Faith
12-11-2008, 01:19 AM
December 10, 2008
The Missing - A Weekly Exposé of Lost Souls - Issue #24
The Mysterious Disappearance of Jamie Harper and Heather Zimmerman
In this week's edition of "The Missing," we revisit the case of 20-year-old Jamie Harper, a missing adult from Paxton, Illinois, who was last seen in March 2007 and the eerily similar case of 19-year-old Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman, a young woman who disappeared in the same area over a decade ago.
http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/images/2008/12/10/jamie_harper.gif
Jamie Harper was last seen on March 8, 2007, when she left her parent's house to attend a party in nearby Rantoul. When Jamie failed to return home the following day, her mother was concerned but assumed that she was hanging out with friends and decided to wait a few days before reporting her missing.
When Paxton Police Chief Robert G. Bane finally received Jamie's missing persons report, he contacted a local man who had accompanied Jamie to the party. According to his statements to police, the man had not seen her since the night of the party. He said that she had opted to stay behind when he left. Police questioned witnesses who were at the party and conducted a thorough search of the area, but in the end, their efforts resulted in very few leads.
As the investigation continued, police received an anonymous call from a person who claimed that Jamie had died as a result of a drug overdose. The caller went on to say that her body had been dumped in a gravel pit southeast of Paxton-the same area another woman's body had been dumped in 1984. In that case, the woman's former husband was later arrested and convicted in her murder.
Taking the caller's lead, police scoured the area with cadaver-sniffing canines and used sonar-equipped boats to sweep the bottom of the rivers. Unfortunately, none of the searches turned up any trace of Jamie.
http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/images/2008/12/10/heatherzimmerman2200.jpg
The fact that Jamie Harper's disappearance is frighteningly similar to the decades-old disappearance of Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman has not escaped police. While they will not officially comment on a possible link between the two cases, sources close to the investigation believe there are too many coincidences for them not to be connected.
On May 26, 1997, Heather left her father's house to visit a friend in Rantoul and never returned. She was allegedly last seen in the company of the same individual who would later pick up Jamie Harper on the night she disappeared. But the coincidences don't stop there. As with Jamie's case, an anonymous caller had told a local news station that Heather's body could be found in the gravel pits southeast of Paxton.
Throughout the spring and summer of 2007, police had no new leads to report in either case. Then, in October 2007, the Rantoul Police Department announced they had received a lead that evidence related to Jamie's disappearance could be found on property owned by a relative of the man they had previously questioned in her disappearance.
Investigators from the Rantoul and Paxton Police Departments, along with assistance from the Vermilion and Champaign County Sheriff's Offices and the Illinois State Police, spent eight hours searching the property and outbuildings, but again, no body was found, and what, if any, evidence was found during the search remains unknown.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently assisting police in Jamie's case. The extent of their involvement has not yet been revealed; however, the bureau did recently add Jamie to the kidnapped and missing persons (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/harper_j.htm) section of their Web site.
Jamie Harper stands 5 feet tall, weighs approximately 130 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She also has a nose ring and a tribal design tattoo on her back. She was wearing a white jacket, jeans, sandals, and held a handbag when she left her home before her disappearance.
For more information or to help, please visit: www.myspace.com/bringjamiehome (http://www.myspace.com/bringjamiehome)
At the time of her disappearance, Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman stood 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed approximately 115 pounds. She has blonde hair and green eyes. She also had a tattoo of three red roses with a black stem on her left outer ankle.
For more information or to help, please visit: www.theyaremissing.org/heather.html (http://www.theyaremissing.org/heather.html)
Anyone with information in either case is asked to contact the Paxton Police Department at (217) 379-4315 or the Champaign County Sheriff's Department at (217) 384-1213.
http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2008/12/the-missing---a.html
The Missing - A Weekly Exposé of Lost Souls - Issue #24
The Mysterious Disappearance of Jamie Harper and Heather Zimmerman
In this week's edition of "The Missing," we revisit the case of 20-year-old Jamie Harper, a missing adult from Paxton, Illinois, who was last seen in March 2007 and the eerily similar case of 19-year-old Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman, a young woman who disappeared in the same area over a decade ago.
http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/images/2008/12/10/jamie_harper.gif
Jamie Harper was last seen on March 8, 2007, when she left her parent's house to attend a party in nearby Rantoul. When Jamie failed to return home the following day, her mother was concerned but assumed that she was hanging out with friends and decided to wait a few days before reporting her missing.
When Paxton Police Chief Robert G. Bane finally received Jamie's missing persons report, he contacted a local man who had accompanied Jamie to the party. According to his statements to police, the man had not seen her since the night of the party. He said that she had opted to stay behind when he left. Police questioned witnesses who were at the party and conducted a thorough search of the area, but in the end, their efforts resulted in very few leads.
As the investigation continued, police received an anonymous call from a person who claimed that Jamie had died as a result of a drug overdose. The caller went on to say that her body had been dumped in a gravel pit southeast of Paxton-the same area another woman's body had been dumped in 1984. In that case, the woman's former husband was later arrested and convicted in her murder.
Taking the caller's lead, police scoured the area with cadaver-sniffing canines and used sonar-equipped boats to sweep the bottom of the rivers. Unfortunately, none of the searches turned up any trace of Jamie.
http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/images/2008/12/10/heatherzimmerman2200.jpg
The fact that Jamie Harper's disappearance is frighteningly similar to the decades-old disappearance of Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman has not escaped police. While they will not officially comment on a possible link between the two cases, sources close to the investigation believe there are too many coincidences for them not to be connected.
On May 26, 1997, Heather left her father's house to visit a friend in Rantoul and never returned. She was allegedly last seen in the company of the same individual who would later pick up Jamie Harper on the night she disappeared. But the coincidences don't stop there. As with Jamie's case, an anonymous caller had told a local news station that Heather's body could be found in the gravel pits southeast of Paxton.
Throughout the spring and summer of 2007, police had no new leads to report in either case. Then, in October 2007, the Rantoul Police Department announced they had received a lead that evidence related to Jamie's disappearance could be found on property owned by a relative of the man they had previously questioned in her disappearance.
Investigators from the Rantoul and Paxton Police Departments, along with assistance from the Vermilion and Champaign County Sheriff's Offices and the Illinois State Police, spent eight hours searching the property and outbuildings, but again, no body was found, and what, if any, evidence was found during the search remains unknown.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently assisting police in Jamie's case. The extent of their involvement has not yet been revealed; however, the bureau did recently add Jamie to the kidnapped and missing persons (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/harper_j.htm) section of their Web site.
Jamie Harper stands 5 feet tall, weighs approximately 130 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She also has a nose ring and a tribal design tattoo on her back. She was wearing a white jacket, jeans, sandals, and held a handbag when she left her home before her disappearance.
For more information or to help, please visit: www.myspace.com/bringjamiehome (http://www.myspace.com/bringjamiehome)
At the time of her disappearance, Heather Dawn Mullins Zimmerman stood 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed approximately 115 pounds. She has blonde hair and green eyes. She also had a tattoo of three red roses with a black stem on her left outer ankle.
For more information or to help, please visit: www.theyaremissing.org/heather.html (http://www.theyaremissing.org/heather.html)
Anyone with information in either case is asked to contact the Paxton Police Department at (217) 379-4315 or the Champaign County Sheriff's Department at (217) 384-1213.
http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2008/12/the-missing---a.html