Found Deceased PA - Linda Stoltzfoos, 18, Bird-in-Hand, Lancaster County, 21 June 2020 *arrest*

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I do get what you're saying, but I don't believe waiting days before reported someone (of any age) mising is not the best idea. But I do understand your point, by logic, a 12-year-old girl not coming home on a Sunday night is way more concerning than a 18-year-old girl not coming home on a Sunday night. But it depends on your 18-year-old. If your 18-year-old doesn't do stuff like this, if her friends came home, if she's the quiet, shy type... then it's cause for concern, as opposed to another 18-year-old girl that sleeps over at friends houses, that goes to graduation parties, that is outgoing, etc.
Supposedly Linda’s parents realized there was a problem by 4:00 am Monday. And searching began Monday morning.

My take is that when Linda didn’t come home after youth group—which can go until midnight—the family realized among itself that no one had actually seen her since noonish on Sunday. Other than the fact that we know that Linda is the oldest of numerous children, possibly 8, we don’t know if any of those would have attended the same activity she planned to attend.

An Amish household with that many children is a busy place, and parents don’t micromanage their kids, from what I’ve witnessed. Since formal schooling ends at 14, older teens may work fulltime hours. Girls Linda’s age may have several jobs to fill their week. The market she presumably works at isn’t open every day, so she may have a mix of paid employment and family chores to fill those other days. Sunday is a day for worship, rest, socializing, and recreation. My point is that older Amish teens are typically allowed to manage themselves, and they aren’t texting their parents every time they go somewhere.

So if Linda is typically a reliable girl who manages her own affairs and doesn’t require a lot of parental oversight, it makes sense to me that they didn’t realize there was a problem until they realized she hadn’t come home.

I do wonder if the friends who expected Linda to be at youth group attempted to reach out to her on the cell phone she is believed to have when she didn’t show. It certainly wouldn’t be their responsibility to see why she hadn’t come to a voluntary activity, but I’m just curious. We usually know more about missing people than we do in this case.
 
“We have no answers to what happened,” Merv Fisher, Linda’s uncle who left the order years ago, said Sunday. “That’s the most common question I hear from people. What happened and why?”
Missing Lancaster Amish teen: 'We have no answers."


"Fisher left the Amish faith years ago, as did his wife, who is Linda’s sister. They had been excommunicated and shunned as others who’ve left the faith have been. He said he didn’t know Linda.

When Linda went missing, he got in touch with her family and offered what help he could. The family accepted. He got permission from the family to start a Facebook page, Amish Girl Missing – Linda Stoltzfoos, even though it is contrary to their beliefs. "

so based on this, Linda can't be the oldest child in her family. I sounds like her sister's husband set up and is maintaining the facebook page.

also interesting ( I don't mean suspicious, just truly interesting):

"Every night since she disappeared, the community has held vigils, praying for Linda’s safe return to her family. The vigils weren’t organized by the Amish, Fisher said. The Amish don’t do prayer vigils, he said. "
 
I thought I read earlier in this thread that leaving the faith community is easy for an Amish teenager. I did not agree, and it sounds like leaving would be something done in secret and with "consequences". i.e. shunning and excommunication.
Hoping this is a voluntary disappearance.
 
"Fisher left the Amish faith years ago, as did his wife, who is Linda’s sister. They had been excommunicated and shunned as others who’ve left the faith have been. He said he didn’t know Linda.

When Linda went missing, he got in touch with her family and offered what help he could. The family accepted. He got permission from the family to start a Facebook page, Amish Girl Missing – Linda Stoltzfoos, even though it is contrary to their beliefs. "

so based on this, Linda can't be the oldest child in her family. I sounds like her sister's husband set up and is maintaining the facebook page.

also interesting ( I don't mean suspicious, just truly interesting):

"Every night since she disappeared, the community has held vigils, praying for Linda’s safe return to her family. The vigils weren’t organized by the Amish, Fisher said. The Amish don’t do prayer vigils, he said. "

In the beginning of that article, it describes Fisher as LS's uncle.
Then, later on in the piece, it refers to Fisher's wife as LS's sister.

So, either LS's sister married her uncle (!), or there was some misreporting of facts somewhere.

I suspect that the writer meant to say that MF's wife is LS's mother's sister, which would make her LS's aunt, but I'm not sure.

Whatever happened to copy editors, anyway?

JMO.
 
In the beginning of that article, it describes Fisher as LS's uncle.
Then, later on in the piece, it refers to Fisher's wife as LS's sister.

So, either LS's sister married her uncle (!), or there was some misreporting of facts somewhere.

I suspect that the writer meant to say that MF's wife is LS's mother's sister, which would make her LS's aunt, but I'm not sure.

Whatever happened to copy editors, anyway?

JMO.
Merv Fisher says something about in his “40 years” in one of the articles, so he would have to be LS’s uncle.
 
CASE: Linda Stoltzfoos Missing Person
As part of the ongoing missing person (Linda Stoltzfoos) investigation police are requesting any person (walkers, bicyclist, motorist, other means) who may have been traveling on the following roads on June 21, 2020 between 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. to contact the East Lampeter Township Police Department at 717 291-4676. Thank you!
Road Listing: Mill Creek School Rd. Stumptown Rd. Gibbons Rd. Beechdale Rd. Millcreek Rd. Date: Monday, June 29, 2020

upload_2020-6-29_10-7-33.jpeg
 
I thought I read earlier in this thread that leaving the faith community is easy for an Amish teenager. I did not agree, and it sounds like leaving would be something done in secret and with "consequences". i.e. shunning and excommunication.
Hoping this is a voluntary disappearance.
It seems like there’s a difference in consequences whether you decide not to join the church as a teen or if you go ahead and become a member and then decide to leave. My understanding is that the shunning and excommunication is for members who break fellowship and leave the Amish.
 
CASE: Linda Stoltzfoos Missing Person
As part of the ongoing missing person (Linda Stoltzfoos) investigation police are requesting any person (walkers, bicyclist, motorist, other means) who may have been traveling on the following roads on June 21, 2020 between 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. to contact the East Lampeter Township Police Department at 717 291-4676. Thank you!
Road Listing: Mill Creek School Rd. Stumptown Rd. Gibbons Rd. Beechdale Rd. Millcreek Rd. Date: Monday, June 29, 2020

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I’m not trying to be funny, but locally we have had so many rumors being spread by social media and word of mouth about suspicious vans/abductions, even before LS disappeared. This has prompted several police departments to post statements trying to calm the hysteria. Hopefully if there was something out of place on those roads during that time frame, there would have been people who noticed and can recall details.
 
It seems like there’s a difference in consequences whether you decide not to join the church as a teen or if you go ahead and become a member and then decide to leave. My understanding is that the shunning and excommunication is for members who break fellowship and leave the Amish.
That is correct.
 
No matter how accepting a family might be, it's always hard when a child has to tell their parents "this is not how I want to live my life", and it's hard for the child and for the parents. It's hard for the child, because the idea of possibly hurting the parents is always present, and it's hard for the parents because a loving parent raises their children the way they thing it's the best, and when a child vocalizes their unwillingness to follow suit, they may think they failed their children somehow.
It's a tricky situation no matter what, but I have to say this doesn't really sound like a "I don't want to follow these rules, I don't want to live like this" type of situation.
 
In the beginning of that article, it describes Fisher as LS's uncle.
Then, later on in the piece, it refers to Fisher's wife as LS's sister.

So, either LS's sister married her uncle (!), or there was some misreporting of facts somewhere.

I suspect that the writer meant to say that MF's wife is LS's mother's sister, which would make her LS's aunt, but I'm not sure.

Whatever happened to copy editors, anyway?

JMO.
IMHO, I'm confident that MF is Linda's uncle and is married to her aunt.
 
IMO-now that I think about it more, it is confusing as to why Linda wasn't realized to be missing until late at night. If she had a family member that didn't walk home from church with her because they were taking classes (IIRC), that same family member would most likely have also gone to the youth group even if they got there at a different time. If the family member wasn't taking a class and staying for other reasons, then maybe not old enough to go to youth group or join the Amish. Even if that was the case, I would think it would be possible that one of her friends might of known she was going home 1st to change clothes or get a snack to bring along (IIRC) and then coome to her house if she didn't show up. That is the sole reason why I could believe that some of her youth group friends did know that she wanted to leave the Amish and knew she wouldn't show up.
 
Seems to have been a lot of searching for Linda. I wonder how much effort has been made in locating her cell phone. If someone were to abduct her, knowing how phones can be traced, they may have given the phone a good hard toss into a field or drainage ditch.
 
It seems like there’s a difference in consequences whether you decide not to join the church as a teen or if you go ahead and become a member and then decide to leave. My understanding is that the shunning and excommunication is for members who break fellowship and leave the Amish.

Yes, you're right. From the Center for Amish Studies at Elizabethtown College (Lancaster, PA):

Q: What is shunning?
A: If members break their vows of baptism by disobeying the regulations of the church or the authority of its leaders and refuse to confess their error, they will face excommunication. The church, using several biblical scriptures, teaches that members should shun ex-members to remind them of their disobedience in hopes of winning them back. Different Amish affiliations practice different types of shunning and the mode varies by family and church. Shunning is not the end of social interaction, but involves rituals of shaming, such as not eating at the same table with someone who has been dismissed from the church. Wayward members can always return and be reinstated if they confess. People who leave the Amish but were never baptized are not excommunicated or shunned, because they never made baptismal vows.

Amish Studies
 

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Is there a timeline for Linda’s disappearance?

With Linda being the oldest, I was wondering if part of her household responsibilities/duties would have been to assist with her younger siblings? Perhaps prepare the evening meal or have clean up duty?

Arriving home after midnight was a common occurrence and no reason for concern until the next morning?
 
For those that know about Amish culture, I have a question.

I'm not talking about rumspringa here but I would like to know if it is common for a young Amish person to decide they do not want to stay in the community and choose to disappear?

For some reason, I believe that if Linda had chosen to walk away, it wouldn't be a secret.

My mind and my heart are telling me that Linda is in terrible trouble and that she did not choose to leave.
 
Is there a timeline for Linda’s disappearance?


Arriving home after midnight was a common occurrence and no reason for concern until the next morning?
Seems like that’s how late many youth group activities go. We often have a number of “kid buggies” going down our road shortly after midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. I always wonder how those boys manage to get up for work the next morning, but I guess they do.
 
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