Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
Denise Diane Pflum
Pflum, date, approximate 1986; Shawn McClung in the 1980s; McClung, date, approximate 2020
Date Missing 03/28/1986
Missing From
Connersville, Indiana
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 01/14/1968 (54)
Age 18 years old
Height and Weight 5'6, 135 pounds
Clothing/Jewelry Description A size medium red Motley Crue t-shirt, size 11 blue striped jeans, old size 9 white sneakers, size 7 hip-hugger panties, a size 34B beige or white bra, a gold ring with a garnet, and a silver class ring with a red setting.
Associated Vehicle(s) Cream-colored 1981 Buick Regal (accounted for)
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Pflum's ears are pierced. She wears contact lenses.
Details of Disappearance Pflum left from her family's residence in Connersville, Indiana on March 28, 1986. She planned to retrieve her purse, which she believed she left at a party the previous evening. She asked multiple friends as well as her sister to accompany her to the site of the party, some farmland, but none of them could go so she decided to go there alone.
According to the tenant of the farm where the party was held, Pflum never arrived arrived at her destination, although a friend reportedly saw her at 2:00 p.m. at a Fashion Bug store on 30th Street. She didn't have any identification when she left home, or the carrying or cleaning solution for her contact lenses. She has never been heard from again.
The following day, a farmer from Glenwood, Indiana reported that Pflum's cream-colored 1981 Buick Regal, which was registered to her parents, had been locked and abandoned alongside Tower Road, a rural gravel road east of Glenwood, since between 12:30 and 1:15 p.m. the day she went missing.
This spot was all the way across the county from where she lived, and three miles from the party site; her family can't think of a reason why she would have gone there. There were no indications of a struggle at the scene.
Shawn M. McClung was Pflum's ex-boyfriend and had previously claimed Pflum was still alive, but in July 2020, during a three-hour interview, he confessed having killed her in March 1986. A photo of McClung is posted with this summary. At the time of his confession, he was in jail on two unrelated s.
He made his confession in exchange for a promise of immunity for his statements and dismissal of the two unrelated charges. But McClung refused to lead the authorities to Pflum's body, and the agreement that would give him immunity required him to not withhold any information. As a result, he did not receive immunity for his confession and he was charged with voluntary manslaughter in Pflum's presumed death.
At the time of his confession, McClung was suffering from a terminal illness. He died in September 2020 at the of 56, just months after he was charged in Pflum's . In the hospital, five days before his death, he told his lawyer that he didn't know what had happened to Pflum and had only confessed to killing her because he wanted to get out of jail.
Pflum was a senior at Connersville High School at the time of her disappearance; she was involved with volleyball, basketball, softball and track, and was a member of the National Honor Society. She had already been accepted to Miami University in Ohio, where she planned to major in microbiology and hoped to get a track scholarship.
Authorities have never recovered Pflum's body and it's unclear whether McClung was in fact involved in her disappearance. Her remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency
Fayette County Sheriff's Department
765-825-0535
Other
Vanished Children's Alliance
The Doe Network
The Connersville News-Examiner
The Indianapolis Star
The Rushville Republican
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Facebook Page for Denise Pflum
NBC News
Hometown Media Group
RTV 6 Indianapolis
WTHR
Fayette County Sheriff's Department
Missing Person Photos
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2 to 5 percent of missing children in Europe.
By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.
A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.
Resources for Missing Persons
According to current statistics, 4,000 people in the United States go missing every day.
Sometimes a child suddenly vanishes from the bus stop or the local park or even from their own yard or bedroom. Or a teenager doesn�t return home after a walk to the neighborhood grocery store or a bike ride or a party with friends.
Other times, an adult is mysteriously absent from their job or neighbors haven�t seen them for several days, and family and friends haven�t heard from them either.
Missing Person Photos
