MD MD - Tiffany Michele Goines, 12, Frederick, 5 Dec 1987

20 years ago...

--------------------------------------
Tiffany Michele Goines
Missing since December 5, 1987 from Frederick, Maryland.
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics

Date Of Birth: December 22, 1974
Age at Time of Disappearance: 12 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'0; 78 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Black female. Black hair; brown eyes.
Clothing: She was wearing large round brown framed glasses. She also had on a white sweatshirt, brown gloves, blue pants, a white belt and white shoes and socks.

Circumstances of Disappearance

Goines was last seen in Frederick, Maryland on December 5, 1987, getting into a red convertible. Tiffany left home in the morning, to run errands for neighbors. When she hadn't returned home by the evening, her mother searched the area, then called the police.

Tiffany was a 6th grade student at the time of her disappearance.

Investigators

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Frederick County Police Department
Det. Michael Hansell
301-624-1227
OR
301-694-2100

NCIC Number: M-277043753

Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:

The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children
Child Protection Education of America
The Doe Network: Case File 954DFMD

LINK:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/954dfmd.html

Another case I hadnt heard of till now! This part was so heartbreaking to read:

''For 20 years, Betty Goines has not slept in her bed, but rather on the family sofa in the living room ‘‘so maybe when she knocked on the door, I’d be there.''

I hope the mothers gut feeling is right and her daughter is still alive.

Gazette.com
Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007
‘I know she’s alive’
by Keith L. Martin

Though she has not seen her daughter, Tiffany, in 20 years, Betty Goines still feels her presence.

Darting four fingers repeatedly into the middle of her chest, the 61-year-old Frederick native explains that Tiffany, who disappeared without a trace on Dec. 5, 1987, is out there, waiting to come home.

‘‘I know she’s alive,” Goines said, as tears welled up in her eyes. ‘‘It is a feeling you get. A lot of people ask me how I take it for so many years ... but I have this feeling that keeps me going. It’s [motherly instinct], or I think it is anyway.”

Betty Goines last saw her younger daughter, Tiffany Michele, early on a cold December morning 20 years ago. The little girl — 5 feet tall, 78 pounds — with big glasses was out in the neighborhood around the family’s home in the former John Hanson Apartments on North Bentz Street. Tiffany didn’t check in at her normal time — 5 p.m. — for dinner.

‘‘[Tiffany] was so cheerful,” Betty Goines said. ‘‘She liked to help people out ... so she would go to the store for our neighbors and some would send her to pay their bills ... and she got paid in return.”

By 9 p.m., with a cold rain starting to fall, Betty Goines got worried, no longer confident her 12-year-old daughter was at a girlfriend’s house. That is when she started yelling Tiffany’s name.

Family members rode around town all night searching for Tiffany. Waiting the obligatory 24 hours to declare Tiffany a missing person, Betty Goines filled out the paperwork the next day with Frederick police.

Tiffany, a sixth-grade student at Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School, was last seen wearing a white sweatshirt, blue pants, brown gloves, a white belt, white socks and white shoes. Eyewitnesses say the girl was last seen entering a red convertible in the area.

Neither Tiffany nor the red convertible has been seen since.
Sgt. Bruce DeGrange of the Frederick Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division said the department continues to investigate Tiffany’s disappearance, but has not found a new lead in the case ‘‘for some time.”

For 20 years, Betty Goines has not slept in her bed, but rather on the family sofa in the living room ‘‘so maybe when she knocked on the door, I’d be there.”

In 2005, when the Hanson apartments were demolished, Goines moved. She has spent the last two years at College View Center nursing home on Toll House Avenue, recovering from illness.

She is hopeful that soon, she can move in with her sister, Barbara Jordan, in a place familiar to her and Tiffany on Pennsylvania Avenue. ‘‘[Tiffany] knows where my sister lives,” Goines said. ‘‘She can show up there.”

The mother of three has a theory that ‘‘somebody took [Tiffany]” but still feels her daughter is alive and well and perhaps has a family of her own now.

‘‘I think about how she is now [almost 32 years old],” Goines said. ‘‘I picture it as her having children and that means I got grandchildren somewhere.”

Jerry Nance handles Tiffany’s case at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (www.ncmec.org) in Alexandria, Va. He said the agency continues to follow the case, but unfortunately, a lead has not come in a long time. ‘‘Someone out there knows something and after 20 years, we think it is time to come forward,” Nance said.

The center works with families and law enforcement agencies, using resources such as a vast database and contacts in numerous states and countries to help reunite lost children with their families.

Goines says each year, Dec. 5 is a ‘‘sad day, with little crying spells,” but Dec. 22, Tiffany’s birthday, is spent surrounded by family, including son Larry, 35, and daughter Tara, 31.

This year is Tiffany’s 33rd birthday. Betty Goines is hopeful that by the time her daughter turns 34, she may be able to celebrate alongside her.

‘‘I would tell her that her mother is still waiting for her to come home and I hope she comes home,” Goines said. ‘‘It would ease my mind.”

LINK:

http://www.gazette.net/stories/120607/newmnew60542_32379.shtml

since when was it 'obligitory' to wait 24 hours to report a CHILD missing. that's only for adults

kbl8201 said:

since when was it 'obligitory' to wait 24 hours to report a CHILD missing. that's only for adults

Click to expand...

Any excuse is a good one when you don't want to do something.

Seriously, though, this kind of attitude regarding missing children and the resultant lapse in time can mean the difference in life or death.

In recent times with the Amber Alert system active in most states, missing children are given more rapid attention by law enforcement officials.

even if there was a mandotory 24 hour wait most missing kids parents would be on the phone to the police from the get go......

I wonder how long it took for the info on the vehicle to come out. The slow reporting in this case was most certainly its undoing--A red convertible, in Maryland, in winter, would have stuck out like the proverbial "sore thumb". I think its safe to say that most people from that area north don't drive convertibles in the winter unless it happens to be their only car.

TIffany's case was briefly mentioned on Nancy Grace America's Missing:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/crime/2011/02/08/ng.americas.missing.02.08.hln

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...76b610-3a40-11e2-a263-f0ebffed2f15_story.html

Updated: Thursday, November 29, 5:15 PM

Tiffany Goines put on her blue jacket and asked her mother if she could go over to a friend’s house in December 1987. It was the last time Betty Goines would ever see her daughter. Today, Anqoinette Crosby, a contributor to The RootDC takes a look at the unsolved case of Goines, whose story has been largely ignored by local media.

Click to expand...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/frederick-girl-disappeared-in-1987-at-age-12/article/2517929#.UOzHVazheSo

It has been more than 25 years since Tiffany Goines disappeared at the age of 12. But police in her hometown of Frederick are continuing to work on her case.

Click to expand...

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/ne...cle_e7468102-222d-5133-bb2c-cfbec722baa4.html

A year later, a neighbor mentioned to Goines that she had seen Tiffany climb into a red convertible the day she disappeared near her home at the former John Hanson Apartments on North Bentz Street.

“I said, ‘If you had seen her, why didn’t you come knocking on my door and say something?’” Goines said. “She said she thought I knew it, but I didn’t know nothing.”

Click to expand...

Missing for 27 years tomorrow. Tiffany would be 40 on December 22. I wonder if they have any sort of leads for this case.

Tiffany Michele Goines Went Missing In Frederick Maryland in December 1987

Facial/case ID

Age progression

Missing
Last seen alive: December 05, 1987

Circumstances: Tiffany was last seen on December 5, 1987 getting into a red convertible.
First Name: Tiffany Michele
Middle Name: Michele
Last Name: Goines
Details
Age When Last Known Alive: 12
Race: Black/African Americ
Sex: Female
Height: 60.0
Weight: 78.0
Location
City: Frederick
State: Maryland
County: Frederick
Appearance
Hair: Black
Head Hair: Tiffany had shoulder length braided hair at the time of
Eye: Brown
Other Distinctive: Tiffany's left eye turns inward
Skeletal Information: Healed fracture proximal phalanx left 5th finger
Clothing and Accessories
Clothing: Tiffany was last seen wearing brown gloves, a white nylon coat, a white sweatshirt with picture, blue cotton pants, a white cloth belt, white cotton socks, and white sneakers with no laces.
Footwear: Tiffany was last seen wearing white socks and white sneakers with no laces.
Eyewear: Tiffany was last seen wearing large brown glasses.
Transportation
Style: Convertible
Vehicle Color: Red
Tiffany was last seen getting into a red convertible

Apparently abducted, but it could be a lie about that red convertible. Very few details to go from. If you're 12 wouldn't you know how to go with strange men in cars? unless she knew the person ofcourse, It's anyones guess.

poor child. I hope she is found soon.

Bumping. I hope Tiffany can be found. It's strange that the neighbor waited a year before mentioning that she saw Tiffany get into the red convertible.

Google Maps
Street view of North Bentz Street, I don't know which exact number she lived at, but it gives an impression of the neighboourhood she lives at. She lived at the John Hanson apartments that were demolished arpund 2005. There is a statue of him at a park so maybe it was located close by but it was a housing project and there are photos of it online.
Here's an article about her mother Betty Goines before the houses were demolished.
MOVING FORWARD: Many memories, good and bad, came crashing down as demolition began on the John Hanson Apartments

There are also several other articles online about her dissapearence. There's a Betty Goines that passed in 2018 from NC, Don't know if its her mom but it's likely.

Some more info
Tiffany Michele Goines – The Charley Project
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Tiffany Michele Goines

• 
• 
• 

Tiffany, circa 1987; Age-progression at age 32 (circa 2006)

• Missing Since12/05/1987
• Missing FromFrederick, Maryland
• ClassificationEndangered Missing
• Date of Birth12/22/1974 (44)
• Age12 years old
• Height and Weight5'0, 78 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry DescriptionA blue jacket or a white nylon coat, a white sweatshirt with a picture, blue cotton pants, brown gloves, a white cloth belt, white cotton socks and white sneakers without laces.
• Distinguishing CharacteristicsAfrican-American female. Black hair, brown eyes. Some agencies may spell Tiffany's middle name "Michelle." She wears large brown-framed eyeglasses and has a lazy left eye that turns inward. Her hair was shoulder-length and in braids at the time of her disappearance.

Details of Disappearance
Tiffany was last seen entering a vehicle near her family's apartment complex in Frederick, Maryland on December 5, 1987. She had left her home at John Hanson Apartments on north Bentz Street that morning to visit a friend and run some errands for her neighbors.

She has never been heard from again. Accounts differ as to whether the vehicle in question was a red convertible or a light blue two-door Chevrolet Impala with the license plate number beginning with GH and ending in 22.

Tiffany was supposed to return home for dinner at 5:00 p.m., but did not. Her mother began searching the neighborhood for her at 9:00 p.m. Due to procedures in place at the time, her mother had to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report with the police.

Tiffany was sixth-grade student at Governor Thomas Johnson Middle School at the time of her disappearance. For nearly twenty years after she went missing, her mother slept in the living room of their apartment in case Tiffany knocked on their door in the middle of the night.

The John Hanson Apartments were demolished in 2005, and Tiffany's mother had to move. She still lives in the local area, however, and still hopes to find her daughter. Her mother describes Tiffany as cheerful and helpful to their neighbors. She believes she was abducted but is still alive.

Authorities stated they had not received any new leads in Tiffany's disappearance for quite some time. Her disappearance remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency

• Frederick Police Department 301-600-2100

What a sweet girl....so sorry for her mamma. Is there family, still looking out for her?

"Tiffany left home in the morning, to run errands for neighbors"....what neighbors.....who did see her, at what time, who didn't....Was one of them the neighbor who reported A YEAR later he/she saw her climbing in a red convertible..which I think is BS. Did the friend she supposed to visit saw her at all that day...at what time? etc. Did they ever track a car like that down? What did they do to find her? Did LE also thought she was abducted and still alive? There is some serious information missing in this case.

Bumping for Tiffany - 2022 will mark 35 years.