OR OR - Katrina Dawn Sweaney, 25, Grants Pass, Mar 98

[Moonwalker9]

Katrina Dawn Sweaney – The Charley Project
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Katrina Dawn Sweaney

• 

Sweaney, circa 1998

• Missing Since03/05/1998
• Missing FromGrants Pass, Oregon
• ClassificationEndangered Missing
• Date of Birth12/04/1972 (46)
• Age25 years old
• Height and Weight5'2, 110 pounds
• Distinguishing CharacteristicsCaucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Sweaney has a scar on her right cheek and tattoos on her right hand near her thumb, on her ankle, on the back of her right shoulder and above her left breast.

Details of Disappearance
Sweaney was last seen in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 5, 1998. She told her mother she was driving to Roseburg, Oregon with her husband and a friend in the car to keep her awake. She said she would be home that night or the next morning. She has never been heard from again.

Sweaney left behind three children, and her family doesn't think she would have abandoned them. She was involved with drugs at the time of her disappearance, and there was a history of domestic violence in her life; she got restraining orders against her partner in 1995 and 1996. Her case remains unsolved.

 

[JSolt1210]

Details of Disappearance
Sweaney was last seen in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 5, 1998. She told her mother she was driving to Roseburg, Oregon with her husband and a friend in the car to keep her awake. She said she would be home that night or the next morning. She has never been heard from again.

Sweaney left behind three children, and her family doesn't think she would have abandoned them. She was involved with drugs at the time of her disappearance, and there was a history of domestic violence in her life; she got restraining orders against her partner in 1995 and 1996. Her case remains unsolved.

The part BBM makes it sound like the three people in the car were Katrina, Katrina's husband, and a friend.

But according to NamUs, Katrina was "with a friend and her husband." Could this mean the people in the car were Katrina, Katrina's (female?) friend, and the husband of Katrina's friend?

And to add to the confusion, the Doe Network says only "with a friend..." so only two people in the car, and no husband?

I think the distinctions are crucial because if Katrina's husband was present, then I'd be suspicious of him, given the "history of domestic violence in her life." But if we're talking about two completely different people (or just one, that of the friend), then I'd want to know more about what happened when they reached their destination, she dropped them off, continued alone etc.

 

[Jen97470]

Katrina Dawn Sweaney – The Charley Project
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Katrina Dawn Sweaney

• 

Sweaney, circa 1998

• Missing Since03/05/1998
• Missing FromGrants Pass, Oregon
• ClassificationEndangered Missing
• Date of Birth12/04/1972 (46)
• Age25 years old
• Height and Weight5'2, 110 pounds
• Distinguishing CharacteristicsCaucasian female. Red hair, blue eyes. Sweaney has a scar on her right cheek and tattoos on her right hand near her thumb, on her ankle, on the back of her right shoulder and above her left breast.

Details of Disappearance
Sweaney was last seen in Grants Pass, Oregon on March 5, 1998. She told her mother she was driving to Roseburg, Oregon with her husband and a friend in the car to keep her awake. She said she would be home that night or the next morning. She has never been heard from again.

Sweaney left behind three children, and her family doesn't think she would have abandoned them. She was involved with drugs at the time of her disappearance, and there was a history of domestic violence in her life; she got restraining orders against her partner in 1995 and 1996. Her case remains unsolved.

I can't find anywhere if the friend or husband have been found or if they were ever missing.

 

[theshadow45]

Bumping for Katrina, today is her birthday.

 

[ALightForEricka]

Bumping for Katrina's son. He was killed a few days ago at the age of 29.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Bumping up for Katrina.
I wonder why she was traveling and who she was really with that night. How much was LE able to investigate?

 

[alb1on]

Katrina's husband was Gary D Sweaney according to a marriage record on Ancestry and they married in September 1989 in Reno. Her maiden name was Bushnell. I am pretty sure both Katrina and her husband were born in California and there are online records for a Gary D Sweaney in California and with a past address in Oregon - but such databases are often out of date so this does not confirm either that he is still alive or that he is the same person.
It is odd that there is so little out there.

 

[theshadow45]

Katrina has been missing for 24 years today.

 

[ALightForEricka]

Katrina's husband was Gary D Sweaney according to a marriage record on Ancestry and they married in September 1989 in Reno. Her maiden name was Bushnell. I am pretty sure both Katrina and her husband were born in California and there are online records for a Gary D Sweaney in California and with a past address in Oregon - but such databases are often out of date so this does not confirm either that he is still alive or that he is the same person.
It is odd that there is so little out there.

An article from 2008 cites him as being wanted for assaulting two women in Eureka CA.

Man sought in assault with club

Police are looking for a Eureka resident who allegedly assaulted a woman with a large wooden club Thursday morning, leaving her with moderate injuries to her face and right hand. Gary Duane Sweaney…

www.times-standard.com

 

[Caring1]

Katrina has 3 exclusions:

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP8419
Date Body FoundJanuary 16, 2001
StateVA
CountyIsle of Wight

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP12683
Date Body FoundJune 06, 2014
StateVA
CountyNewport News

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP2159
Date Body FoundMay 09, 2001
StateWV
CountyGreenbrier

 

[ALightForEricka]

Katrina has 3 exclusions:

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP8419
Date Body FoundJanuary 16, 2001
StateVA
CountyIsle of Wight

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP12683
Date Body FoundJune 06, 2014
StateVA
CountyNewport News

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP2159
Date Body FoundMay 09, 2001
StateWV
CountyGreenbrier

Kind of a bummer that none of those exclusions are in the state that she vanished from

 

[summergirl1]

Today would be Katrina's birthday. This post here gives a lot more info on her disapearence and states some sources say she was traveling with a couple she'd only recently met and her parents had no reason to be suspicious of them at the time so didn't pay much attention to it..until she didn't come back. This explanation of her disapearence makes a lot of sense. She didn't really know them and her family didn't, so it was easy to get her trust and then presumably murder her, and be very untraceable. The question, if that is true is why? Or perhaps she got to know them better, and found they didn't get along, which led to an argument, which led to..that could have happened too. I had meant to post this for a few months and decided to finally do it, and then by chance this morning without remembering, as I read about a lot of missing persons and Doe cases, happened to notice it was Katrina's birthday, after I found this link again and read it. Whatever happened to her, I hope someday it is solved. Katrina Sweaney

 

[GeminiStorm]

She should definitely be compared to the unidentified woman from Astoria, OR. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) The face and physical description that is provided are the same. They were skeletal remains

 

[ALightForEricka]

She should definitely be compared to the unidentified woman from Astoria, OR. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) The face and physical description that is provided are the same. They were skeletal remains

According to the Doe Network, they don't have dental records for Katrina. That would make it extremely hard for the state medical examiner to compare her remains to this Doe. I'll bring it up to her, but I have a gut feeling that she's not going to be able to make a comparison unless this Doe becomes one of the cases out of Oregon that's picked up by their Parabon grant thing.

 

[theshadow45]

Katrina has been missing for 25 years today.

 

[theshadow45]

Bumping, today is Katrina’s birthday.

 

[theshadow45]

Katrina has been missing for 26 years today.

 

[ALightForEricka]

Just popping in here to let the thread know that I am attempting to request a redacted copy of Katrina Sweaney's missing persons file from the Grants Pass Police Department <modsnip> I know it isn't likely that the individuals she was traveling with will be directly named in whatever copy of the report that I receive, but I'm hoping that there will be context clues, anything that will sort out this mystery a little bit more.

 

[ALightForEricka]

Everyone. I think that we may have been misinterpreting the NAMUS entry for Katrina this entire time.
So, in the circumstances, NAMUS states that "Katrina stated to her mother that she was going to Roseburg with a friend and her husband."
It just hit me that whoever wrote this was actually using proper syntax.
Some of us have been going with the presumption that the differentiation between 'friend' and 'her husband' meant that it was Katrina's husband being referred to in the report.
But what if the NAMUS entry meant that the husband was actually the friend's husband, not Katrina's?
That would make a lot more sense, given that other sources state that she was traveling with two people who she didn't know very well.

 

[ALightForEricka]

This article that I grabbed courtesy of the Wayback machine may actually confirm my above theory. I got this from a link that somebody posted in this thread that had a few now-defunct links attached to it to a couple of articles. While I was unable to get the article from the Grants Pass Daily Courier, this one is enlightening.

"Three children are still left wondering what happened to their mother who disappeared nearly 14 years ago when she hitched a ride with a couple to Roseburg. Katrina Dawn Sweaney, who was 26 years old at the time of her disappearance, arrived at her parents’ home located in the 1400 block of Beacon Drive in Grants Pass on March 5, 1998, to tell them she had met a couple that was driving to Roseburg, that she had decided to go with them and that she would return home in the evening. Sweaney walked out the home’s front door and was never seen again. According to Public Safety Detective Sergeant Dennis Ward, Sweaney’s parents knew she had problems with substance abuse. But her announcement at home was not unusual and they hadn’t taken note of whom she was traveling with or the vehicle they were traveling in. Sweaney is described as being 5’2” tall, 110 to 115 pounds with auburn hair and blue eyes. She also has a small scar on her right cheek and tattoos located on the back of her right shoulder, above her left breast, on her right hand near her thumb and on one ankle. Even the minutest detail could aid detectives with solving this case and anyone with any information should contact Grants Pass Public Safety at 541-474-6370. Posted on 27 Jan 2012 by Jared Dill