten's stepfather, Pete St. Mary, came to Memphis several weeks later in 2001. They talked to Wolverton and Toland without satisfaction. Wolverton, recalling her family's visit, puts forth another theory: "My personal thought was that she overdosed because of the path she was on." The MPD's Missing Persons Bureau and a private detective firm conducted short-lived investigations and posted flyers with Kirsten's picture throughout the Cooper-Young area in Midtown. "Unfortunately, we couldn't find evidence of a crime," says Memphis police Sgt. Barbara Olive, who has had the case for several years -- but has never spoken to Anders, Wolverton or Toland, the last three people to see Kirsten. "She's wanting a ride home," Anders says now of New Year's Day. "I've got a hangover. My car won't start." This, he explains, is how he came to borrow Toland's van. Anders says he and Kirsten went to CK's Coffee Shop for breakfast, and then came back to his apartment for him to shower and change clothes. "She stayed in the van, with the heater running, so she could stay warm," he says. Was this not the perfect opportunity for her to steal the van? Yet, she didn't. Anders says he drove her "all over God's country," an odyssey that took them to West Memphis, "into the 'hood," and finally Mississippi. "By the time we got back, I'd put gas in that darn van twice." As he tells it, she first directed him to West Memphis and a big house set back off the road. She told him it was either her mom's or grandparents' place, but then said, "Nobody will be home." And so it went, he says. He drove to one place after another, but never the right place. The roads were snowy and slick, yet he kept driving. Her behavior was bizarre -- "she's happy one minute, sad the next, laughing, then crying" -- and yet he let her keep telling him where to go. She wouldn't talk most of the time, he says, but she tried to put the moves on him by "dancing in her seat" and asking him to pull over. "I shot her down," he says. So Anders covers three states, rejects Kirsten's advances and says they return to Clark Place after dark -- "the street lights were on, I remember that" -- and that's when she steals the van at the moment he walks up to Wolverton's door. "I get out of the van, stupid me, and the van's still running, the heater's still going, and she takes off," he says. Not forever, though, because he says she came around the block and was "laughing and pointing at me" as he chased her, adding, "she darn near hit me." As Anders tells his tale one morning, he sits in his living room before going to work at a granite shop. He is tall and lean, a little pale, with a thin goatee. He holds a coffee cup -- "my wife's cup," he says with a smile -- that depicts Winnie the Pooh tumbling, finally landing on his head. "The way the road conditions were, I'm surprised she didn't get in a wreck right off the bat," he offers, filling the silence. Was Wolverton home when he went to the door and she took the van? "It doesn't seem like he was, no sir." Has he seen Wolverton lately? "I remember seeing him at my wedding reception -- three years ago," says Anders. "I really don't think I remember seeing him after that." Brent Wolverton recalls New Year's Day 2001 this way: He woke up to a winter wonderland. He walked outside his apartment to have a smoke. A girl across the way, whose third-floor apartment window faced Wolverton's apartment, waved at him. "She invited me over for hot chocolate," he says, his smile showing the gap between his two front teeth. "Pretty girl. I'd been waiting for that hot chocolate invitation." He accepted it, he says, and was standing by her window looking at his apartment, around noon, when the blue 1988 Ford Aerostar pulled up. "Here comes Kirsten, Shaun and another guy we used to play music with." Wolverton pauses. "... Josh. I don't remember his last name off the top of my head. I really don't." Wolverton says Kirsten walked up to his apartment door and knocked, then returned to the van. Then all of them went to the door and knocked. "After that, they left," he says. "That was the last time I saw her. "I got a call around 2 p.m. from Shaun (Toland) or Josh, I don't remember which one, saying Kirsten had stolen Shaun's minivan. I think they said something like they were getting out at a gas station and she had taken the car." If what Wolverton says now is true, that Kirsten was with Anders and Toland New Year's Day and stole the van when they were at a gas station around 2 p.m., then Anders' story can't be true. If Anders' version is true, that he alone drove Kirsten around for several hours and she stole the van after dark on Wolverton's street, then Wolverton's story can't be true. "I feel the same way that I've always felt," says Karen St. Mary, Kirsten's mother. "Somebody knows something." Seven years later, Kirsten Joy Kryszak is missing. Nothing less, nothing more. For a long time, Josh Anders, Bradford S. Toland and Brent Wolverton were not totally unlike Kirsten: They had disappeared -- at least to police. Now Toland seems unhappy to be found, via a call to his mother requesting a way to contact him. "What if I wanted to go find your mother's phone number?" he huffs into the phone and hangs up. Wolverton takes the opposite approach. Hours after meeting with a reporter, after saying he knew Kirsten "six months to a year, tops," he calls back. "Hey, man, my wife and I were just sitting here talking and I was curious: What was her last name?" Kryszak -- K-r-y-s-z-a-k. The name that Josh Anders said sounded "familiar" when a reporter approached him on his driveway asking about the past. Now, after talking about Kirsten for an hour, after inviting the stranger in for coffee and politely answering every question, Anders again stands in his driveway, his wife by his side. The stranger mentions one last thing: These past seven years? They've been hard on Kirsten's family. Anders nods a little, lights himself a Marlboro, inhales ... exhales, blowing smoke. "I do feel for the family, I really do," he says. "Maybe they'll get lucky and she'll be all right. "Maybe not." -- Don Wade: 529-2358 What happens in a cold case? In the seven years that Kirsten Kryszak has been missing, several detectives from the Memphis Police Department's Missing Persons Bureau have worked the case. "Kidnappings will go to the felony assault squad," says Sgt. Terry Wiechert of the Missing Persons Bureau. Homicide detectives, she says, won't get involved "unless there's a body. I'm not trying to be trivial, but typically that's the only thing they handle nowadays." Wiechert is not assigned to the Kirsten Kryszak case. Sgt. Barbara Olive is. She says, "Unfortunately, I don't think there's going to be a happy outcome to this one." Karen St. Mary believes her daughter is dead, too. She also believes police could have, should have, done more over the years to find her. She says her calls to Memphis police always end the same way. "I'm always politely told I'm screwed," she says. Kristin Helm, a spokeswoman for the TBI, says one of two conditions must exist in a case for the TBI to become involved. "To enter a case, we either have to be requested by a local law enforcement agency, such as the Memphis Police Department," Helm says, "or it has to be at the request of district attorneys -- 'I want you to open an investigation on such-and-such a case.'" "Unfortunately, we couldn't find evidence of a crime." Memphis police Sgt. Barbara Olive, an investigator on the case "I don't see Kirsten killing herself or just taking off." Jeffery Brown friend from Indiana http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/...-arise-missing/ |
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| Ell | Jan 1 2008, 08:27 PM Post #2 |
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Heart of Gold
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Family photo Kirsten Kryszak disappeared seven years ago after a Midtown New Year's Eve party. Her disappearance is a "cold case" in the Memphis Police Department's Missing Persons Bureau. Police don't know whether she's dead or alive. Her Social Security number hasn't been used in seven years, nor has she called her family. |
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| Ell | Jan 1 2008, 08:32 PM Post #3 |
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Heart of Gold
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http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...2978&st=0&#last |
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| monkalup | Feb 21 2008, 01:01 PM Post #4 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/...les-yield-tips- on-girl-missing-since-01/ Articles yield tips on girl missing since 2001 Homicide detectives working seven-year-old Midtown case By Don Wade (Contact) Thursday, February 21, 2008 A seven-year-old cold case might be heating up. Kirsten Kryszak was 18 on Dec. 31, 2000, when she went to a Midtown New Year's Eve party. She hasn't been seen or heard from since New Year's Day 2001. For seven years, her case has been in the charge of the Memphis Police Department's Missing Persons Bureau. No more. "The case lies in the hands of homicide at this point," said department spokesperson Det. Monique Martin. "(The) articles (in The Commercial Appeal) gave us some tips and we're following up on those leads." On Dec. 31, 2007, and Jan. 1, 2008, The newspaper published a two- part series about Kirsten Kryszak's disappearance. The last three people to have seen the girl and the van that they allege she stole were interviewed for those stories. Two of them gave contradicting versions about when and where Kryszak was last seen. Police acknowledged last December that they had not talked to any of these witnesses or other witnesses in the case in almost seven years. This, too, is changing. "We have not located any evidence that says this is a homicide, but we are reinterviewing witnesses," Martin said, adding that multiple homicide investigators are now involved. Having the case moved from missing persons to homicide is what Kryszak's mother, Karen St. Mary, has hoped and prayed for ever since her daughter disappeared under odd circumstances. "Homicide has the ability to put some pressure on and get some answers that we haven't gotten in years," said St. Mary, who lives in northern Indiana; Kirsten moved to Memphis to live with her father while she was in high school. "All along," St. Mary continued, "I've had my suspicions about the (witnesses') stories and the time frame." Three key witnesses are young men and friends who all knew Kryszak to one degree or another: Josh Anders, Bradford S. Toland and Brent Wolverton. They were, even by Anders' and Wolverton's most recent accounts, the last people to see Kryszak. Anders said seven years ago, and again in December 2007, that he alone spent several hours on New Year's Day 2001 driving Kryszak around Memphis in a 1988 blue Ford Aerostar van owned by Toland. Anders said the girl stole the van from a Midtown street after dark on New Year's Day when he stopped to see if Wolverton was home. Seven years ago, Wolverton told much the same story. But in December 2007, in a face-to-face interview with a reporter from The Commercial Appeal, Wolverton remembered things differently. He said he saw Toland and Anders drive off with the girl in the van around noon that New Year's Day. Wolverton's story: Toland or Anders -- "I don't remember which one," he said in the December interview -- called him at about 2 p.m. to say Kryszak had stolen the van. "They said something like they were getting out at a gas station and she had taken the car," Wolverton said in the December interview. Kryszak's mother is hopeful that the family may yet have "closure," adding, "I would like to have some justice done for my daughter." -- Don Wade: 529-2358 Reward increased Karen St. Mary, mother of Kirsten Kryszak, has increased the reward she's offering for information leading to resolution of the disappearance of her daughter. The reward is now $12,000, up from $10,000. Also, there could be other reward money from police. Department spokeswoman Det. Monique Martin asks anyone with information to call 528-CASH (2274) or the homicide squad at 545-5300. Said Martin: "It doesn't matter what the details are. No matter how small, we still need people to call." |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| wv171 | Feb 29 2008, 03:22 AM Post #5 |
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Advanced Member
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Reward offered to help resolve 7-year-old case Governor adds $5,000 to family's $12,000 in Kryszak disappearance By Don Wade (Contact) Thursday, February 28, 2008 The Tennessee governor's office is offering a $5,000 reward for information in a 7-year-old missing persons case that recently was moved to the Memphis Police Department's homicide squad. Kirsten Kryszak was 18 years old when she disappeared after a New Year's Eve party on Dec. 31, 2000. Recent stories about the case in The Commercial Appeal provided "some tips," according to Memphis police spokesman Det. Monique Martin, and police shifted the case from missing persons to homicide and have more than one investigator working the case. Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons asked Gov. Phil Bredesen to offer reward money in the Kryszak case, and the governor has agreed, said Jennifer Donnals, a spokeswoman for the DA's office. "There's also money for another case," Donnals said, declining to specify which case. "We're still notifying the family." The DA's office will hold an 11 a.m. news conference Monday at the Criminal Justice Center to talk about these new rewards and to "revisit a couple of cases" that already have state reward money, Donnals said. Karen St. Mary, Kryszak's mother, plans to travel from her home in northern Indiana to be here for the news conference. St. Mary continues to offer a separate $12,000 reward for information that brings a resolution to her daughter's case. "Hopefully, with ($17,000) being offered, that will make it more lucrative for clues to surface," St. Mary said. "I'm going to be there on behalf of my daughter, who can't be there." -- Don Wade: 529-2358 http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/...-year-old-case/ |
| "Hey Beavis, we need a chick that doesn't suck. No, wait a minute, that's not what I mean." -Butthead | |
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| monkalup | Mar 4 2008, 01:46 PM Post #6 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/...an-disappeared/ Gone without a trace Missing Van disappeared along with Kirsten By Don Wade Monday, December 31, 2007 She would be 25 now. She would still have her looks -- the smashing smile, the big brown eyes, the killer dimples -- and maybe she would have settled down. Or if not settled down, calmed down, grown up. Tonight, in the heart of Midtown's Cooper-Young area -- Memphis' mini-Greenwich Village -- Kirsten Kryszak might have strolled past the funky little storefront that is Goner Records. Dropped in for a quick bite at Dish Mediterranean Tapas Lounge and said hi to Scott, the roadie-turned-cook she would know from the old days and, like her, a recovering drug addict. Landed at the Young Avenue Deli for tonight's Lucero show. Hung out with some of her musician and wannabe-musician "friends" from back in the day -- Brent, Josh, and the guy everyone called "Tolly." Maybe even run into Angela, assuming that wild kindred spirit still draws breath. Or maybe, as she did seven years ago, Kirsten Kryszak would have gone to a party. That's what you're supposed to do on New Year's Eve, right? Go to a party, have a good time, let the last night of the old year bleed into the first day of the rest of your life? That's what Kirsten, then 18, did on a cold and snowy Sunday night. Maybe it is what she would do again. Maybe this time, she would make it home. * * * "I knew the minute I heard she was missing," says Kirsten's mother, Karen St. Mary. "I just knew." Seven years later, there is no evidence that Kirsten Joy Kryszak is dead. Her body has not been found. Neither is there any evidence that she is alive. For seven years, her Social Security number has been inactive. In the days and weeks after she disappeared, an investigator from the Memphis Police Department's Missing Persons Bureau interviewed several people. The sum of those interviews: Kirsten was last seen driving away in a 1988 blue Ford Aerostar van owned by Bradford S. Toland -- "Tolly" to friends. Toland, Josh Anders and Brent Wolverton, who was semiboyfriend to Kirsten, said then and says now that she stole the van on New Year's Day. Anders also said then and says now he drove her around for "four or five hours" before she stole the van. They were the last people to see her. No detective from Missing Persons has spoken to any of them in at least six years. Sgt. Barbara Olive, who has had charge of the case for several years, has never talked to them. The van, like Kirsten, has disappeared. Database searches using the van's vehicle identification number show no activity since 2000. And the MPD's Central Records returns no document showing that Toland reported the van as stolen. Twelve days ago Toland, in a brief telephone conversation he ends by hanging up, says he did report the van stolen. Sgt. Olive says it is possible a formal report was never processed because Toland and Kirsten knew each other. Olive also says: "She's not really the auto-stealing type." Toland does say he was at the New Year's Eve party. But he refuses to discuss Kirsten or how she came to allegedly steal his van. He doesn't even want to talk about the old days of making a little music with Anders and Wolverton in a band called Interstate. "Man, I moved on," Toland says. "That's a part of my life I don't want to recall." * * * Kirsten grew up in northern Indiana, the daughter of Robert and Karen Kryszak. She had a younger sister, Ashley, who's now 22 and living in Water Valley, Miss., with her boyfriend and their daughter, Sarah. As Ashley holds Sarah in her lap, feeding her a bottle, she remembers Kirsten loving Mom's Ragu spaghetti and strawberry-flavored ice cream. More than once when speaking of Kirsten she instead says "Sarah." It unnerves the young mother. "I don't know why I'm saying Sarah," she says, her eyes moist. When Kirsten and Ashley were little, their parents divorced, the father eventually moving to Memphis, where he still works as an auto-body man and lives with his new wife and their young twins. Karen also remarried. The divorce, as divorces do, hit the girls hard and perhaps in ways they didn't understand. By the time Kirsten was 13, she was using drugs and sneaking out of the house. At 16, she moved to Memphis to live with her father. She attended White Station High School for at least parts of two years before dropping out. Twice, her father put her in Lakeside for drug rehab. It didn't take. She kept using and he kicked her out of the house. Kirsten bounced from place to place, and apparently from man to man, in the weeks before she disappeared. This, her mother and father know, is what she came to be: troubled, unpredictable, self-destructive. Yet not only do they still love her, they still cherish the little girl who smiled through crooked teeth before braces. They still hear that child giggling, still marvel at the way she almost seemed to take flight when running along the shores of Lake Michigan amid the dunes and the birds. "The seagull chaser," her father says with the quickest of half-smiles as he runs a hand over his black hair pulled tight into a ponytail. Years pass ... she never calls. Years pass ... she doesn't send a card or an e-mail. Years pass ... and candles are blown out on family birthday cakes, the little plumes of smoke dying before they can kiss dining room ceilings. "darn seagulls," the mother says, fighting tears, "she's still my daughter." * * * To the MPD's Missing Persons Bureau, Kirsten Kryszak is something else: a cold case frozen in time. Sgt. Olive says at one point they tried to get Kirsten's case put before a cold case squad working out of homicide, "but before we could get them to take it, (the unit) kind of dissolved." The bureau receives an average of 400 new missing person cases each month. Retiring Lt. Stephanie Hanscom says they have a 97 percent clearance rate. "Our cold cases get pushed aside for what we have on a daily basis," says Hanscom. Kirsten disappeared on New Year's Day. But her mother didn't know until Jan. 3 when a man named Earl called to say Kirsten hadn't been home since Dec. 31. Earl had recently started letting Kirsten stay with him in a duplex in Orange Mound. Karen didn't find this all that unusual because Kirsten had run away before, in Indiana. And in Memphis, her father had filed a runaway report in August 2000. Turned out to be a road trip to South Dakota, where she and several other people were busted for drug possession. At 5:30 in the morning on Jan. 7, Karen received another call from Earl. Kirsten still hadn't shown up. Karen called Memphis police. The missing persons unit had just been formed in October 2000 and the department initially staffed it with retired detectives. A retired detective worked Kirsten's case. Over the years, the case has been handed off to one detective and then another. Olive, a 25-year MPD veteran, is a pleasant woman. Lt. Hanscom describes her as "kinda nonchalant, but she has a way with people -- they start telling her stuff." Olive goes over Kirsten's case quickly: Kirsten "made a little scene at the party." Her boyfriend, identified as Brent Wolverton, was there. She was last seen driving the van owned by Toland. She left in the van alone "as far as we know," Olive says. Detectives spoke with Toland and Wolverton, Olive says, but "then it got to where they wouldn't return phone calls." Olive hasn't spoken to Wolverton, Toland or Anders, she says, because the addresses and phone numbers gathered in 2001 are no longer good. As for what happened to Kirsten? "It's a hard thing to say," Olive says. "But whatever happened, it was possibly the end result of her choices." * * * Late in summer 2000: Kirsten had taken her hippie persona -- the beads and homemade jewelry, the patchwork dresses, the affectation for reggae singer Bob Marley -- a step beyond. "She had dreadlocks," says her sister Ashley, who with her mother, stepfather and half-brother came for a visit over Labor Day weekend and stayed at The Peabody. "It looked so bad." The family met her boyfriend at the time, a guy named JaJe Garibaldi. "He looked a lot like my ex-husband (Kirsten's dad) in his youth," Karen remembers. "Dark hair and dark eyes." The family also met a girl named Angela on the trip. A "chunky bleach-blond" as Karen recalls, Angela worked as an exotic dancer and seemed to be on her cell phone a lot. Seven years later, what's certain is that Kirsten had surrounded herself with an interesting cast of characters: * * * Kirsten briefly stayed with a mysterious man of Middle Eastern descent nicknamed Victor. He rented a house on Spottswood by the University of Memphis. Shirley Janovich was Victor's landlady. "Paid his rent," Janovich says with a grin. "In cash." * * * The man from Orange Mound named Earl, who first called Karen to say Kirsten was missing, told Karen he did not have a romantic relationship with her daughter, even though they had met in a bar. * * * Former North Mississippi Allstars roadie-turned-cook Scott Carter says Garibaldi, Kirsten's ex-boyfriend, was a "ladies man" with "a dark side." * * * Brent Wolverton, now 31, married and working a construction job, today describes his relationship with Kirsten as "nothing serious, man. It was cool for the time being." * * * Toland, the owner of the van, refuses to discuss her. * * * And then there's Josh Anders, who said he drove Kirsten around for "four or five hours" in Toland's van on New Year's Day. He said she couldn't find the house she was looking for and she stole the van when he returned to Wolverton's Midtown apartment and got out of the van. By any measure, it is a peculiar story. Now, in December 2007, a stranger approaches the tall and angular Anders one morning in his gravel driveway outside the little yellow house he shares with his wife and their two dogs and three cats in Byhalia, Miss. Anders, 28, wears blue jeans, an old pair of black tennis shoes and a brown jacket over a black sweatshirt. He is about to climb into an exhaust-spewing pickup and drive to work at a granite shop. A pack of Marlboros rests in his jacket pocket, and he carries a plastic cup of yogurt and a banana. The stranger mentions the missing girl's name. Anders rubs his hand over his light brown goatee, and his eyes go searching. "Kirsten Kryszak?" he finally says. "That name sounds familiar." More info: Missing in Memphis In 2006, 4,344 people went missing in Memphis, according to Memphis Police. This year, through Dec. 17, 4,127 missing person cases have been filed. The missing persons bureau receives an average of 400 new missing person cases each month, and according to retiring Lt. Stephanie Hanscom, 97 percent of those are cleared. $10,000 reward Kirsten Kryszak's mother and stepfather, Karen and Pete St. Mary, are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the resolution of Kirsten's Jan. 1, 2001, disappearance. Anyone with information on the case should call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH (901-528-2274). "I knew the minute I heard she was missing. I just knew." Karen St. Mary, Kirsten's mother http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/...-arise-missing/ |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Mar 4 2008, 01:47 PM Post #7 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://commercialappeal.com/news/2008/feb/...yahoo_headlines Reward offered to help resolve 7-year-old case Governor adds $5,000 to family's $12,000 in Kryszak disappearance By Don Wade (Contact) Thursday, February 28, 2008 The Tennessee governor's office is offering a $5,000 reward for information in a 7-year-old missing persons case that recently was moved to the Memphis Police Department's homicide squad. Kirsten Kryszak was 18 years old when she disappeared after a New Year's Eve party on Dec. 31, 2000. Recent stories about the case in The Commercial Appeal provided "some tips," according to Memphis police spokesman Det. Monique Martin, and police shifted the case from missing persons to homicide and have more than one investigator working the case. Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons asked Gov. Phil Bredesen to offer reward money in the Kryszak case, and the governor has agreed, said Jennifer Donnals, a spokeswoman for the DA's office. "There's also money for another case," Donnals said, declining to specify which case. "We're still notifying the family." The DA's office will hold an 11 a.m. news conference Monday at the Criminal Justice Center to talk about these new rewards and to "revisit a couple of cases" that already have state reward money, Donnals said. Karen St. Mary, Kryszak's mother, plans to travel from her home in northern Indiana to be here for the news conference. St. Mary continues to offer a separate $12,000 reward for information that brings a resolution to her daughter's case. "Hopefully, with ($17,000) being offered, that will make it more lucrative for clues to surface," St. Mary said. "I'm going to be there on behalf of my daughter, who can't be there." |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Mar 4 2008, 01:48 PM Post #8 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local...61-ab3ac6970fbb New Reward $$$, Hope In Missing Teen's Case Reported by: Sarah Buduson Email: sbuduson@myeyewitnessnews.com Last Update: 6:47 pm Memphis, TN - The mother of a teenager missing since New Year's Day 2001 has new hope she will get answers about her daughter's disappearance. Monday, Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons announced he is adding $5,000 to a $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Kirsten Kryszak's case. $5,000 rewards have also been added to rewards in three other Memphis cold cases. The increased reward comes a few weeks after Kirsten's case was moved from Memphis police’s Missing Persons department to the homicide unit. Police say a newspaper article run on the seventh anniversary of Kirsten's disappearance led to new tips that caused them to move the case. Kirsten was 18 when she disappeared. Today, she would be 25. For years, Kirsten's mother Karen St. Mary has felt like she is the only person looking for her daughter. She says, "Every time I had to pick up the phone and call missing persons, I felt that I was bothering them. Why should I feel that way?" Now, she has hope. She says, "I'm cautiously optimistic about everything. I think a lot more need to be done. And you know, the homicide department has to go back years now and pick up the pieces." Karen has a binder full of notes from her own investigation into her daughter's disappearance. It has yielded many pages, but few answers. She says, "It could have been an accident. It could have been a homicide. I just don't know." Kirsten was last seen with three men. They had all been at the same New Year's eve party with her. Karen says her daughter was not hanging out with the right crowd. She says, "Parties, you know, drugs, alcohol, whatever the case may be. Just don't know." One of the men told Karen that Kirsten had stolen their friend's van on New Year's Day. The owner of the van refuses to talk to Karen. The man Kirsten was dating at the time says Kirsten took off in the van with the owner of the fan and the man who says she took the vehicle. The conflicting stories concern Karen. She doesn’t know what to believe, but she is certain her free spirited oldest child is gone. She says, "I know my daughter isn't with us." The total reward for information about what happened to Kristen Kryszak is now $17,000. If you have a tip about the case that could lead to an arrest and conviction, Call Crime Stoppers at 528-CASH. Crime Stoppers tips are confidential. |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| Ell | Mar 4 2008, 07:55 PM Post #9 |
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Heart of Gold
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Rewards grow for tips on cold cases By Lawrence Buser Monday, March 3, 2008 Prosecutors and police said Monday they need the public's help on cases dating to 2001. Four unsolved cases involving homicides or missing persons were highlighted in a news conference where officials urged the public to come forward with any information that might help solve them. "I'm absolutely confident that in all four matters there are individuals who know something that can help law enforcement officers solve these cases," said Dist. Atty. Gen. Bill Gibbons. "We still need that one tip that will make a difference." Rewards ranging from $6,000 to $41,000 have been pledged for information that leads to the arrest and convictions of those responsible. The cases, selected by police in conjunction with the prosecutor's office, include: The shooting death of Ethan Jacobs, 31, during a robbery on Memorial Day weekend, May 25, 2007, at the Riverside Park Marina. A 19-year-old suspect was arrested, but later released after a witness could not identify him in court. Reward: $6,000. The disappearance of Bartlett pediatrician Dr. Cherryl Lamont Pearson, 37, who was last seen Jan. 5, 2002, after spending time with friends at her home at 6491 Daybreak. Earlier that evening she attended a Grizzlies basketball game at The Pyramid. Reward: $41,000. The stabbing deaths of Alicia Fitch, 22, and her 3-year-old son Joshua Hampton, whose bodies were found Sept. 10, 2001, in their Rivertown Square Apartment on Charjean. Reward: $6,000. The disappearance of 18-year-old Kirsten Kryszak who was last seen Jan. 2, 2001, after celebrating at a New Year's Eve party near Poplar and Avalon. The case recently was shifted from missing persons to homicide. Reward: $18,000. Anyone with information is urged to call Memphis Crime Stoppers at 528-CASH (2274) or Bartlett's tip line at 382-MONY (6699.) Authorities emphasized that callers remain anonymous, even to police, and are paid in cash. Portions of the reward money announced today were allocated by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen. Police Director Larry Godwin said the homicide squad has an 88 percent solve rate and that these are cases that have stalled, but may be one tip from being solved. "I'm telling you, someone in this community knows something that will help us solves these cases," Godwin said, adding that 29 of 132 homicides last year were solved with help from Crime Stoppers tips. "I'm pleading with members of the community to step up." Family members of some of the victims also attended the news conference. "My son was one of five people killed on Memorial Day weekend last year," said Alan Jacobs. "He did not deserve this." -- Lawrence Buser: 529-2385 Contact Lawrence Buser at 529-2385. To read more stories by this reporter, go to commercialappeal.com, click on Contact Us at the top of the home page and then click on the reporter's name. http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/...ses/?printer=1/ |
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| Ell | Jan 1 2009, 10:08 PM Post #10 |
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Heart of Gold
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Memphis, TN- It's been eight years since a Memphis teen disappeared after a New Years Eve party. Kirsten Kryszak hasn't been seen or heard from since New Years Day 2001. Her case moved from the missing persons department to MPD’s homicide unit last year after police got new leads from the public. The teen’s mother, Karen St. Mary, was in town in March 2008 when Memphis police announced an increase in reward money for her daughter's case. The missing teen's mom got another update from police a few months ago. "I believe it was around Labor Day weekend and I decided to drop in unannounced to really see if this case was truly being worked. I think I took everybody by surprise. He did say he pretty much doesn't have anything new. No body no vehicle no case," says St. Mary. Three key witnesses are young men who were with Kryszak the day she disappeared. One of the last men to see Kirsten said she stole their friend's 1988 Blue Ford Aerostar minivan on New Year's Day 2001. A witness told police he saw her driving near the intersection of Poplar and Highland in midtown Memphis. "No one's ever found the van. I'm not even too clear there was a van that was actually reported missing or that this van actually existed," says the teen’s mother. St. Mary says she has accepted the fact that her daughter probably isn't alive, but needs to know why. "It's affected everybody. No one ever heals when something like this happens. Please anybody that's got information come forward. It's the right thing to do. It'll make you feel a lot better and it would definitely make a family that have bleeding hearts feel a lot better too." There is an $18,000 reward for information about Kirsten Kryszak's disappearance. If you know anything, even a small detail, call Memphis Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH. http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local...V4yl4Wktsw.cspx |
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| tatertot | Jan 8 2009, 12:11 PM Post #11 |
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Advanced Member
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| monkalup | Mar 14 2009, 03:47 PM Post #12 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/k/kryszak_kirsten.html Kirsten Joy Kryszak Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance Missing Since: January 1, 2001 from Memphis, Tennessee Classification: Endangered Missing Age: 18 years old Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Kryszak's hair may have been styled in dreadlocks at the time of her disappearance. Clothing/Jewelry Description: A light jacket and a miniskirt. Medical Conditions: Kryszak has a history of drug abuse. Details of Disappearance Kryszak was last seen after a New Year's party in Memphis, Tennessee on January 1, 2001. She was with her boyfriend, Brent Wolverton, and another man, Josh Anders, when she was last seen. Both men played in Interstate, a local band, which was performing at the party that night. Anders stated that after the party, at 10:00 a.m., Kryszak asked him for a ride home. He borrowed a blue 1988 Ford Aerostar van belonging to another guest at the party, Bradford S. "Tolly" Toland. They drove around for four or five hours, but could not find the house Kryszak was looking for, so they went to Wolverton's apartment on Clark Place. When Anders walked up to the front door, Kryszak got behind the wheel of the van and drove away. Wolverton, however, stated Kryszak went to his apartment that afternoon with Anders and Toland, and the three of them knocked on the door, then left. He said one of them called him at 2:00 p.m. to say Kryszak had stolen the van while they were getting gas. She has never been heard from again. The day she disappeared was very cold and snowy, and road conditions were poor. The van has never been recovered. Toland stated he reported it as stolen, but investigators have been unable to locate the report. Kryszak did not take any extra clothing, money or personal belongings. She was leading a high-risk lifestyle at the time of her disappearance and was involved with drugs. She had been through rehabilitation twice, but continued to abuse substances. Kryszak grew up in Indiana, and moved to Memphis at age 16 to live with her father. She dropped out of White Station High School. She had a history of running away from home in both Indiana and Tennessee, but she always kept in touch with her family. None of her relatives have heard from her since her disapperance, and her Social Security number has not been used. Although there is no evidence that Kryszak was a crime victim, authorities and her family believe she is deceased. Her case remains unsolved. Investigating Agency If you have any information concerning this case, please contact: Crime Stoppers 901-528-2274 Source Information The Commercial Appeal |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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