Joseph Helt was my friend and classmate back in 1987. We were Juniors in high school at Ellenville High School in Ellenville NY, which is a small, rural, typical little village in the Hudson Valley. It's quiet, pretty, everyone knows everyone and the school, grades K-12 are located in the same building (though large door separate the elementary from the junior/high school). Nothing big ever happens in Ellenville and everyone likes it that way.
But back in January 1987, something big did happen. Joe disappeared. Simply vanished without a trace. And for 24 years his disappearance has haunted the small village of Ellenville.
Joe was just 17 years old. It was on Friday, January 16, 1987 and just another typical Friday night. Like so many Fridays before, Joe and many other teenagers from Ellenville were going up to the usual party spot, the old Mount Cathalia ski lodge. It was in Cragsmoor, just 5 miles outside of Ellenville. The ski lodge had been long ago abandoned, having been partially burned in the 1970's. But the building itself remained intact and the area kids built a huge fire pit inside of the building and used it as a party spot.
So Joe went up to Mount Cathalia on Jan. 16, 1987 as he had so many other times. Many classmates were there that night. He hung out for a while, spent time with different people and at one point he approached his best friend, Armando Rodriguez, for a ride home. Armando, unfortunately, had to turn Joe down as he had driven up in a borrowed pick up truck and didn't have anymore room in the truck that night as several others were already getting a ride with him. Looking back, Armando says that Joe was extremely nervous and almost seemed desperate to get a ride with him.
Joe then got into a car belonging to John LaForge, a 21 year old who often hung around with the younger kids. Along with them that night were Wade Marks, 17, and Kelly Diaz, 16. As Joe left the party, that was the last time any of his friends would see him again.
According to the Marks, Diaz and LaForge, they claim that they went for a ride down a road not far from the party called Sam's Point Road. They claim that the car got stuck in a ditch and that after several failed attempts to get the car out, Joe got upset and left the car to walk the 5+ miles back to Ellenville. By this time it was around 3am in the middle of January. 20 minutes later, Marks and Diaz left to walk the 2+ miles to Marks house (which was not far from the original party at Mt. Cathalia in Cragsmoor) and 10 minutes later LaForge left to walk the 2+ miles to his house which was also there in Cragsmoor. NOW it makes absolutely NO sense that Joe would walk 5+ miles back to Ellenville when two of these guys lived a little over 2 miles away AND people were STILL at the party where he could have walked back to! Their story has never added up.
On January 17th when Joe failed to show up for his shift at the Napanoch Auction Barn in Napanoch, his boss, Vic, called his mother, Lee Ann. Lee Ann checked around for Joe and when it became apparent that Joe was nowhere to be found, she contacted Ellenville Police. The police and rescue workers soon scoured the Cragsmoor area looking for Joe.
Unfortunately, as the rescue workers made it up to the mountain a major snow storm was moving into the area. Over the next several days, over 2 feet of snow fell which hampered the search. Rescue workers worked through the storm for 6 days searching for any trace of Joe but nothing was ever found. They called off the search after 6 days saying that if Joe was up there on the mountain, there was no way he could possibly survive. Search teams did go back up on the mountain in the spring after the snow melted and the ground thawed, but no trace of Joe was ever found.
Marks, Diaz and LaForge say that the last time they saw Joe he was walking away from them when the car got stuck in the ditch. That was 24 years ago and Joe's case has gone cold. Rumors have flown all around the Village of Ellenville over the years pointing toward the three. There have been several people who have come forward with information that contradicts the story told by these three, however, as it is 3rd party information, it cannot be used in the investigation. We've had one woman who have heard Diaz himself talking to her ex husband say that the story of the car being stuck in the ditch was just a cover story.
We've recently found out that Marks REFUSED to be polygraphed. This is interesting, especially since the lead investigator has told us repeatedly that all three were polygraphed and passed! Now, within weeks of Joe's disappearance Marks was packed up and mysteriously shipped to Tennessee to live with his mother. His father professed that it was because he couldn't stand the accusations anymore. Marks has never returned to Ellenville to this day. We know he's still in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Diaz jumped on the facebook group we created for Joe in Dec. 2010 spewing in a huge rant that made absolutely no sense at all. He repeated jumped on via one friend's account after another, posted the rant then deleted it. Over and over again.
We have a very mysterious thing happening with Joe's missing persons flyers. In a grocery store in town, they are constantly being torn down, sometimes within an hour of us posting them. Other times someone writes "Ask JP" on them (John LaForge's nickname was "JP"). When we held a candlelight vigil on the 24 anniversary of Joe's disappearance, we put up posters all over the street that the high school is on. By the next day, EVERY single poster had been torn down except for TWO and the two that remained were the ones that could be seen by the security cameras from the high school.
Joe's case is currently being looked into by NYS Investigator Thomas Fortuna. In October 2010 Joe's case was registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (he was never listed prior to this!). His case was just listed in April 2011 on the NYS Police website's list of missing persons (again, he was NEVER listed here prior to this!). A spokesman for the NYS Police stated in an NBC interview that the three who were with Joe that night were never suspects. (a link to this interview is listed below). It is just unreal the way that Joe's case has been mishandled and simply pushed aside time after time.
In November 2010, myself and several Ellenville HS classmates were looking into planning a multi-year reunion and they began talking about Joe, wondering if any new information has ever come to light about his case. After some research and a lot of conversation, we realized that since Joe's case was recently being looked into again, now was the perfect time to start raising awareness for his case. So we created a facebook support group for Joe and started pushing to gain media attention for Joe's case. Many local area newspapers and cable news outlets did stories on Joe. NBC in NYC and even Nancy Grace covered Joe's story!
However, Joe's case still remains unsolved. We need help. We need someone to help really open up Joe's case and get to the heart of the facts.
For more info on Joe's case, check out the facebook pages or the website:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=...60089217368108
http://www.facebook.com/Justice.For.Joe.Helt
http://forjoehelt.webs.com/
Here are some of the newspapers/cable news stories about Joe's case, including the 1987 news articles:
Nancy Grace‘s “America’s Missing: 50 people in 50 days”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVJnVvCNzME
NBC (NYC) news segment:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...116025154.html
NBC (NYC) VIDEO segment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0hD7baDT3s
Blog Talk Radio:
Bring Them Home Now Radio:
http://forjoehelt.webs.com/apps/vide...log-talk-radio
CUBANARAMA Radio:
http://forjoehelt.webs.com/apps/vide...log-talk-radio
YNN Hudson Valley News Channel 6 coverage (4 stories):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snfCBxLrY38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geiEk6xZ6BQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0QTHzk1ic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1Lgj0xABmE
Shawangunk Journal article:
http://www.shawangunkjournal.com/201...s/1101130.html
http://www.ellenvillejournal.com/201...s/1101203.html
Times Herald Record articles:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc...WS/101150324
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc...WS/101170325
Times Herald Record photos:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc...6009997&Ref=PH
Poughkeepsie Journal article:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/a...sing-classmate
Blue Stone Press article:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id...293&aid=111979
1987 Times Herald Record articles:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id...293&aid=111570
