Mitchell Deon Owen- a heartbreaking case

[emma l]

I wanted to post this because minority missing children are SOMETIMES ignored, but everybody is loved...........and this case is horrific.


" Mitchell was 5 in 1983 when he walked into his mother's room in their Menlo Park home and found a man raping her. Ora Owens screamed at Mitchell to hide as the rapist strangled her, but when she woke up two days later in a hospital, her son was gone. " snip .......

Heres Mitchells Doe page:

http://doenetwork.us/cases/173dmca.html

Is a strange one because the kind of criminal that rapes an adult is not usually interested in children. I doubt whether the were woried about him as a witness, being so young......Although saying that Samantha Runnnions little friend did give a breathtaking account of her abducter.
I think the fact that Mitchells mum recieved calls threatening to take her other children is horrific and also very unusual in this kind of case. I wonder whether there was a personal grudge?
I just wanted people to keep Mitchell in their hearts and you never know who might have seen this cute little boy.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ffile=/chronicle/archive/1998/12/04/MN79938.DTL

[WasBlind]

More links for Mitchell
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Mitchell+Deon+Owens%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

Thank you for bringing Mitchell to the forum. What a beautiful little boy, and what a nice looking young man he is now.

Hopefully, someone will recognize him and bring his family an answer.

With HOPE, Lanie
Help For The Missing
HelpForTheMissing@yahoo.com

[emma l]

Thanks for that wasblind. I was shocked by one story in the link , a quote form Mitchels mother...........

"Two decades ago, Owens said, it took almost three days for authorities to find her in the hospital and take steps to find her son. She thinks police took her less seriously because she was young, poor and black. She alleges an investigator told the single mother on welfare that she had ``one less mouth to feed.''

Mitchell Owens would be 24 today. His mother, now a Southern California resident, said his absence is an ache that won't go away. She prays for brown-eyed Mitchell daily and looks for his face everywhere."
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/6039900.htm

Its just so sad.......................

[WasBlind]

Yes, it is sad, emma. The problem is epidemic.

Please feel free to e-mail me for the quiz for the missing. Taking that might give you better insight into what the work entails and what sort of struggles the families face in getting media exposure for their missing loved ones.

And pray, pray for those still missing and those who search for them.
There is no such thing as closure. Nothing in their lives is ever closed again. People sometimes get an answer, or answers, but there are always questions, and more questions.

Molly Bishes mother, Magi, said it best in her power point presentation about Molly. "You can lose your keys, and you can lose your glasses, but how in America do you lose your child?" ( link to quote is here http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/01/48hours/main586143.shtml )

It is happening everywhere, not just in America, as you well know.
Education is paramount, to protect ourselves from this crime and to understand that empathy and compassion are so critical to the families.

Write me if you want, and the offer extends to anyone who reads this.
Just put "emma from WS" or your nick in the title...so I do not inadvertantly delete your mail, and thanks.

With HOPE, Lanie
Help For The Missing
HelpForTheMissing@yahoo.com

[BAD_BUTTERFLY]

praying for you :o

[Richard]

It is most probable that the intruder thought that he had killed the mother, as was his intent. He took the little boy who witnessed the attack to silence him.
This is very similar to the case of the Murninghan girl, Lansing Michigan in the summer of 1970. A jewlry store robber struck the owner of the store on the head with his pistol and it discharged. The woman was knocked unconcious, but not killed. Thinking that he had killed her, he abducted the teenage girl from the store, took her to a secluded place and shot her in the head to prevent her from identifying him. In this case, the owner of the store recovered and described the robber/ murderer. Unfortunately, he has never been caught.

[emma l]

This is a very likely senario Richard............ I guess it also fits with the mother recieving threatening calls about her other children after Mitchell vanished. So horrific............

[emma l]

Bump.

[HesterMofet]

Why steal the kid unless you are going to give him to someone? I mean, if you're going to kill a woman and leave her body there, obviously the perp thought she was dead, why not just kill the child right there? Why take the risk of taking a traumatized child from the home if you're just going to kill him elsewhere? That's the one thing that would point to this child still being alive or being alive for a significant time after the event.

[Mr. E]

Was the mother able to identify her rapist? If his face was masked, maybe it was someone who knew her. Maybe he raped her to hurt her, then took her son to hurt her even more.

Maybe he left the door open and the little boy wandered out and away, then fell into a drainage ditch and was swept away.

Maybe the little boy fought the rapist, and the rapist accidentally killed him, then took the body to hide it.

I wonder if evidence was kept that could be checked and cross-referenced for DNA.