All These Years Later

Sunday, August 3, 1975, is not the kind of day that sticks out in anyone's memory. It was a tragic day in China, where 500 people drowned in the West River when two river boats crashed into each other and sank.  

And the Louisiana Superdome was dedicated on that day.

Otherwise, not a momentous day, and on that day in upstate New York, woman named Flora Stevens, 36 and an employee of a Catskills resort, was dropped off by her husband at a hospital for a medical appointment.

And when he returned to pick her up, she was nowhere to be seen.

The police were notified, of course, but turned up nothing, and Mr Stevens died in 1985. There appeared to be no other living relatives, so the case was put in the "cold" section of the file cabinet.

Until this past September 15, that is.  For on that day, an investigator with the New York State Police called the Sullivan County PD, up there in the Catskills. The investigator, Yan Solomon, was working on the case of skeletal female remains found in the next county over, but called Sullivan Co. because his file search revealed one open case as yet unsolved from 1975 - the Stevens missing person case.

Detective Rich Morgan worked the case for Sullivan Co., and his investigation led to the discovery that Mrs Stevens's Social Security number was being used by since 2001 by one "Flora Harris," a resident of an assisted living facility 250 miles away in Lowell, Massachusetts. 

Flora Harris with Sullivan County 

Detective Ed Clouse, left,

       and Detective Rich Morgan. 

Ms "Harris" recognized the 42-year-old image proffered by Det. Morgan when he visited the nursing home as being herself, but she suffers from dementia and is unable to supply any details, including how her last name changed and how she came to wind up in a Massachusetts facility. 

I think this story is meaningful for several reasons. For one, it shows that thoroughness on the job - whatever the task - is a habit that tends to pay off more often than we think.  For another, there just might be people connected to Ms Harris, or Ms Stevens, who could reconnect.  You never know.

But most important, it reminds me that we can't give up on searches like this. We get those Pennysaver fliers all the time, and they show people who have been missing for a long time.  It's especially poignant when you see a child missing and they show how a computer figures the child appears all these years later. But this case shows those families who are missing loved ones that you just never know, so don't give up hope, and don't give up looking.