7 years investigating the disappearance of a man that ended unexpectedly

 Nothing is more heart-wrecking than losing your loved ones. Especially when they disappear suddenly, without previous notice,  leaving you to drown in despair and sorrow. 

According to the Unidentified Persons System and National Missing about 600,000 people are recorded missing in America on a yearly basis. The estimation of 2014 broke all the possible records. In 2014, the US recorded about 90,000 cases of disappearance. Surprisingly, 60% of them are adults. 

Sadly, the cases of disappearances are increasing in numbers day by day. The authorities should not take these cases lightly and should spring into action immediately after it gets reported. Knox County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio’s investigator Amy Dobbs explained, “The first 12 to 24 hours are the most critical in an active missing persons investigation.”

Dobbs said, “The longer it takes for a case to be reported and become an active investigation, the less likely a positive outcome will occur.”  

The first three hours following the disappearance of a minor decide the future of the case. According to the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, about 76 percent of children die within three hours of their abduction.

Carney, a 25-year-old working man, had no idea that he was very soon going to make the headlines worldwide. The incident took place in Butler, New Jersey, where Carney was staying in an apartment he was renting with Roy Anthony who happened to be the last person to see him before his disappearance. 

 

 

Carney had a lot going on in his mind before disappearing without notice. He had rung his boss to inform that he would be late for work that day. Being a  hard-working and efficient  employee, his boss did not ask him why. Little did he know that he was going to be the last one to speak with him before Carney vanished into thin air.

  

Carney didn’t even show up to work that day. He stopped taking calls, ignoring texts and messages from everyone. Things took a serious turn when he did not appear the next day too. Soon after, his car was discovered on the side of a road between Elizabeth and Newark, with no sign of what could’ve happened.

Carney moved out of his parent’s house and relocated to Butler immediately after he got this job. However, he used to visit his parents once or twice a month. On the day of his disappearance, his parents too tried to contact him through phone but again he did not answer nor he called them back. What had happened to him in a matter of an hour? 

No need to say his family went devastated when they heard about the discovery of his car and the condition in which it was found. Phyllis and Ed – his mother and father turned to authorities for help. However, they knew that merely lodging missing report was not enough. They were going to pull all the stops to get their son back. But were all their efforts going to make any difference? 

Phyllis Carney could not stop crying when she learned that her son had gone missing. She remembered the night just before his disappearance. He had hugged her. Phyllis recalled, “We had dinner, he said, ‘Mom I love you,’ and that was it.”

The Carneys decided to ask from help from the Kristen Foundation. It is a national organization with the sole aim bringing missing people back home. The organization came into existence in 1999,named after another missing adult named Kristen Modafferi.    

 

Kristen disappeared mysteriously in 1997, shortly after moving to San Francisco. She was enrolled in an art course at the University of California, Berkeley, to which she never showed. 

 On the day she disappeared, she had completed a shift at a coffee shop called Spinelli’s. She opened up to a co-worker of hers about going to Baker Beach after her shift. Later that day, she was seen roaming in a mall with an unidentified woman, after which she was seen at a bank, withdrawing money.. The 18-year-old girl went missing three days after the cash withdrawal.      

20 years went by and the police could not find anything about her fate. All the efforts and resources dedicated to finding her ended up hitting a wall, as she was nowhere to be found.  Instead of giving into despair, her family decided to turn Kristen into a ray of hope for those who strive to locate their disappeared loved ones. This is how the Kristen Foundation was built.   

The Carneys had very high expectations of the foundation. It helped them make billboard appeals on Route 23, big enough to catch the attention of any passerby.  The giant billboard had a huge picture of Tim, their son along with the word MISSING written in bold and big font. “This way we keep his memory alive until he comes home,” Phyllis Carney explained.

Phyllis Carney asked, “Is he warm? Is he well? Is he under a bridge, somewhere in a box? Is he healthy? Does he not know who he is?” They were soon  going to get answers to all of their questions. Only, the answers weren’t what they were prepared to hear. 

All of their efforts led to no result. There was not a single lead to be found, he truly has vanished into thin air. Days changed into weeks, weeks into months and months into years, with Tim still untraced. Seven years went by and the case was still unsolved. Was it the end? An incomplete story? No, there was more to it, way more than expected..

After so many years of endless nights and cries, after so much effort and energy spent on finding their son, his family had made peace with the fact that they would never be able to see their son again. But life has its own way of surprising people. Just when his family was about to give up, a breakthrough happened in his case. An enormous surprise was awaiting his parents, a surprise no one saw coming.

After seven long years, police officers were finally able to find a trace of Tim. The news was broken by Tri-Boro Patch, a New Jersey news site. The site had fetched Captain Jeffrey Paul’s statement on the issue. Paul issued the statement from the side of Robert Bianchi, Morris County Prosecutor.    

The journey that began on September 28, 2004, had finally reached its end. As Paul puts it, “Mr. Carney was reported missing on September 28, 2004.” He continued, “He was subsequently located on September 23, 2011, and as a result was cleared from the missing person’s database. Mr. Carney was found alive and well but did not wish to disclose his whereabouts.”

The question that remained to be answered  was how did he go missing? And as he was alive and in good health why hasn’t he contacted his family? Carney refused to disclose where he was staying. His family, on the other hand, suspected that their son was under the influence of someone or something that was preventing their son from reaching out to his family.

They firmly believed that Carney was controlled by a church that  had links with the road where his car was left abandoned. The founder of the Kristen Foundation and mother of Modafferi, Joan Petruski revealed to Tri-Boro Patch that his family suspected a religious body named Gospel Outreach. The leader of this Christian group is pastor Jim Lethbridge who has been accused many times of illegally inducting members from their families.

Det. Colleen Pascale, Butler Police had deduced at the beginning of the case, “There is nothing to this case that indicates foul play. It is my belief, he, for whatever reason, didn’t want to come home.” His mother also disclosed that he was not happy with his job. “I think he was under a lot of stress. He wanted to get out from under stress and so he took off.  Whether he had a plan or not, I don’t know,” revealed Phyllis.

Carney’s mother further backed up her allegation by saying that Carney had become a member of Gospel Outreach before he went missing. She went on narrating an incident when the leaders had visited the hospital with Carney to go check on his aunt, as they doubted he was cooking up the whole thing. “They tried to get him away from his family, like, we’re your family now.” Phyllis said.

Despite the fact that Carney did not divulge his whereabouts , not even to his parents, they were positive that he was staying in Chicago. Petruski explained, “We know where he is and his family knows where he is but we don’t really know what’s in his mind right now.” “Hopefully, he’ll stay put where he is.”   

Petruski called his family “as perplexed as anybody else,” after finding out that it was their son who did not want to get in contact with them. 

Even though the family did not want to come forward and make a statement on this matter, Petruski spoke on their behalf, “We’d rather have him alive and well than any other circumstances.” “The family is happy about that and I don’t think they hold anything (against him) other than they’re happy he’s alive and they’ll work from there”.

Now that’s one unbelievable story,  the family who lived in despair for years, struggling  to find their son eventually learned that it was him who didn’t want to be found.