MO MO - Geneva Adams, 53, Herculaneum, 24 July 1976

hoppyfrog

Retired WS Staff
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
8,660
Reaction score
223
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/st...erty-for-remains-of-woman-missing-since-1976/

31 July 09

Herculaneum detectives searched a 114-acre wooded property outside of Perryville, Mo., for the remains of a Festus woman who disappeared 33 years ago.

Capt. Mark Tulgetske said four dogs were used in the search for Geneva Adams, a mother of 10 who was last seen July 25, 1976. He said that no remains or other evidence was found, but that police will likely search the property again.

Adams was 53 at the time of her disappearance. Her family has long believed that she was murdered.

much, much more at link
 
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11099557

10 Sept 09

Local sheriff's officials and the FBI are searching for a southeast Missouri woman missing for 33 years in Perry County. Officials are searching 114 acre property beyond a closed road near the Mississippi River for the remains of Geneva Adams.

The mother of 10 from Herculaneum was 53 when she was last seen July 25, 1976.

She's still classified as a missing person, but her family insists she was killed.

Herculaneum Police Chief Chris Pigg says cadaver dogs led them to an area where they are now digging. A cadaver dog hit on a scent about a month ago.

Pigg says Adams was last seen in the company of a man named Jimmy Lee Mills who used to visit the property, but Pigg would not say if Mills is a person of interest.

more at link
 
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/a/adams_geneva.html

The Doe Network:
Case File 2079DFMO

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2079dfmo.html

Geneva Verneal Adams
Missing since July 24, 1976 from Herculaneum, Jefferson County, Missouri
Classification: Missing



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Vital Statistics
•Date of Birth: December 5, 1922
•Age at Time of Disappearance: 53 years old
•Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'0-5'2"; 110-120 lbs.
•Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Shoulder-length brown hair; hazel/brown eyes. Slim build.
•Clothing: Geneva was last seen wearing a blue tank top with a design on the front and a pair of blue pants made of thin material.
•Medical: Cancer of the cervix (in the 1960s)



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Circumstances of Disappearance
Adams' youngest daughter last saw her after midnight in Artesian Lounge, a Jefferson County tavern, dancing with a man she had met earlier. According to the male, he and Adams continued to drink and dance at the Artesian Lounge until the bar closed, shortly after 01.00. Then they joined several other bar patrons and headed to a bar in East St. Louis. The man said that the group returned to the Artesian and separated, and that he dropped Adams off at a donut shop in nearby Crystal City about 04.00.
Adams had endured two difficult marriages, and she reared 10 children largely on her own.
Those who are familiar with the case talk about her as a murder victim. They say that Adams, who found happiness almost entirely in her children, wasn't the type to run off and abandon them.
No one has ever been arrested in connection with the case. Authorities never found her body or any physical evidence that suggests foul play.
Authorities have been unable to find a case file on Adams' disappearance. The investigative notes and files may have been destroyed in a fire in 1981 at the Crystal City police station.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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

Herculaneum Police Department
1-636-479-4791


Agency Case Number: 08-2450

NCIC Number: M-158929998
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/7585/0/
NamUs Profile:
Dental: NA
DNA: Tests submitted, not completed
Fingerprints: NA
 

Attachments

  • img_11375.jpeg
    img_11375.jpeg
    3.7 KB · Views: 24
Missouri mother of 10 vanished 40 years ago. Do her remains lie in Fairview Heights?
Geneva Adams was a mother of 10 out for an uncharacteristic night on the town.

She danced at the Artesian Lounge with a handsome and charming younger man until it closed, then went to an after-hours club 40 miles east in East St. Louis. Her date said he dropped her off at a Crystal City, Missouri, doughnut shop in the very early morning hours of July 25, 1976.

She was never heard from again.

Six weeks later, a naked, decomposed body was found in a vacant lot in Washington Park and later buried without a name in a pauper’s grave in Fairview Heights. Investigators now want to find out if Adams is that Jane Doe.
 
Her new Charley Project link

Geneva Verneal Adams

geneva_verneal_adams_2.jpg


  • Missing Since 07/25/1976
  • Missing From Herculaneum, Missouri
  • Classification Endangered Missing
  • Date of Birth 12/05/1922 (96)
  • Age 53 years old
  • Height and Weight 5'0 - 5'2, 110 - 120 pounds
  • Clothing/Jewelry Description A blue tank top with a design on the front and blue pants made of thin material.
  • Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown/hazel eyes. She may have a scar on her abdomen from gall bladder surgery.
Details of Disappearance

Adams was last seen at the Artesian Lounge in Herculaneum, Missouri on July 25, 1976. She asked her daughter to drive her there so she could meet Jimmie Lee Mills, a man she'd met earlier, who was a regular patron of the bar. At the bar, Adams danced with Mills and appeared to be very happy. Mills offered to drive her home. She has never been heard from again. Mills later said they left at closing time; he said they went to an an after-hours bar in East St. Louis, Missouri, but it was closed and he dropped her off at a donut shop on Highway 61 in Crystal City, Missouri at 4:00 a.m. A photo of Mills is posted below this case summary.

Mills was convicted of attempted rape and was released from prison in 1975, a year before Adams disappeared. At the time she went missing, he was out on bail awaiting trial for the rape of a teenage girl. He was convicted and received probation and a suspended sentence in that case. He had later convictions for receiving stolen property, escape, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Another woman associated with Mills, 21-year-old Crystal Horan, disappeared from her St. Louis, Missouri apartment in July 1985. Horan lived next door to Mills, and he was investigated as a possible suspect in her disappearance, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Her remains were found in a shallow grave in Jefferson County, Missouri in 1988, but they weren't identified until 2011. No one has been charged in her case. Mills maintains his innocence in Adams's disappearance and says he has no idea what happened to her.

Adams was born and raised in Arkansas, and she lived in Festus, Missouri at the time of her disappearance. She has ten children, two of whom were still living at home at the time of her disappearance, and she was a devoted member of the Pentecostal Church. She was married twice; her first husband died in 1969 and her second marriage ended in divorce. She didn't drink much and it was uncharacteristic of her to go to bars, as she did on the night of her disappearance. Her case remains unsolved and foul play is suspected.

Geneva Verneal Adams – The Charley Project
 
Judge allows body buried in Fairview Heights cemetery to be exhumed

A St. Clair County Judge (Illinois) signed an order on Tuesday that will allow the exhumation of a woman buried without a name in a Fairview Heights cemetery.

Judge Julie Katz signed the order after a request was filed last week.

Four years ago, then-St. Clair County Coroner asked Illinois State Police Sgt. Abigail Keller to help identify the Jane Doe who was buried in pauper’s grave in Greenwood Cemetery in 1976. Keller, according to the court records, used the National Missing and Unidentified Person System database and found a missing Festus, Mo. woman who matched Jane Doe’s physical characteristics. Her name was Geneva Adams.
---
Assistant State’s Attorney Bernadette Schrempp filed a motion on Nov. 27 requesting the exhumation of Jane Doe, who lies in Lot 77, Grave 1, Section B in Greenwood Cemetery in Fairview Heights. After the body is removed, a DNA sample will be taken and compared to a single tooth removed from Adams during a dental procedure and kept by one of her children.

(more about Jane Doe in the link)
Judge allows body buried in Fairview Heights cemetery to be exhumed
 
Just to add Jimmie Lee Mills, who police call a “person of interest” in Adam's case is scheduled for release on Aug. 12, 2019.
 
Jane Doe’s exhumation Monday will find if she is a woman who disappeared 42 years ago

On Monday afternoon, a backhoe will pass through Greenwood Cemetery’s brick gates to disinter the body of a woman buried there 42 years ago without a name or the knowledge of those who may have loved her.

[...]

Missouri and Illinois investigators will work together to determine whether the body in that grave belongs to Geneva Adams, the mother of 10, who disappeared after a night of dancing with handsome and charming man, who police now call a person of interest in her disappearance. The man’s name is Jimmie Lee Mills, a former school bus mechanic.
 
Hoping they have finally found her. Sending my thoughts and prayers to Geneva's loved ones.
 
A Festus mother of 10 disappeared in 1976. Does a Metro East cemetery hold answers?
Answers may be in the graveyard, but without a better lead on where Jane Doe’s body is buried, Tulgetske said authorities don’t immediately plan to dig again.

“There is no doubt that the body that we’re looking for is in that cemetery somewhere,” he said. “But where? The records they have are clearly wrong, so without some reference to follow, where do we dig? We can’t just go digging up every body there.”

.
 
The body at the cemetery in Fairview Heights, Illinois, has similar features to Geneva Adams and it was found near where Adams went missing weeks earlier. Authorities didn’t make the connection at the time.

Authorities decided last month to exhume the body. But Herculaneum Police Chief Mark Tulgetske says cemetery records were wrong so they weren’t able to find the body. He says authorities don’t plan to dig again until they are sure they know where the body is buried.

Authorities continue search for missing woman after 40 years
 
Just saw this online and thought I'd see if there was a thread. That just doesn't seem fair that the cemetery made an error and the family cannot get resolution because of it.

Disappearance of woman from Herculaneum, Missouri bar in 1976 remains unsolved

Snips:
After discovering that his mother had not slept in her bed that night, Steve called his sister, Sheila, who had gone dancing with her.

Sheila told Steve that at some point during the night, she decided she wanted to go home. Her mother wanted to stay and continue dancing with a man she had met earlier in the evening. The man offered to take her home and Sheila left.

Steve said at that point they began to panic and, along with a few of his siblings, tried to track down the man who had been with their mother.

Steve told Dateline that bartenders at the Artesian Lounge told him that his mother had been with a regular named Jimmie Lee Mills and that they left around 1 a.m. Steve said he later discovered that Mills was his little brother Billy’s school bus driver in Festus.

“As soon as we figured out who it was, we found out where he lived and went over to his trailer and demanded to know where our mother was,” Steve said.

Steve said Mills told them that he and Geneva left the Artesian Lounge and drove to another bar that was open late in East St. Louis near Illinois. He said he then dropped Geneva off at a donut shop around 4 a.m. in Crystal City, Missouri.

“Why would he drop her off at a donut shop in the middle of the night? It makes no sense,” Steve said.

Snips:
According to Chief Tulgetske, the body of an unidentified “Jane Doe” had been found in September of 1976, in a wooded area of Washington Park, Illinois.

“That area is near where Jimmie Mills said they were going that night Geneva disappeared,” Chief Tulgetske said. “Bars stayed open much later over there.”

The body was examined at that time, but was too decomposed to identify a cause of death, the chief told Dateline.

Chief Tulgetske said Jane Doe was buried in a private cemetery off a residential road in Fairview Heights and forgotten until 2014 when an Illinois State Police sergeant working to identify cold case remains ran Jane Doe’s information through the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database - and came across Geneva’s case.
 
Last edited:

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
65
Guests online
2,477
Total visitors
2,542

Forum statistics

Threads
590,011
Messages
17,928,948
Members
228,038
Latest member
shmoozie
Back
Top