Her car wasn't in the driveway. Her purse wasn't anywhere in the house. All her clothes were gone. And so was Mary Kathryn Miller.
"In her crockpot, she had lentils cooking," Sally Harding said.
Harding went to check on her lifelong friend after noticing broken window glass on the Provo woman's front porch hadn't been removed for several days. She suggested the family call the authorities.
Kelly Miller reported her 46-year-old mother missing July 5, 1979. She told Provo police she hadn't seen her for about two weeks, according to a police report. Several telephone calls and visits going back to about June 20 had gone unanswered. Checks with known friends yielded nothing.
Though Mary Miller, a public health nurse, had a history of psychological problems, her daughter told police it was unlike her to run off. Kelly Miller's roommates at Brigham Young University received phone calls from someone they thought was Mary Miller but weren't able to get the caller to identify herself.
Mary Miller's brown Honda CVCC was discovered in American Fork Canyon on the back side of Mount Timpanogos, but not in the place she apparently left it. A couple of sheepherders admitted to driving the car. They told police they did see a woman dancing nude in a meadow.
That, apparently, was the last time anyone saw Mary Kathryn Miller.
While the search for 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart enters its fourth week, many Utah families have gone years without news about their missing loved ones. No phone call. No postcard. The trail to the person's whereabouts has long grown cold. Tips have dwindled to few and none.
For families it is "pure frustration," said Gina McMahon, who runs the Utah Missing Persons Clearinghouse in the state Department of Public Safety. "That would be the only way to sum it up."
The long-term missing persons list numbers about 45 Utahns — men, women and children — dating back to at least 1983, she said. But the figure is only an estimate. It might be much higher.
Who are they?
They are Everyman and Everywoman. They are people at the office, on light rail, at a ball game. They are here. And they are gone.
They were abducted. They never returned from a hike or drive. They were depressed, suicidal. They ran away. They walked into a new life. They are alive. And they are dead.
They are people like Janis Marie Stavros, a 43-year-old Canyon Rim woman who hasn't been seen since her live-in boyfriend left for work on Jan. 3, 2001, as Stavros slept. Nothing was out of place in the house, and her truck, cell phone — which she never was without — and dogs were there.
Or Sheri Lyn Stark, 37, who allegedly staged her own drowning in Pineview Reservoir Jan. 26, 2000. Her 11-year-old son was hit and killed by a car a year later. She didn't attend the funeral, and investigators say the Roy woman probably doesn't know he died.
And Stephen L. Hughes, now 62, who was last seen Jan. 13, 1986, wearing a baseball cap and red plaid shirt. His truck was left abandoned at his business in Bountiful. He had a history of heart trouble.
Using the WebHow often are the missing found?
"Not often enough," said Mike King, an investigator in the Utah Attorney General's Office who oversees the Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP), which offers crime analysts, sociologists, forensic scientists and other specialists to police agencies.
King said "victimology" is the most important tool for piecing the puzzle together. What was going on in the person's life? Who is her circle friends? Who saw him last?
When answers to those questions don't lead investigators anywhere, they may turn to cyberspace. UTAP lists 15 and the clearinghouse 12 missing Utahns, but all save a couple overlap.
"Unfortunately, we don't get word on every single case," McMahon said.
And even if local police have contacted the state, the clearinghouse won't post information on the Internet without family consent.
King receives e-mails weekly from families, some with "horrible stories," asking to place a missing relative on the 5-year-old UTAP site. But he won't get involved in a case unless a police agency asks for help.
He shakes his head as he scrolls through the few photos on the missing persons page, disappointed that many investigators don't take 15 minutes to fill out an online crime data submission form.
"My opinion has always been, 'What do you have to lose?' " King said. "Why not?"
Names in the UTAP system can be compared with unidentified bodies in the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database.
Recently, Georgia authorities contacted UTAP about a decomposed body found in that state, he said. The clothing and jewelry were similar to that worn by a missing Utah woman. King declined to reveal her name, saying he didn't want to raise false hope for her family.
Low prioritiesPolice handling of missing-person cases has long been controversial.
McMahon acts as a go-between for law enforcement and families who become frustrated when they think authorities aren't doing enough. The clearinghouse does things like send out fliers or mass e-mails that police agencies can't, as well as enter the name into national and international missing persons databases.
"In a perfect world, there would be one officer per incident in everything," she said. "But there isn't."
Unless foul play is suspected, reported disappearances don't rank high on police detectives' priority lists. And as the investigation chills, the case gathers dust in a file cabinet.
"Runaways and missing persons are low priorities because running away and missing aren't against the law," said Sue Christopher, an investigator with the Salt Lake County Sheriff's missing persons unit.
But "if we get a case that looks suspicious, we jump on it right away."
The unit received 1,951 missing person reports last year, 1,277 of which were runaways. Of the 674 classified as missing persons, 518 were adults.
The manpower and resources needed to track each one, as well as the perception that they will eventually return to their families, make them a difficult enforcement problem. The vast majority are cleared up within hours or a day, many without police intervention.
About 80 county cases dating back to 1986 remain a mystery, Christopher said.
"We keep them open until we resolve them," she said. "We take calls all the time on our outstanding cases."
Tracking missing adults where evidence of criminal activity is lacking creates sticky situations for police. Some adults simply don't want to be located. "When you're over 18, you're free to go where you want to go," she said.
Christopher said she once found a woman within 15 minutes of receiving a report, much to the woman's surprise. The woman told her she was scared to death to be so easily contacted. Turned out she was running from an abusive relationship.
"It's not against the law to say, 'I've had enough and I want to leave,' " King said.
Perhaps that's what Mary Miller decided 23 years ago. Or maybe she met an untimely death in the canyon. But no one really knows. She remains missing.
E-MAIL: romboy@desnews.com