KT Can
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Jennifer Lynn Coibion has been missing from Houston, TX since 5/22/94. She was 20 years old at the time of her disappearance. I did not know Jennifer personally, however she and I worked at the same place and had mutual friends and acquaintances at the time she went missing. We were also close in age and both had a young child. I have always wondered what happened to Jennifer and how her parents and son have faired throughout the years. There has never been much local publicity about this case so maybe this post will help in some small way. Listed below are a few links to websites with information about Jennifer as well as an excerpt from a 1999 article in the Houston Chronicle.
http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/515dftx.html
http://www.ci.houston.tx.us/departme/police/cobion.htm
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/mpch/mpdetails.asp?id='M10/17/20012%3A46%3A56PM'
Vanished woman lives in the hearts of her parents, son/ Father frustrated with police after a five-year fruitlesssearch
Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: MON 11/15/99
Section: A Page: 17 MetFront Edition: 3 STAR By ALLAN TURNER Staff
Do you believe in hell? Houston industrial pipe salesman Jerry Coibion does. He's lived it, constantly, ever since May 22, 1994, the morning that his beautiful, troubled young daughter got into a yellow station wagon driven by a strange man and rode out of his life. Since then, Jennifer Lynn Coibion , who had celebrated her 20th birthday only a week earlier, has been missing. She's made no effort, seemingly, to contact her dad, or her mom, North Harris Community College records clerk Bette Coibion , or even her little boy, Taylor, now 6 years old. Police, who suspect foul play, vow they will solve the case. But for now, they're frankly baffled. Without a body, technically speaking, the missing woman still is alive. And that flickering possibility is one of the things tormenting the Coibion family the most. "If you ask me what we go through, I can't even tell you," Jerry Coibion said. "I wake up a couple of times every week and can't go back to sleep because I can't believe this has happened. But it has happened. Every night, Taylor prays for the police, `Please help the police find my mom.' ".....
Before 1992, that is to say, before the Coibion family began its torturous descent into hell, Jennifer was an ideal kid. "Little Jenny was a senior in high school," said her father, who is now 54. "She was 17 years old and she worked at a nearby dental center. She worked half a day and went to school half a day. She was a very enthusiastic student. Her grades were average to above average. She was looking forward to going away to college." Then she met and became romantically involved with a co-worker's 35-year-old brother-in-law, the owner of a small construction company, and "the next thing I know, her personality changes drastically. . . . She couldn't seem to tell the truth anymore. She was irritable. She had always been close to me. And we saw her changing." The Coibions later learned that their daughter had become addicted to crack cocaine. Jennifer asked her parents to meet her new boyfriend, Randy Travelbee. The couple wanted to move in together. When the meeting occurred in a nearby park, Coibion asked the man to leave his daughter alone until she graduated from high school. "He agreed to stay away 'til she got out of school," the missing woman's father recalled. "I was hoping that time would be on our side. I thought it might heal the situation. But when the drugs kicked in, she had the need to go to him. They moved in together. That would have been in February. Around the summer she tells me that she's pregnant. "I would even take her to school every day to make sure she would go. But he kept her out at night so late she couldn't go. She was totally out of it." On four occasions, he said, he convinced her to enroll in a drug-rehabilitation program. Each effort ended in failure. Travelbee beat her, Coibion said. After Taylor was born, the couple took him along on their late-night prowls. "It may seem silly, though, but I think he may have really loved her," Coibion said. Early on the morning of May 22, 1994, Jennifer and her boyfriend quarreled at a convenience store near the intersection of Gulf Bank Road and Interstate 45 North. According to Travelbee's later vague missing-person report to police, Jennifer bolted from the confrontation to seek refuge in a yellow station wagon driven by a strange man. As the vehicle sped away, Travelbee copied its license plate number and called police. Then he, too, vanished.....
Private investigator Otis Owens believes he knows the devil's name: Jan Gruszka, alias Mieczslaw Gruszka, alias Richard Gruszka. He's just not certain how Gruszka, 52, succeeded in fleeing the Polish prison in which he was serving time for murders and rapes. Nor how he came to Houston, nor how he ended up - if indeed he did - behind the wheel of a certain yellow station wagon registered in his name on a May morning five years ago. "There's a lot of strange stuff involved in this case," said Owens, who spent 17 years as a Houston arson investigator before becoming a private detective. Coibion said his family turned to Owens out of frustration with the seeming lack of police progress in the case. Owens said he has traced Gruszka, who fled Poland in 1992 while out of prison on a furlough, to the Seattle area. Gruszka's flight from justice, he said, was assisted by relatives living in Texas. Those relatives, even today, are helping him stay one step ahead of the law, the private investigator claimed. Neither Polish consular officials nor the FBI would comment on the matter, but Owens supplied a Polish press account dealing with Gruszka's criminal career. "He's definitely a suspect in her disappearance," Owens said. Police say otherwise. "Our position is Gruszka is not a suspect," said homicide Detective Clement Abbondandolo. "I have no evidence. All I have is a story from a person (Travelbee) that I haven't been able to talk to." Abbondandolo noted that the couple's home was a short distance from a church with an Eastern European congregation. Possibly, he suggested, Travelbee simply copied the license number of a congregant's car. Maybe he made it up. Or, Abbondandolo said, maybe he is telling the truth. Coibion said he suspects Travelbee and Gruszka "knew each other very well." For about 18 months, Jennifer's disappearance was treated solely as a missing-person case. By the time the yellow station wagon was located at a wrecker storage lot, it had been purchased by another individual and thoroughly cleaned. There were no blood stains, no indication a crime might have occurred in it. "I believe she was a victim," Abbondandolo said. "If Jennifer were alive, she would have made some attempt to see her child. There are very, very few mothers who don't have intense feelings for their children. "I'm not looking for suspect Gruszka," Abbondandolo said. "But I would really like to talk with witness Gruszka.".....
http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/515dftx.html
http://www.ci.houston.tx.us/departme/police/cobion.htm
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/mpch/mpdetails.asp?id='M10/17/20012%3A46%3A56PM'
Vanished woman lives in the hearts of her parents, son/ Father frustrated with police after a five-year fruitlesssearch
Paper: Houston Chronicle Date: MON 11/15/99
Section: A Page: 17 MetFront Edition: 3 STAR By ALLAN TURNER Staff
Do you believe in hell? Houston industrial pipe salesman Jerry Coibion does. He's lived it, constantly, ever since May 22, 1994, the morning that his beautiful, troubled young daughter got into a yellow station wagon driven by a strange man and rode out of his life. Since then, Jennifer Lynn Coibion , who had celebrated her 20th birthday only a week earlier, has been missing. She's made no effort, seemingly, to contact her dad, or her mom, North Harris Community College records clerk Bette Coibion , or even her little boy, Taylor, now 6 years old. Police, who suspect foul play, vow they will solve the case. But for now, they're frankly baffled. Without a body, technically speaking, the missing woman still is alive. And that flickering possibility is one of the things tormenting the Coibion family the most. "If you ask me what we go through, I can't even tell you," Jerry Coibion said. "I wake up a couple of times every week and can't go back to sleep because I can't believe this has happened. But it has happened. Every night, Taylor prays for the police, `Please help the police find my mom.' ".....
Before 1992, that is to say, before the Coibion family began its torturous descent into hell, Jennifer was an ideal kid. "Little Jenny was a senior in high school," said her father, who is now 54. "She was 17 years old and she worked at a nearby dental center. She worked half a day and went to school half a day. She was a very enthusiastic student. Her grades were average to above average. She was looking forward to going away to college." Then she met and became romantically involved with a co-worker's 35-year-old brother-in-law, the owner of a small construction company, and "the next thing I know, her personality changes drastically. . . . She couldn't seem to tell the truth anymore. She was irritable. She had always been close to me. And we saw her changing." The Coibions later learned that their daughter had become addicted to crack cocaine. Jennifer asked her parents to meet her new boyfriend, Randy Travelbee. The couple wanted to move in together. When the meeting occurred in a nearby park, Coibion asked the man to leave his daughter alone until she graduated from high school. "He agreed to stay away 'til she got out of school," the missing woman's father recalled. "I was hoping that time would be on our side. I thought it might heal the situation. But when the drugs kicked in, she had the need to go to him. They moved in together. That would have been in February. Around the summer she tells me that she's pregnant. "I would even take her to school every day to make sure she would go. But he kept her out at night so late she couldn't go. She was totally out of it." On four occasions, he said, he convinced her to enroll in a drug-rehabilitation program. Each effort ended in failure. Travelbee beat her, Coibion said. After Taylor was born, the couple took him along on their late-night prowls. "It may seem silly, though, but I think he may have really loved her," Coibion said. Early on the morning of May 22, 1994, Jennifer and her boyfriend quarreled at a convenience store near the intersection of Gulf Bank Road and Interstate 45 North. According to Travelbee's later vague missing-person report to police, Jennifer bolted from the confrontation to seek refuge in a yellow station wagon driven by a strange man. As the vehicle sped away, Travelbee copied its license plate number and called police. Then he, too, vanished.....
Private investigator Otis Owens believes he knows the devil's name: Jan Gruszka, alias Mieczslaw Gruszka, alias Richard Gruszka. He's just not certain how Gruszka, 52, succeeded in fleeing the Polish prison in which he was serving time for murders and rapes. Nor how he came to Houston, nor how he ended up - if indeed he did - behind the wheel of a certain yellow station wagon registered in his name on a May morning five years ago. "There's a lot of strange stuff involved in this case," said Owens, who spent 17 years as a Houston arson investigator before becoming a private detective. Coibion said his family turned to Owens out of frustration with the seeming lack of police progress in the case. Owens said he has traced Gruszka, who fled Poland in 1992 while out of prison on a furlough, to the Seattle area. Gruszka's flight from justice, he said, was assisted by relatives living in Texas. Those relatives, even today, are helping him stay one step ahead of the law, the private investigator claimed. Neither Polish consular officials nor the FBI would comment on the matter, but Owens supplied a Polish press account dealing with Gruszka's criminal career. "He's definitely a suspect in her disappearance," Owens said. Police say otherwise. "Our position is Gruszka is not a suspect," said homicide Detective Clement Abbondandolo. "I have no evidence. All I have is a story from a person (Travelbee) that I haven't been able to talk to." Abbondandolo noted that the couple's home was a short distance from a church with an Eastern European congregation. Possibly, he suggested, Travelbee simply copied the license number of a congregant's car. Maybe he made it up. Or, Abbondandolo said, maybe he is telling the truth. Coibion said he suspects Travelbee and Gruszka "knew each other very well." For about 18 months, Jennifer's disappearance was treated solely as a missing-person case. By the time the yellow station wagon was located at a wrecker storage lot, it had been purchased by another individual and thoroughly cleaned. There were no blood stains, no indication a crime might have occurred in it. "I believe she was a victim," Abbondandolo said. "If Jennifer were alive, she would have made some attempt to see her child. There are very, very few mothers who don't have intense feelings for their children. "I'm not looking for suspect Gruszka," Abbondandolo said. "But I would really like to talk with witness Gruszka.".....
