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 Case Updates with Photos
Mary Louise Watkins
Watkins, date, approximate 1979; James Carlin Toliver
Date Missing 05/17/1979
Missing From
Modesto, California
Missing Classification Endangered Missing
Sex Female
Race
White
Date of Birth 04/20/1925 (97)
Age 57 years old
Height and Weight 5'2, 130 pounds
Markings and/or Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Watkins has surgical scars on her lower torso. She wears eyeglasses with dark-colored plastic frames.
Details of Disappearance Watkins was last seen in Modesto, California on May 17, 1979. She was last seen by a friend whom she lived with, packing her belongings into a vehicle. Prior to her disappearance, Watkins told several of her friends she was going out of town and gave many conflicting stories as to why she had to leave. She told her roommate she was going to live with her daughter in San Jose, California, but never arrived there.
Watkins sold her Modesto home before her disappearance and was carrying $28,000 in cash from the sale. She told her banker she planned to invest the money with a friend in a property venture. Her daughter stated she didn't know of the sale of Watkins's home, or that her mother was going to move in with her.
Two days after Watkins was last seen, her vehicle was found abandoned in the 600 block of Coffee Road, at what is now the Sutter Gould Medical Foundation. None of her belongings were inside it. Several days later, Watkins's daughter got a letter from her. Watkins wrote she was running away to get married. She has never been heard from again.
James Carlin Toliver is a suspect in Watkins's disappearance and in the disappearances of several other women, including Hester Lee Chandler, who disappeared in 1974, Jacqueline Cooper, who disappeared in 1976, and James's wife, Patricia Toliver, who was last seen in 1978. A photo of James is posted with this summary.
Photos of Chandler are unavailable. Her date of birth is July 21, 1914, making her sixty years old when she disappeared from Modesto on September 12, 1974, just after she withdrew nearly $9,000 from her bank account. She's described as a Caucasian female, 5'7 tall and 130 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
James, a forklift operator and cannery worker from Ceres, California, joined the singles group Parents Without Partners and dated several women following Patty's disappearance, using the alias "Jim Joy." He was known as a heavy gambler.
On October 8, 1980, his body was found at the door of his pickup truck on a remote dirt road in Hope Valley, near Lake Tahoe in California. He had died of a heart attack. He was carrying a .38 caliber pistol and a bloodstained pillow containing $98,000, all of it in hundred-dollar bills. Nearly a mile away was the body of Florence Evelyn Richina, a 49-year-old former special education teacher; she'd been shot with a .38 caliber pistol. James's footprints led from the crime scene to his truck.
Richina had sold some land and withdrawn $98,000 from her bank account, and that same amount of cash was in the pillow with James's body. Some of Richina's personal belongings and jewelry were found hidden in James's home. There were reports that they were going to get married, but authorities could find no marriage license or other evidence to support the stories.
Authorities haven't been able to conclusively tie Watkins to James Toliver, but the circumstances of her disappearance fit the profile and she was also active in the local dating circles. Foul play is suspected in Watkins's and in the other women's. She worked as a nurse at Modesto City Hospital in 1979.
Investigating Agency
Modesto Police Department
209-572-9532
209-572-9500
Other
Modesto Police Department
California Attorney General's Office
The Doe Network
Missing in California
NamUs
Websleuths
The Modesto Bee
The Beaver County Times
The Lakeland Ledger
The Merced Sun-Star
California Attorney General's Office
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 Case Updates with Photos