WV WV - Susan 'Sue' Roop, 29, Bentree, 12 Feb 1979

FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. (WSAZ) — UPDATE (Dec. 29):

Human remains were found under a cliff in Fayette County Tuesday afternoon, and investigators believe there's a strong possibility the remains could be those of a woman who has been missing 37 years.
Investigators say somebody was out looking for arrowheads in the Kanawha Falls area when they spotted bones.
Deputies arrived on scene and found more bones buried in a shallow grave.
The woman who went missing in February of 1979 was Sue Roop, who was 29 at the time.
Two years ago, WHSV's sister station WVVA talked with author George Bragg, who wrote a book about unsolved murders in West Virginia.
Bragg said Roop's children were waiting for her to come home to make Valentine's boxes, but she never showed up.

"We don't know exactly what happened the night before," Bragg said, "but Susan had gotten in a vehicle that morning on February 12 with a male subject, and her landlord witnessed her getting in the vehicle."

She was declared dead nine years after her disappearance.

The family lived in Bentree, near the Clay/Nicholas County border.


Bragg says speculation pointed to Roop's ex-husband, but they were never able to link him to her disappearance.

"She was suing him to pay alimony and child support," Bragg said, "and he had sworn to many witnesses that he would never pay it and so forth."

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Sue Roop was a young single mother whose family reported her missing in 1979. An investigation is focusing on whether human remains found near Kanawha Falls could solve the mystery of what happened to Roop.

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[h=1]Investigation continues focus on young mother’s disappearance[/h]

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“A 38-year-old case is certainly not your average murder investigation and presents unique difficulties and challenges for investigators. Witnesses or potential witnesses or even suspects may have died or left the area. Difficult does not mean impossible, however. Out detectives intend to pursue this case with vigor and determination, despite any obstacles in our path.”

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As Susan Roop’s family and Fayette County law enforcement await the results of DNA testing on skeletal remains found Tuesday at Kanawha Falls, detectives at the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office also have an interest in the test results.

If the remains at Kanawha Falls prove to be Roop’s, Raleigh detectives can rule out at least one match for a Caucasian woman’s skeleton that was found on Bolt Mountain in 1993.
Prior to the new discovery, Roop was the most likely match for the Raleigh remains, which consisted of a partial skull, which didn’t provide enough genetic material for conclusive DNA matches.
In trying to identify the Bolt Mountain woman, exiting Raleigh Sheriff Steve Tanner became an expert on the Roop “cold case,” even though the 29-year-old mother of three had disappeared from neighboring Fayette County in 1979.
“We had very little physical evidence,” Tanner said Friday, following a luncheon to celebrate his retirement from 34 years of law enforcement. “We tried several times to do mitochondrial DNA.
“We couldn’t make a positive identification. The case has gone into a cold case, waiting for science to catch up.”
Tanner, a former chief detective whose retirement coincides with the discovery of the Fayette skeleton, said that, circumstantially, Roop would be more likely to be found in Kanawha Falls than on Bolt Mountain.

“She disappeared from Bentree, and these skeletal remains are within 10 minutes of Bentree,” he noted. “That seems much more probably, to me, to be Susan Roop.
“That leaves us with this,” he said. “If that is Susan Roop, then who did I find on Bolt Mountain?”

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[h=1]'Difficult' does not mean 'impossible'[/h]

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Cheryl Cobb of Oak Hill, Roop’s older sister, said Friday that her family has been notified several times over the years of the discovery of a new set of human remains, but the most recent discovery “feels” different than the rest.

“I have a feeling that it is (Sue),” Cobb, 72, said. “I was telling my husband, ‘Hmm, that’s probably it, because it’s right under our noses.’”
Over the years, Cobb said, her family has heard different stories of what had happened to Roop — a “mischievous” and petite woman who adored her children and who sang “like Aretha Franklin.”
“None of it ever felt right,” she said. “Every time they found a body, none of the jewelry ever fit, nothing they found ever felt right.
“This one just feels like it could be ... and if it isn’t, it isn’t.”

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Cobb, the oldest of the McMillion kids — five girls and one boy, said Roop was a free spirit, a wanderer. She was a petite girl, around 5 feet 2 inches and 115 pounds, with long, brown hair and big, brown eyes.

Roop could sing like Aretha Franklin, often “wowing” classmates and people at church with her strong voice.

“She was very friendly, loved people,” recalled Cobb. “I never saw her get mad or be mean to anyone.

“She was kind of a loner and wanderer,” said Cobb. “She didn’t like school, barely got through it.

“She wasn’t much on housework. She’d throw a dish cloth over her shoulder and be walking up the road.

(...)

Cobb said Roop had had a couple of strange brushes before she disappeared: She’d been in a car wreck, and her house had burned down.

Two weeks before she disappeared, she’d visited Cobb’s apartment in Fayetteville and had said something that Cobb has never forgotten.

“I just have a lot of problems and things I’m worried about,” Roop said, according to Cobb. Roop also told her sister that she had an idea about who would want to harm her should she go missing. Cobb said Roop named a person very close to her. Cobb and her sister believe that this person killed Roop.

(...)

In the 1980s, Raymond Roop was arrested and later convicted for the murder of Charles Wood in Ansted.

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According to Cobb, Sizemore and other police sources, Roop put her children on the school bus on Feb. 12, 1979. They had planned to make Valentine’s Day boxes later.

An elderly neighbor saw her taking out her trash moments after the children left. The neighbor told police that a vehicle – either a dark truck or a van – pulled up to the house. Cobb said the neighbor reported that a man got out of the truck and spoke with Roop. Roop followed him back to the vehicle, and the man forced her inside of it.


In the days prior to Feb. 12, Roop had been visiting the post office frequently as she waited for a tax return check, but the postmistress reported Roop had never shown up on Feb. 12. Her purse and money were left inside the house. A note on the door directed her children to go to a neighbor’s house.

When Roop disappeared, the ground was frozen in the Bentree area. Digging a grave would have required more work, Sizemore said.


The skeletal remains in Kanawha Falls were found in a shallow grave beneath a jutting cliff overhang – a place where the ground would have been protected and easier to manipulate.


Sizemore said it is possible that the perpetrator who placed the body under the cliff would have needed help, due to the remote location.

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Alleykins said:

It sounds like WV is right on top of things if they did a DNA comparison for her against another set of remains in 1993. I'm thinking most likely the two UP cases I found from WV in Doe have already been ruled out on the local level a long time ago. But, if this isn't her, I definitely will submit 2159 because the reconstruction bears a resemblance.

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Tulessa said:

FAYETTE COUNTY, W.Va. (WVVA) Fayette County sheriff's deputies say there is a strong possibility the remains found Tuesday belong to a woman missing since the 1970s.

Sue Roop, 29, went missing in February of 1979. Deputies said Roop's children were waiting for their mother to come home that day to make Valentines boxes, but she never returned. The family lived in Bentree, near the Clay/ Nicholas County border.

http://www.wearewvproud.com/story/34272916/breaking-fayette-county-deputies-search-for-missing-girl

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Gardener1850 said:

Thanks for the update Tulessa, but I think that is the wrong link.

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