CT CT - Doreen Vincent, 12, Wallingford, 5 June 1988

Missing Since: June 5, 1988 from Wallingford, Connecticut
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: September 30, 1975
Age: 12 years old
Height and Weight: 5'4, 110 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Vincent has a small mole on her abdomen. Her ears are double-pierced.

Details of Disappearance


Charley Project
NCMEC

MISSING IN CONNECTICUT: Girl, 12, vanished from father’s Wallingford home in 1988

Doreen Vincent disappeared from her father’s house in Wallingford June 15, 1988, never to be seen or heard from again.

With no body and no evidence, police can’t say for certain who may have been responsible for the 12-year-old’s disappearance.

On the night she disappeared, Doreen had a disagreement with her father, Mark Vincent. He told police she left through the front door of the house he had recently moved into on Whirlwind Hill Road, a rural section of Wallingford.

His wife at the time, the late Sharon Vincent Hutchins, told police it would have been impossible for Doreen to leave through the front door because it was locked with a deadbolt that required a key.

MUCH MUCH MORE: http://www.ctpostchronicle.com/articles/2012/01/17/news/doc4f15eb3a1c005932828885.txt

:bump: for Doreen, missing 25 years today.

Snipped:

Doreen's father was known for his violent temper and his account of the day Doreen disappeared was inconsistent. He admitted he pushed her into a window, breaking it.

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Has that property ever been searched?

This month marks 26 years that Doreen has been missing. Unfortunately, I've found no recent updates on her case. She would be 39 years old this September.

Snipped from 2012 article:

Police question why Mark Vincent didn’t tell his mother when he was visiting her later that week that her granddaughter was missing. He said it was because his mother wasn’t a part of the child’s life.

DeMaio said Lee’s family hired private investigators and psychics,but couldn’t find Doreen. “This case was investigated ad nauseam,” he said.

Initially handled as a runaway case, red flags started to develop, DeMaio said.

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http://www.ctpostchronicle.com/arti...4f15eb3a1c005932828885.txt?viewmode=fullstory

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/2562/0/


Status Missing
First name Doreen
Middle name Jane
Last name Vincent
Nickname/Alias
NCMEC number 711414
Date last seen June 15, 1988 00:00
Date entered 07/19/2009
Age last seen 12 to 12 years old
Age now 38 years old
Race White
Ethnicity
Sex Female
Height (inches) 64.0
Weight (pounds) 110.0

Dental Status: Dental information / charting is available and entered
DNA Status: Sample submitted - Tests complete
Fingerprint Information Status: Fingerprint information is currently not available

Using NamUs LKA of 6/15/1988, Doreen has been missing 26 years today.

This case has haunted me. Based on anything I could find to read on the case, the father seems suspicious. The house they lived at is near a large wooded area reserved for hiking. I always wondered if the father accidently killed her in a fit of rage and buried her somewhere out there.

The Post/Chronicle story linked in 2 of the above posts references the court case of the father following a search executed at his home where the police found an illegally held gun. The following gives a lot more detail of that case;
http://ct.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19930209_0042085.CT.htm/qx
The following may be the most significant information given in the appeal hearing detailed in this link;
* Vincent had been taking photos of Doreen in her underwear just before her disappearance.
* To quote the court, "The defendant was uncooperative and evasive regarding Doreen's disappearance. He actually concealed her disappearance from family, friends and the girls mother".
* The warrant was granted based on there being "a fair probability that the defendant was criminally involved with his daughter's disappearance".
Any reasonable reading of the Appeal Court hearing (and it's references to the original trial) make it clear that the legal system believes the father was behind Doreen's disappearance and, based on the information it contains I see no reason to question that view.

Listen: 30 years later, podcast revisits disappearance of Wallingford's Doreen Vincent

December 08, 2018

"WALLINGFORD — A true crime podcaster is exploring the disappearance of a local girl, who was 12 years old when she went missing 30 years ago.

Doreen Jane Vincent, who would be 43 years old today, was last seen at her father’s house on Whirlwind Hill Road in June 1988.

Revisiting a Wallingford girl's disappearance 30 years later

Sarah DiMeo, of Bristol, is looking at the case for the latest season of "Faded Out", her true crime podcast featuring cold cases of missing children.

She said during an interview with the Record-Journal’s “Morning Record” Friday that she chose to explore Doreen’s case after doing 30-plus episodes on the abduction of Johnny Gosch, a 12-year-old boy who went missing from West Des Moines, Iowa in 1982.

She said she found Doreen’s case listed on the Doe Network, a website which features cold cases of missing persons...."

30 years later, podcast revisits disappearance of Wallingford's Doreen Vincent



(Doreen Jane Vincent | Courtesy of Sarah DiMeo)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Podcast draws attention to cold case of missing Wallingford girl

Sarah DiMeo, of Bristol, is exploring the disappearance of Doreen Jane Vincent, who was 12 years old when she went missing 30 years ago, in the second season of her series "Faded Out", which examines cold cases of missing children.

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Link to Soundcloud: Morning Record: Revisiting Doreen Vincent's disappearance 30 years later (12-10)

Sarah and company are doing a good job with the Doreen Vincent case. Definately some interesting information coming out about the main person of interest.

I agree I listened to the podcast today.

I'm a little confused about Doreen's home situation - it says dad had quite a temper, and apparently Doreen was unhappy there, as she had run away to mom's house before. So why exactly did she live at dad's? In my experience, kids - especially an adolescent girl - generally reside with mom unless there is some kind of issue.

CastlesBurning said:

I'm a little confused about Doreen's home situation - it says dad had quite a temper, and apparently Doreen was unhappy there, as she had run away to mom's house before. So why exactly did she live at dad's? In my experience, kids - especially an adolescent girl - generally reside with mom unless there is some kind of issue.

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From the court record of the father's case (see #8 above) it appears the father had remarried and could provide a home with stepmother (and grandmother). The ex-wife (Doreen's mother) may not have been in this position, especially if she was working and had no one else at home.

FEB 3, 2020
Police: Wallingford missing child case now a homicide investigation
The state’s attorney office has reclassified the 1988 disappearance of 12-year-old Doreen Jane Vincent from a missing person investigation to a homicide.

Police Lt. Michael Colavolpe said police are investigating a suspect and expects to submit an arrest warrant possibly within the next year.


The suspect has not been publicly named, but Colavolpe used male pronouns several times when referring to the suspect.

[...]

Colavolpe, who supervises the detective division, oversees the investigation into Vincent’s disappearance from her father's home on Whirlwind Hill Road, which police have long considered suspicious. He said that the change to a homicide classification was made by the state’s attorney one to two months ago.

Town to release case documents

[...]

Town Corporation Counsel Janis M. Small, who appeared on behalf of the police department, said Monday that she plans to disclose some documents, regarding what she called "dead leads," within two weeks.

Colavolpe said the main reason for withholding records related to the Vincent case would be to prevent witnesses from re-reading their old testimony or the testimony of others, which could cause them to change or exaggerate their story, or be influenced by the suspect, if police re-interview them.

“I want to know what they know from memory,” he said.

[...]

She pointed out that the suspect has had more than 30 years to formulate a defense, and that the witnesses could have spoken to each other and exchanged information in that time.

She said there hasn’t been a case report made since November 2011, and the latest one before that was from 1991.

“If this a prospective law enforcement action, I would expect to see something more recent than November of 2011,” she said.

[...]

Hi, I am Jessica, the investigator on Sarah Dimeo's Faded Out podcast about Doreen Vincent, still missing after almost 32 years. Since that podcast ended last August, I have kept up the fight and have been locked in a battle for the records with the Wallingford Police Department in Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission. As posted above, we were recently successful in getting the police to recharacterize Doreen's case as a HOMICIDE rather than that of a missing person, and the police have slowly been feeding me records that they can't hold back under the statute. I'm capturing it all on my new podcast Sticky Beak, and I hope you will listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sticky-beak/id1498399886

Sticky Beak said:

Hi, I am Jessica, the investigator on Sarah Dimeo's Faded Out podcast about Doreen Vincent, still missing after almost 32 years. Since that podcast ended last August, I have kept up the fight and have been locked in a battle for the records with the Wallingford Police Department in Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission. As posted above, we were recently successful in getting the police to recharacterize Doreen's case as a HOMICIDE rather than that of a missing person, and the police have slowly been feeding me records that they can't hold back under the statute. I'm capturing it all on my new podcast Sticky Beak, and I hope you will listen. ‎Sticky Beak on Apple Podcasts

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Welcome to Websleuths, Jessica! So good to have you here. I am new to this case but will give this a listen as soon as I can. MOO

Doreen Jane Vincent


Doreen, circa 1988


Age-progression to age 38 (circa 2013)

• Missing Since 06/15/1988
• Missing From Wallingford, Connecticut
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Date of Birth 09/30/1975 (44)
• Age 12 years old
• Height and Weight 5'4, 110 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Doreen has a small mole on her abdomen. Her ears are double-pierced.

Details of Disappearance
Doreen was last seen at her family's residence sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on June 5, 1988 on Whirlwind Hill Road in Wallingford, Connecticut. Her father said they had an argument and she took some money and extra clothing and left through the front door between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. She never returned home and has not been seen again.

Doreen moved in with her father and stepmother, Mark and Sharon Vincent, ten days before her disappearance. Mark stated he last saw Doreen in the kitchen at 8:00 p.m., before he went into his workshop. Sharon was at church at the time. At 9:00, Mark into Doreen's bedroom and she was gone. When Sharon arrived home at 11:30, Mark told her Doreen was missing.

She was due to begin the eighth grade at West Woods Christian Academy that fall. She didn't like the rural atmosphere of Wallingford and missed her friends in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she'd lived previously.

Authorities initially believed Doreen had run away from home. She had run away once before and hitchhiked to her mother's home.

Mark was known for his violent temper and his account of the day Doreen went missing was inconsistent. He admitted he pushed her into a window, breaking it. Sharon said she didn't believe her husband's story about her disappearance, because their front door had a deadbolt and had to be opened from the inside with a key.

Mark visited his mother, Lorraine Vincent, a few days after Doreen vanished and didn't tell her Doreen was missing. He also didn't tell Doreen's mother, Donna Lee. She didn't find out Doreen was missing until June 18, when she visited her ex-husband's home.

Lee had planned to pick Doreen up on June 17, but when she called Mark's house, no one answered; he had removed the phone from the wall.

When Lee came to the house the next day, she asked him where Doreen was and he said Lee had sent her to her maternal grandparents' house. He seemed unconcerned by her disappearance and didn't want to report her missing, but Lee insisted.

Sharon and Mark separated later that summer, and Mark moved out of the Wallingford home without leaving a forwarding address with the police; the police were unable to locate him for some time.

About a year after Doreen's disappearance, law enforcement searched Lorraine's home in Bethel, Connecticut for evidence in her case. They found some items Mark claimed she'd taken with her when she left.

They also found a gun, legally registered to Sharon, and charged Mark with being a felon in possession in a firearm. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Investigators suspect that Hadden Clark may have been involved in Doreen's disappearance. He was convicted of murdering a young woman and a six-year-old girl and claims to have killed nine other women and children along the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Based on Clark's claims, police investigated him for involvement in several child disappearances and murders, Doreen's among them. He has not been charged in connection with any other cases, however, and police are unsure if he had anything to do with Doreen's case.

Another suspect in her disappearance is a family member with a history of pedophilia. The individual has never been charged, however.

Sharon died after Doreen's disappearance. Her father is remarried and maintains his innocence in her case. Authorities no longer believe she ran away from home, but the circumstances of her disappearance remain unclear.

Updated 10 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated July 6, 2019.

More photos at the link: Doreen Jane Vincent – The Charley Project

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