FL FL - Kipling Hess, 12, Merritt Island, 27 March 1979

Richard

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Kipling R. Hess III
Missing since March 27, 1979 from Merritt Island, Brevard County, Florida
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics
Date Of Birth: August 2, 1966
Age at Time of Disappearance: 12 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'4; 90 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White male. Brown hair; brown eyes.

Circumstances of Disappearance
Hess was last seen on his way to school in Merritt Island, Florida on the morning of March 27, 1979. He never arrived for classes that day and has never been heard from again.

There is one possible suspect in Hess's case. The suspect met Hess a few days prior to his disappearance at a church carnival. He assisted in the search for the missing boy. Police also found a missing person flier for Hess taped in his locker. The suspect murdered an 8-year-old Michigan boy in the 1950s, and served twenty years in prison for the crime. From 1976 to 1980, he worked as a guard at the Brevard Correctional Institution in Florida; the institution houses mostly teenagers. While the suspect was working there, five local boys disappeared.

One of them was a 19-year-old inmate, Charles Collingwood, who disappeared shortly after allegations were made that he had an inappropriate relationship with the suspect. He is also considered a suspect in that case, and also in the 1977 disappearance of 12-year-old Keith Fleming. None of the boys were ever found.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Brevard County Sheriff's Office
321-264-5201

Agency Case Number: 79-11702

NCIC Number: M-131672822
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
Detroit Free Press
Florida Department of Law Enforecement
The Charley Project
The Doe Network: Case File 199DMFL


LINK:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/199dmfl.html
 
Bumping case up. This little boy was most likely the victim of a serial killer. He remains missing.
 
How does a convicted child murder end up working as a prison guard where child inmates are held? That blows my mind.

You and me both! :furious:

If Kip was indeed murdered, does anyone have any thoughts on where his remains might be? His family needs resolve.
 
I couldn't remember the guys name, but remembered the guy, and he was my first thought as to what happened to Kip.
 
Is there any information on the first case of the Person of interest?
 

This is the thread for the man who is suspected of murdering Kipling Hess. Unfortuantely John Rodney McRae died in prison years ago. Police offered him immunity if he told them where the boys remains were located, but he never said a word.

It looks like the boy he murdered in MI was found on property he owned there. I wonder if he had a permenant residence in FL when he was in the area?

I'm not too good at sleuthing yet -- how would we go about finding where this gentleman was living in FL and what span of time he was in the area?

I wonder what areas they have already searched for Kipling?
 
I just did a quick reading on McRae.. he was something else. After reading what I read, I would bet he was invovled.
 
John Rodney McRae hadn't been around Clare County for a decade, and he was still a bother.

Vicki Hudson's horses kept banging into the cement block rat wall, a relic from the nasty compound McRae had on Larch Road before vanishing in the night 10 years earlier. The trash-filled trailer had been long since hauled off and the barn and shed leveled, leaving just those cement blocks that were a menace to Hudson's horses.



From your link Angel629.

So, if he was consistent, then he likely buried the boys near his trailer in Sharpes. At least that is what LE believed in 2005.
 
So GPR was used in 1999 according to Angel's link

I think that Marty, his son, may be a key. I wonder when the last time they questioned him was?

What a mess. What a horror story. :banghead:
 
According to this media link, he was charged when he was 13 with the same murder in MI.

LINK HERE

In October 1997, McRae was charged at the same time as his father, John Rodney McRae, in the 1987 murder of 15-year-old Randy Ray Laufer in rural Clare County, about 100 miles north of Lansing
Where I get confused in all of the detail of Kip's case is the statements indicating that John McRae had his son Marty pal around with Kip.

Wouldnt Marty have been 6 years old?
 
NV RSO Search

You can enter Marty's information here. He was born in 1974, so I wonder how involved he might have been in Kip's disappearance if at all. Apparently his father involved him in at least one later case....

I hope he has given whatever info he can to Kips investigators. :(
 
Can anyone find or share recent media on KIP's case?
 

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