Sherry, who also used the name Lisa Gina, was last seen in the area of Joy Rd. and Greenfield Rd. on November 22, 2002, in Detroit, MI. Little else is known about her disappearance.

MJVH

Slowly the light dawns: I need to narrow and refine the focus of this blog.  Sure, everybody is just waiting for my next grammar lesson.  Sure, there’s a place for it, but not here.

And my fascination with the Michigan Supreme Court and the political doings there…again, worth it, but not here.

So we launch a more narrowly focused approach.  The Conflict at the Court will be gone some time next week.  Melissa has been so very good at  her work and we have nearly the critical number of murdereds and missings we need at the We Remember node of this site to assure people that they will find something of meaning when they visit.

Every life holds meaning.  One of the latest additions is that of Shannon Dale VerHage, only eleven months old.  I remember interviewing Shannon’s grandmother Kim VerHage maybe a decade ago.  Shannon’s father was her son.  I was serving as a field producer for some cable show and I remember the grandmother’s plea for somebody–anybody–to come forward and help find the baby, alive or dead.  I remember the phone call that followed from the New York producer.  At the top of her questions was this one:  “Did she cry?”  That’s what it takes to make a cable hit: pathos.  I thought it bathetic.  Of course she cried; what grandmother wouldn’t cry for a missing and most likely murdered grandchild?

There have been a world of tears shed for each and every one of the victims we chronicle at We Remember.

IN PROCESS

Coral lived with her grandmother, Lois Janish, in an apartment building in Flint, Genesee County, MI. It was not an optimal situation. Her grandmother had been investigated but Child Protective Services, admitted to using drugs, had a boyfriend who was newly released from prison–whom Hall accused of  molesting her. Hall met with protective services on Sept. 21, 1998. The next day she was reported missing. Supposedly, on September 22, 1998, she left to return a book to someone in an upstairs apartment, but didn’t return home. Later that same night Coral called her friend Melissa Pierce and asked if she could move in with her. Melissa was in another part of the state, but a relative agreed to give her a ride to Flint to meet Coral. Coral was gone by the time Melissa arrived, and had not been seen nor heard from since then. Police believe she returned to the Ann Arbor Street apartment and there met her death.

Police stayed on top of the case and grew suspicious the more they interviewed the grandmother. On July 31, 2013, they arrested her and charged her with murder. She was arraigned August 1, 2013. At the arraignment police reported that Janish admitted that she had killed her granddaughter with a hammer, dismembered the body and disposed of it. Janish subsequently recanted her confession.

Most recently Janish was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to see if she is competent to stand trial.

MJVH/DBS

Amanda spent the night at a friends house in White Cloud,  Newaygo County, MI, on June 20, 2004. When her friend woke up the following morning,  Amanda was missing.  Police initially believed she ran away, but discovered she had been chatting online with someone whose screen name included “skit-zo_killa.”  Two weeks later mushroom hunters found her body in a wooded area.  Amanda died of blunt force trauma to the head.

MJVH

Tangena was last seen around 9 p.m. on October 2, 2008. She was riding in a car with her mother’s boyfriend, who was going to pick Tangena’s mother up from her place of employment. He stopped at a Marathon Gas Station in Detroit, MI, and leaving Tangena in the car alone with the doors locked, he went in to buy a pack of gum. When he returned to the car, Tangena was missing. She has not been seen nor heard from since that night.

MJVH

Christopher was camping with four friends on the night of April 22, 1990. He was was last seen around 9 p.m. when he went for a walk in the woods surrounding the Rose Lake Recreation area in Bath Township, Clinton County, MI. Police believe that foul play was involved in Christopher’s disappearance.

Shannon was last seen with her mother Rachel Timmerman, on June 3, 1997, in Cedar Springs, Kent County, MI. Rachel was murdered by a man whom she was to testify against in court on charges of rape. Her body was found July 5, 1997, in Oxford Lake, in the Manistee National Forest. There were no signs of Shannon, and she has not been seen nor heard from since.

MJVH

Kathy was last seen leaving her home in Otsego, Allegan County,  MI, after a fight with her stepmother on July 17, 1972. She has not been seen nor heard from since. The artistic rendering from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is the most recent of several age progressions. This is what Kathy Sue might well look like today. The black and white photo is perhaps the most recent before she left home and comes from the Facebook website. The color photo is her seventh grade portrait.

Yusuf was last seen leaving a friend’s house in Eastpointe, Macomb County, MI, on October 1, 1999.  He has not been seen nor heard from since.   He is known by the nickname “YB.”

MJVH

According to D’wan’s mother, Dwanna Harris, D’wan disappeared on December 11, 1994, when they were shopping at the Target Store in the Wonderland Mall in Livonia, MI. Video surveillance tapes from Target show Dwanna, but not her son D’wan. Dwanna was given two polygraph tests, both of which she failed. Investigators believe that D’wan was never at the mall with his mother on the day he disappeared, but Dwanna has never been charged in connection to D’wan’s disappearance.

MJVH