http://archives.postandcourier.com/archive...324522596.shtml
Mom, daughter missing since 80s still a mystery
Published on 03/24/02
BY KATHY STEVENS
Of The Post and Courier Staff
MONCKS CORNERTwelve-year-old Annette Deanne Sagers and her dog left the caretaker's cabin at Mount Holly Plantation and walked to a wooden shelter along U.S. Highway 52 where she awaited a school bus.
She never boarded the bus.
The only real clue she left was a note, found on Oct. 4, 1988. It was scrawled in pencil on a sheet of notebook paper found near the narrow shelter and said only: "Dad, momma came back. Give the boys a hug."
The sixth-grader's message baffled the detectives who, nearly one year earlier, had launched a weeklong search of the 6,000-acre plantation for Annette's mother, Korrina Lynne Sagers Malinoski, who disappeared from the same spot Nov. 21, 1987.
The note was the last communication from Annette, who, if she is alive, would have celebrated her 25th birthday March 16. To this day, police say the mother-daughter disappearance is a mystery.
"We just don't know if they were killed, or whether the mother came back for her daughter," says Chief L. Randy Herod of the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office.
The mystery began five days before Thanksgiving 1987, when Malinoski didn't show up for work at a Summerville convenience store. The store manager began looking for his 26-year-old employee of six months and discovered her car parked and locked near the plantation's gated entrance.
Malinoski's husband, Steven Malinoski, told Berkeley County deputies his wife left the cabin between 11 and 11:30 the night before, saying she was going for a drive. Police called investigators from the State Law Enforcement Division, search and rescue crews, and combed the grounds on foot and by air.
They asked the public for help, interviewed Steven Malinoski, and alerted Korrina Malinoski's parents in Iowa. But no one had seen or heard from her.
Almost one year later, Annette vanished from the same spot. Herod remembers the phone call, recalls Steven Malinoski's strained voice saying he could not find his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Malinoski's two boys, however, were safe at home.
"It was 4:15, I was in the office and the phone rings," Herod says. "He says the little girl is missing, that she hadn't made it to school and hadn't come home."
A bus driver who had driven past the wooden shelter told detectives he had seen Annette and her dog about 7 a.m. When her bus arrived at 7:20 a.m., she was gone. Steven Malinoski apparently didn't realize she was missing until that afternoon, when he found the note.
Herod says the letters were big, and written in haste. A handwriting analysis later concluded that Annette had penned the letter. Whether someone forced her hand remains a mystery.
"She could've been under duress, or, it's possible, her mother was alive and came back to get her," Herod says.
Folks then speculated that the girl might have known something about her mother's disappearance and perhaps she was silenced. Others figured Malinoski left her husband for a better life and returned for Annette, who was Malinoski's daughter from a previous marriage.
"There were a lot of red flags but nothing we could ever pin down," Herod says.
Steven Malinoski and his two boys left Berkeley County several months after Annette's disappearance. Herod says they moved to his parents' home in Florida. Since then, detectives have followed several dead-end leads.
Herod says he received an anonymous call March 30, 2000, from someone who claimed Annette's body was buried in Sumter County. Detectives from Sumter and Berkeley counties and SLED searched the undisclosed area along with forestry and Natural Resource workers.
"We had a cadaver dog that could find Civil War-era bones, in a jar, buried four feet in the ground," Herod says. "We didn't find anything."
Detective Sgt. Pamela Lee of the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office first reviewed the two-inch-thick file in 1996 in hopes of finding something others had overlooked.
"It's just the mystery. I cannot imagine a mother leaving her children," Lee says.
She says Iowa state police still contact Korrina Malinoski's parents. They have not heard from their daughter or granddaughter in nearly 14 years. Photographs of the mother and daughter are posted in police agencies nationwide; their names are included among thousands of missing persons.
"Nobody in the viewing public ever came forward to say, "We saw a car, saw someone pick (Annette) up," Herod says. "Most people, you would think, would get in touch with their families. The note is the only thing that makes us hope she could be alive."
Police ask anyone with information to contact the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office at 723-3800.
Kathy Stevens covers crime in Berkeley and Dorchester counties. She may be reached at (843) 745-5858.
Mom, daughter missing since 80s still a mystery
Published on 03/24/02
BY KATHY STEVENS
Of The Post and Courier Staff
MONCKS CORNERTwelve-year-old Annette Deanne Sagers and her dog left the caretaker's cabin at Mount Holly Plantation and walked to a wooden shelter along U.S. Highway 52 where she awaited a school bus.
She never boarded the bus.
The only real clue she left was a note, found on Oct. 4, 1988. It was scrawled in pencil on a sheet of notebook paper found near the narrow shelter and said only: "Dad, momma came back. Give the boys a hug."
The sixth-grader's message baffled the detectives who, nearly one year earlier, had launched a weeklong search of the 6,000-acre plantation for Annette's mother, Korrina Lynne Sagers Malinoski, who disappeared from the same spot Nov. 21, 1987.
The note was the last communication from Annette, who, if she is alive, would have celebrated her 25th birthday March 16. To this day, police say the mother-daughter disappearance is a mystery.
"We just don't know if they were killed, or whether the mother came back for her daughter," says Chief L. Randy Herod of the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office.
The mystery began five days before Thanksgiving 1987, when Malinoski didn't show up for work at a Summerville convenience store. The store manager began looking for his 26-year-old employee of six months and discovered her car parked and locked near the plantation's gated entrance.
Malinoski's husband, Steven Malinoski, told Berkeley County deputies his wife left the cabin between 11 and 11:30 the night before, saying she was going for a drive. Police called investigators from the State Law Enforcement Division, search and rescue crews, and combed the grounds on foot and by air.
They asked the public for help, interviewed Steven Malinoski, and alerted Korrina Malinoski's parents in Iowa. But no one had seen or heard from her.
Almost one year later, Annette vanished from the same spot. Herod remembers the phone call, recalls Steven Malinoski's strained voice saying he could not find his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Malinoski's two boys, however, were safe at home.
"It was 4:15, I was in the office and the phone rings," Herod says. "He says the little girl is missing, that she hadn't made it to school and hadn't come home."
A bus driver who had driven past the wooden shelter told detectives he had seen Annette and her dog about 7 a.m. When her bus arrived at 7:20 a.m., she was gone. Steven Malinoski apparently didn't realize she was missing until that afternoon, when he found the note.
Herod says the letters were big, and written in haste. A handwriting analysis later concluded that Annette had penned the letter. Whether someone forced her hand remains a mystery.
"She could've been under duress, or, it's possible, her mother was alive and came back to get her," Herod says.
Folks then speculated that the girl might have known something about her mother's disappearance and perhaps she was silenced. Others figured Malinoski left her husband for a better life and returned for Annette, who was Malinoski's daughter from a previous marriage.
"There were a lot of red flags but nothing we could ever pin down," Herod says.
Steven Malinoski and his two boys left Berkeley County several months after Annette's disappearance. Herod says they moved to his parents' home in Florida. Since then, detectives have followed several dead-end leads.
Herod says he received an anonymous call March 30, 2000, from someone who claimed Annette's body was buried in Sumter County. Detectives from Sumter and Berkeley counties and SLED searched the undisclosed area along with forestry and Natural Resource workers.
"We had a cadaver dog that could find Civil War-era bones, in a jar, buried four feet in the ground," Herod says. "We didn't find anything."
Detective Sgt. Pamela Lee of the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office first reviewed the two-inch-thick file in 1996 in hopes of finding something others had overlooked.
"It's just the mystery. I cannot imagine a mother leaving her children," Lee says.
She says Iowa state police still contact Korrina Malinoski's parents. They have not heard from their daughter or granddaughter in nearly 14 years. Photographs of the mother and daughter are posted in police agencies nationwide; their names are included among thousands of missing persons.
"Nobody in the viewing public ever came forward to say, "We saw a car, saw someone pick (Annette) up," Herod says. "Most people, you would think, would get in touch with their families. The note is the only thing that makes us hope she could be alive."
Police ask anyone with information to contact the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office at 723-3800.
Kathy Stevens covers crime in Berkeley and Dorchester counties. She may be reached at (843) 745-5858.
