Police carry signs of hope for missing kids

Friday, May 16, 2008

CLARKSVILLE — On May 2, the Clarksville Police Department posted on a police cruiser a photograph of smiling, redhaired Dixie Rogers, who ran away from her Conway home.

Before the clock struck midnight, Rogers, 16, resurfaced. The adult she was staying with in south Arkansas heard that police were looking for the girl, panicked and had her call home.

On Thursday, parents of 24 other missing children prayed that the Police Department’s new program leads to their safe return as well.

While photographs of missing children have long been posted on fliers, billboards and grocery store bulletin boards, Clarksville’s Police Department is the first in the nation to post such pictures on its vehicles, said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

It’s a simple yet inspired idea that the Virginia-based nonprofit plans to ask more law enforcement agencies to consider.

Nationally, one in six missing children featured in a photograph campaign is located, Allen said.

“I can’t imagine a better place to put these pictures than on a police cruiser because, believe me, people pay attention to police cars,” he said. “The power of these images is really extraordinary.” The 15-officer department in Johnson County has affixed names, telephone numbers and photographs of missing children from Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri to the rear windshields of Clarksville’s police cruisers.

Clarksville Police Chief Greg Donaldson got the idea while watching television and seeing a photograph of a missing child on the side of a cement truck.

Donaldson contacted the nonprofit Morgan Nick Foundation, which had placed the photograph on the cement truck through its “Picture Them Home” campaign. The Alma-based foundation has helped law enforcement agencies find 3, 721 missing children since its founding in 1996.

Today, Clarksville cruisers each sport photographs of two missing children on their rear windshields. Each police officer also carries a set of fliers in the cruiser with biographical information about the missing children.

On Thursday, Donaldson and Morgan Nick Foundation founder Colleen Nick wept as they pasted a red “Recovered” sticker over Rogers’ photograph on the cruiser.

Nick’s daughter, Morgan Nick, was abducted in 1995 while attending a little league baseball game in Alma. She was 6.

She hasn’t been heard from since.

Morgan was one of about 800, 000 children who vanish across the United States each year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

More than half of these children are believed to be runaways. Many others are abducted by family members. Only a fraction are taken by strangers who intend to kill them, keep them permanently or demand a ransom.

It’s hard to say exactly how many children are missing in Arkansas, said Robin Sanford, an analyst with the center.

All law enforcement agencies are required to report missing children to a Federal Bureau of Investigation National Crime Information Center database. But it’s hard to break out numbers for missing children because many are lumped into a category that includes missing adults.

However, the database shows there were at least 3, 812 new reports of Arkansas children who ran away from home in 2007 — more than 300 per month.

Branson Perry, who disappeared from his home north of Kansas City, Mo., on April 11, 2001, is among those featured on the Clarksville Police Department’s cruisers.

Mother Becky Klino said her 20-year-old son was at the family home with a friend before he disappeared.

Perry went outside to put some jumper cables in a shed. He never came back.

He had never run away before or run afoul of the law. Klino is sure he was abducted.

But she’s equally sure that he’s still alive, despite no word from Perry in seven years.

She has to believe that to make it through the day.

“You have to keep believing. You have to keep looking until there’s no hope left. Until there’s evidence, you don’t give up,” she said. “If you have children, then you surely understand why you just can’t give up.” Perry’s photograph on a Clarksville cruiser gives Klino just a little more hope that she’ll be reunited with her son one day.

Donaldson challenged every law enforcement agency in the nation to follow his department’s lead.

While it costs $150 per cruiser to affix the photographs, it’s money well spent, he said.

“There’s no way that it can get any better than doing what we did this morning: putting a ‘recovered’ sticker on a child’s picture,” he said of Rogers, who was missing for 17 days.

“I know every chief and every sheriff wants to do the same thing.” More information about the “Picture Them Home” campaign can be found at www. morgannick.com

08/12/08

The reward for a Skidmore man who’s been missing for seven years has doubled.

The $10,000 reward for information on Branson Perry is now $20,000.

New billboards have been posted throughout the Midland Empire.

Perry disappeared from his home in April 2001.

Police soon closed the case after minimal leads got them nowhere.

The case was then reopened in 2003 after new leads were presented.

Police carry signs of hope for missing kids

Friday, May 16, 2008

CLARKSVILLE — On May 2, the Clarksville Police Department posted on a police cruiser a photograph of smiling, redhaired Dixie Rogers, who ran away from her Conway home.

Before the clock struck midnight, Rogers, 16, resurfaced. The adult she was staying with in south Arkansas heard that police were looking for the girl, panicked and had her call home.

On Thursday, parents of 24 other missing children prayed that the Police Department’s new program leads to their safe return as well.

While photographs of missing children have long been posted on fliers, billboards and grocery store bulletin boards, Clarksville’s Police Department is the first in the nation to post such pictures on its vehicles, said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

It’s a simple yet inspired idea that the Virginia-based nonprofit plans to ask more law enforcement agencies to consider.

Nationally, one in six missing children featured in a photograph campaign is located, Allen said.

“I can’t imagine a better place to put these pictures than on a police cruiser because, believe me, people pay attention to police cars,” he said. “The power of these images is really extraordinary.” The 15-officer department in Johnson County has affixed names, telephone numbers and photographs of missing children from Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri to the rear windshields of Clarksville’s police cruisers.

Clarksville Police Chief Greg Donaldson got the idea while watching television and seeing a photograph of a missing child on the side of a cement truck.

Donaldson contacted the nonprofit Morgan Nick Foundation, which had placed the photograph on the cement truck through its “Picture Them Home” campaign. The Alma-based foundation has helped law enforcement agencies find 3, 721 missing children since its founding in 1996.

Today, Clarksville cruisers each sport photographs of two missing children on their rear windshields. Each police officer also carries a set of fliers in the cruiser with biographical information about the missing children.

On Thursday, Donaldson and Morgan Nick Foundation founder Colleen Nick wept as they pasted a red “Recovered” sticker over Rogers’ photograph on the cruiser.

Nick’s daughter, Morgan Nick, was abducted in 1995 while attending a little league baseball game in Alma. She was 6.

She hasn’t been heard from since.

Morgan was one of about 800, 000 children who vanish across the United States each year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

More than half of these children are believed to be runaways. Many others are abducted by family members. Only a fraction are taken by strangers who intend to kill them, keep them permanently or demand a ransom.

It’s hard to say exactly how many children are missing in Arkansas, said Robin Sanford, an analyst with the center.

All law enforcement agencies are required to report missing children to a Federal Bureau of Investigation National Crime Information Center database. But it’s hard to break out numbers for missing children because many are lumped into a category that includes missing adults.

However, the database shows there were at least 3, 812 new reports of Arkansas children who ran away from home in 2007 — more than 300 per month.

Branson Perry, who disappeared from his home north of Kansas City, Mo., on April 11, 2001, is among those featured on the Clarksville Police Department’s cruisers.

Mother Becky Klino said her 20-year-old son was at the family home with a friend before he disappeared.

Perry went outside to put some jumper cables in a shed. He never came back.

He had never run away before or run afoul of the law. Klino is sure he was abducted.

But she’s equally sure that he’s still alive, despite no word from Perry in seven years.

She has to believe that to make it through the day.

“You have to keep believing. You have to keep looking until there’s no hope left. Until there’s evidence, you don’t give up,” she said. “If you have children, then you surely understand why you just can’t give up.” Perry’s photograph on a Clarksville cruiser gives Klino just a little more hope that she’ll be reunited with her son one day.

Donaldson challenged every law enforcement agency in the nation to follow his department’s lead.

While it costs $150 per cruiser to affix the photographs, it’s money well spent, he said.

“There’s no way that it can get any better than doing what we did this morning: putting a ‘recovered’ sticker on a child’s picture,” he said of Rogers, who was missing for 17 days.

“I know every chief and every sheriff wants to do the same thing.” More information about the “Picture Them Home” campaign can be found at www. morgannick.com

Apr 11, 2008

Friday, Apr 11, 2008

The search for a missing Skidmore man marks its seventh anniversary.

Branson Perry’s family continues its effort to find him at all costs.

His face has become familiar to folks in the Midland Empire. From billboards to websites, the search for Branson Perry hasn’t stalled the past seven years.

Branson was last seen at his Skidmore home in 2001. His mother says he took a pair of jumper cables to a shed next to his house and was never seen again, but the cables mysteriously reappeared two weeks after an investigation began.

The search for Branson is still an open case. Sgt. Sheldon Lyon, with the Missouri State Hwy. Patrol says troopers feel Branson’s case is solvable.

Branson is 27 years old this year. A $10,000 reward is out for information that can help find him. His family will hold a fundraiser to try to increase that amount Saturday in Skidmore. The Highway Patrol will also be on-hand to make free child identification cards.

Missing Man Not Forgotten

Dottie Botkin has been a friend of Becky Klino for years.

But ever since Klino’s son, Branson Perry, went missing seven years ago, friendship and support like Botkin’s has never been as important as it is now.

“I just think if it was my child,” explained Botkin. “Then I’d sure appreciate somebody standing beside me no matter what the outcome is.”

Lois Cowden met Klino while volunteering at the United Way of Kansas City, were Klino works.

.
“Anything I can do to help,” said Cowden. “I don’t have any specific information, but if I can help support to get somebody else to step forward and say something.”

“It’s just doing what I can to support Becky.”

The support for Becky and her missing son came in the form of the first ever “RAMP Fest.”

Community members donated numerous items for the auction and raffle, everything from glass ware to autographed chiefs paraphernalia.

“It’s a good feeling,” said Klino. “It lets you know that people do care–and It’s not that i ever doubted that they care–but when you don’t see them for a long time or whatever you don’t know if they still remember, but they do.”

Perry dissapeared from his Skidmore home in 2001. The current reward to help find him is $10,000.

All money earned by the RAMP Fest will be used to increase that amount.

St Joe News.Net- St Joseph, Mo.

Friday, April 11, 2008

SKIDMORE, Mo. — Becky Klino always keeps her missing son Branson Perry close to heart, even as she prepares fundraisers for his reward fund.

Today marks the seventh anniversary of Mr. Perry’s disappearance from Skidmore, a mystery that law enforcement officials have yet to unravel yet continue to actively investigate.

Family and friends will help Ms. Klino arrange fundraisers Saturday on the former Skidmore school grounds. She says simply staying busy with the events — such as an auction — keeps her from dwelling on the case. But thoughts of her son never go far away.

“I think it’s been a little bit easier,” Ms. Klino said of the anniversary. “My mind’s been preoccupied … It’s been emotional, yes, but it’s been busy.”

Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey reported no new activity on the investigation for the past year. Mr. Perry disappeared April 11, 2001, from his Skidmore home when he was 20 years old. He left the residence on foot and was taking a pair of jumper cables to a shed on a lot adjacent to the family home.

“I wish we had some new leads,” Mr. Espey said.

Ms. Klino said she is usually unfamiliar with any activity in the case, but said she does occasionally speak with Mr. Espey.

A $10,000 cash reward is offered, along with a $25,000 recording contract at a Nashville studio. The fundraisers seek to increase the cash reward.

“They (investigators) think it definitely could be a help” by enlarging the fund, Ms. Klino said.

Another weekend event seeks to shine awareness on Mr. Perry’s case. A race car team will field an entry this season in Montgomery County, Mo., near St. Louis. The team will feature Mr. Perry’s photo on one of its mini-stock cars. The effort is a partnership with The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, named after the missing eastern Missouri youth who was found alive last year in Kirkwood, Mo.

“I think it’s an awesome avenue of getting the information out,” Ms. Klino said.

The fundraisers will include item giveaways and the auction, set to begin at 4 p.m. A motorcycle poker run will begin at Terrible’s St. Jo Frontier Casino at 11 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m. at Skidmore Park. Refreshments will be available.

Any money not used for the reward fund will help provide scholarships for Nodaway-Holt County senior students in Mr. Perry’s memory.

Racing team publicizes search for the missing

04/06/2008

WARRENTON — Next month it will be a year since Kara Kopetsky, then 17, was reported missing from her high school in Belton, Mo., near Kansas City.

Her mother, Rhonda Beckford, has not given up hope of finding Kara.

So when the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation contacted her earlier this week about putting Kara’s picture on one of the Team Hornbeck Racing cars, Beckford jumped at the chance.

“It’s all about creating awareness and getting the word out,” Beckford said Saturday at the annual Warrenton Home and Garden Show, where Team Hornbeck debuted six cars for this year’s dirt track season.

The team is a partnership of race car drivers that helps support the foundation’s mission through financial support and by featuring photographs of missing children on its cars.

The foundation was formed by Shawn’s family after he was reported missing in October 2002. Shawn was found in January 2007— along with William “Ben” Ownby of Beaufort, Mo. — in the Kirkwood apartment of their abductor, Michael Devlin.

Photographs of 30 missing Missouri children will be rotated throughout the season.

The team was founded last year and had three cars featuring photos of missing children. This year, said Craig Akers, Shawn’s stepfather, they wanted to have a driver in every category: This season’s first race was to be held Saturday night at the Montgomery County Speedway in New Florence, Mo., but was canceled because of weather.

Races are held every Saturday through September.

Ideally they would like to find all of the missing children, Akers said, but he hopes that through the team’s efforts, families might at least be able to find some information about whether the children are still alive.

“You hope for a positive outcome, of course, but even a negative outcome is better than not knowing,” Akers said.

That’s what Becky Klino, of Skidmore, Mo., is hoping. Her son, Branson Perry, who was 20 at the time, was last seen in 2001. Since then, the family hasn’t stopped looking for him, but they have heard nothing, Klino said.

“You never know where the leads may come from,” she said. “This may help us find him, or at least we will know what happened.”

Apr 05 2008

(KTVI – myFOXstl.com) –

It’s not unusual to see stock cars covered with advertisements and sponsor’s logos. In Warrenton they unveiled some cars with special signs. They are adorned with the pictures of missing children. It’s all part of Shawn Hornbeck Foundation and Team Hornbeck Racing. 17 year old Kara Kopetsky disappeared last May. Her mother is glad the teenage girl’s photo is on a stock car. The mother, Rhonda Beckford told Fox 2, “The public forgets so fast you have to do things to make sure it stays out there because if people don’t look she’ll never be found.”

Craig Akers the C.E.O. for the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation said, “The ultimate goal would have this lead to the recovery of one of the children featured on the cars.” They are using age progression photos in the cases of kids who have been gone for a long time. Becky Klino’s son Branson Perry disappeared 7 years ago, she said, “Does it get easier to live with? No. There’s still that emptiness still that heartache.”
The stock car drivers are happy to be part of a winning cause. Lane Ehlert is a driver, he said, “I really hope we can find them just keep awareness up saying we’re still looking for them.” Organizers say the program also promotes child safety.

3/20/08

It’s been nearly seven years since Branson Perry went missing from his father’s home in Skidmore.

Seven long years.

On April 11, 2001, Perry, who was 20 at the time, was cleaning his father’s house with a friend. At approximately 3 p.m. that afternoon, Perry took jumper cables out to his father’s nearby shed and was never seen again.

Seven years later, Perry’s mother, Becky Klino, hasn’t lost the love for her son, nor her hope for his return.

“My faith believes in miracles,” Klino said. “I believe in miracles and so you constantly are believing that, and praying and hoping that he’s going to be OK. That he’s going to come home. That he just had to get away and for whatever reason, that part doesn’t matter anymore, and you hope that one day he’ll just decide to come home.”

Since Perry went missing, authorities from Nodaway County and the Missouri State Highway Patrol have been investigating the disappearance. The investigation remains active and open Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Merrill said, but added that authorities can’t discuss many details.

Not being able to hear about leads has been extremely tough for Klino.

“As a parent, you want to know what’s going on. If they know something, you want to be able to know that, so that way you know that things are being done,” Klino said. “That they’re following up on things, however trivial they may be, or insignificant they might be. You just … anything, you want to hear anything that’s happening.”

Through the Internet and billboards supplied by both herself and Lamar, Klino hopes to help keep people thinking about her son in hopes that it will bring any new information to light.”I feel it’s very important to keep the awareness out there, to keep the public constantly being renewed with: that the case is open, that it is still unsolved,” Klino said. “I’m thinking maybe, hopefully, that people who do have the information, maybe one of these times they’ll go by and they’ll see it or they’ll hear something about it and maybe the guilt will get to them.

“Then maybe it’ll cause them to come forward.”

Klino is also planning a fundraiser April 12 to observe the anniversary of Perry’s disappearance. A raffle, auction and poker run are all being planned. In keeping the awareness out, Klino has found support from her friends, both old and new.

“I have got amazing friends,” Klino said. “I’ve had amazing support from people I’ve never even met before.”

Klino said that while she holds out hope for Perry’s return, she also has confronted the possibility of a worse scenario. But what she wants more than anything is to know where her son is, or what has happened to him.

“I’ve met many people or talked to many different families who are in the same situation. And all of them have made the comment that the not knowing is worse than the knowing,” Klino said.

A $10,000 reward has been issued for any information that leads to the discovery of Perry or for the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for Perry’s disappearance. A $25,000 reward is also being offered by Castle Records. Anyone who has any information is encouraged to contact the Missouri State Highway Patrol at (816) 387-2345 or Klino at Raperry@hughes.net. Klino also reiterated that tips can be submitted anonymously.

“Somebody knows what’s happened. There may be more than one somebody that knows what happened,” Klino said. “You may have heard something that you just blew off that has no importance whatsoever, but it may be the key answer to everything. No matter how small it is, or how trivial you might think it is, please don’t hesitate to contact the law.”

Klino also had one last message for Perry if he had the opportunity to hear.

“You are loved just as much today as you were that day that nobody saw you again,” Klino said. “We still love you and we still miss you.”

David Lohr

Branson Kayne Perry

Branson disappeared on the afternoon of April 11, 2001. The circumstances of his disappearance remain sketchy and, unfortunately, his father, Bob Perry – a person who may have been able to shed some light on the case – has since passed away.

“At the time of Branson’s disappearance, Bob and I were divorced, and I was living in a small town about 20 miles from Skidmore,” Branson’s mother Rebecca Perry wrote in an e-mail. “Bob had been in the hospital and was due to come home that Friday. Branson wanted the house to be clean when his father came home, so a friend was helping him that Wednesday. The alternator had also gone out of Bob’s car prior to this day and there were two men replacing it where it was parked on the street in front of the storage shed that sat on an adjacent lot to the house. It is still unclear to me as to who asked them to fix it, whether it was Bob or Branson.”

According to Rebecca, the story related to her was that a friend of Branson’s was at the house that day and she witnessed several strange behaviors on the part of both Branson and the men who were working on his father’s car.>

“At one point, the friend saw Branson run into the kitchen and take something out of one of the cabinets, then run out the back door. She said that when Branson returned, he wouldn’t tell her what he was doing and acted like nothing had happened. She said later she had taken a shower and when she came out of the bathroom, she saw one of the men that had been working on the car going through the cabinets in the kitchen. She said she asked him what he was looking for and he told her, ‘Nothing,’ and went back outside.”

At about 3:00 p.m. that afternoon, Branson’s friend said Branson told her he was going to put some jumper cables in the shed and that he would be right back. For reasons unknown, Branson never returned and he has not been seen or heard from since.

“The friend just thought Branson had gotten sidetracked, so she left after she finished what she was doing,” wrote Rebecca. “Bob did not come home that Friday, so his mother had come to the house to check on Branson, since she hadn’t heard from him for a couple days. When she got to the house, all the doors had been left open and the radio was on. She went to check again Saturday, and still nothing. She became concerned and started making phone calls to his friends. No one had heard from him. I called Bob on Sunday and he called me that evening. Bob got out of the hospital Monday morning and I met them at the police station to file a missing person’s report.”

According to Rebecca, investigators were unable to find any clues suggesting what might have happened to Branson. However, one thing that still troubles her is the mysterious disappearance and eventual reappearance of the jumper cables Branson had gone to put away when he vanished.

“When they (the police) checked the shed for the jumper cables, they were not there,” Rebecca wrote. “Two weeks after the investigation started, they mysteriously showed up in the shed, just inside the door.”

The investigation eventually came to a standstill, and the case remained cold until April 2003, when police began to focus the investigation on a man from Fulton, Missouri, who had allegedly bragged about the kidnap, torture, and murder of a blonde-haired man from Skidmore. That man, who remains behind bars for unrelated crimes, denied any involvement in the case. Investigators have yet to completely rule him out as a suspect; however, they continue to explore other scenarios.

“I have never been a person to ask for much,” Rebecca wrote. “I am asking, pleading, even begging for your help in finding my son or finding out what happened to him. I need for this nightmare to end. It is a roller coaster that doesn’t ever stop. From the outside, I may appear to be fine. Inside, I will never be ok. If you have ever lost someone who has died, then you know that feeling of complete despair. Over time, it eases and becomes bearable.”

Branson is described as a white male, 5’8″ tall, 140 lbs., with blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Nodaway County Sheriff at 660-582-7451 or the Missouri Highway Patrol at 816-387-2345.

For more information on this case, visit www.bransonperry.com.