June 29, 2003

FINDING BISH KILLER WOULD BEAT THE ODDS

Farah Stockman, Boston Globe Staff

First, there was a tip, shortly after Molly Bish disappeared, of a stench coming from a freshly dug hole in a trailer park. But days of digging only turned up buried crab shells. Then, there was a call from a mechanic who had found a known sex offender's car soaked with blood. But tests showed the blood was from an animal.

Then, there was the file on a man who had admitted to trying to kidnap a girl in a nearby town. But he turned out to have an alibi for the day that Bish, a 16-year-old lifeguard from Warren, disappeared: He had been in a psychiatric ward.

In the three years since Bish vanished, and in the weeks since her remains were found in a nearby forest, State Police and the Worcester district attorney have pledged to spare no effort in finding the person responsible for her death.

But if history is any guide, Bish's case will continue to stump investigators for years, perhaps forever. If a break in the case comes, specialists say, it will probably not be a clue the killer left behind, but a thwarted attempt to commit a similar crime or a jailhouse confession.

In the last two decades, at least 19 Massachusetts children have disappeared, only to turn up dead days or years later, or never to be found at all, according to a Globe review of data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, state homicide data, news reports, and police. Of those 19 cases, only six have been solved.

In all but one of the cases where police found the killer, the child's body had been uncovered in a matter of days or weeks. Of the seven cases like Bish's - where a child's body had been missing longer than a month - only one has resulted in an arrest. The Globe reviewed cases involving minors missing more than one day in which family members were not suspected.

"In these cases, where you have a lot of time and a lot of distance between the abduction, and where the body was found, the solvability rate that I have found is 4 percent," said Bob Keppel, a nationally-known retired criminal investigator from Washington state who has researched child abductions. "When you look at those cases, how they were solved, it was serendipity and total luck . . . There isn't any proactive police procedure that would have solved them."

Jimmy Bernardo had been dead more than three years before investigators got on the trail of the man who killed him. They knew the 12-year-old Pittsfield boy had been killed in 1990 by a pathological sex offender: His nude and strangled body was found a month after he disappeared, in a forest in upstate New York, duct tape still covering his eyes and mouth.

But after chasing thousands of tips and interviews, they had no idea who did it until Lewis Lent Jr., a janitor at a movie theater in the mall where Bernardo was last seen, was arrested for trying to abduct a 12-year-old Pittsfield girl. The girl escaped, and an alert passerby got a partial license plate that led police to Lent's van, which had been outfitted with special features to abduct children. It included a switch that disabled his brake lights to avoid notice when he slowed down as he cruised the streets for children.

In the hundreds of interviews police conducted in the Bernardo murder, they had never spoken to Lent before.

Lent's capture and eventual confession was also a break in the murder of a 12-year-old New York girl. He was also suspected in the 1992 disappearance of 10-year-old Jamie Lusher of Westfield, as well as the 1993 disappearance of 10-year-old Holly Piirainen, whose remains were found months after she vanished from Sturbridge. But he was never charged in those cases.

"People like Lent, they don't just do it once, they do it again, and they get better at it," said retired Pittsfield police chief Gerald M. Lee, who called the Lent investigation "a real education for law enforcement."

Had Lent stopped killing children, he might have never been caught.

"Unfortunately, if they don't do it again and they don't tell anybody, it's very difficult to get them," said Webster Police Chief Richard Bergeron Jr., who has investigated the unsolved disappearances of two Webster boys. "It's not like a crime of passion where somebody tells their best friend. It's almost a sickness, and people can't help themselves."

Lowell police had few clues in 1999 when the body of 11-year old Tabitha Potter was found in a park three days after she had been reported missing. It was not until James Howley, an unemployed mason who lived nearby, hung himself a week later that police realized he was the killer, said veteran police Captain William Taylor.

After Howley's death, police were able to identify semen on Potter's jeans, fingerprints on beer cans, and butts of imported cigarettes found at the park as his. He then became a suspect in the still-unsolved 1997 disappearance of Melissa Fadden, a Lowell 13-year-old whose body has never been found.

Had Potter's body not been found so quickly, police might not have immediately investigated her disappearance as a crime because most teenagers reported missing are runaways.

"Any urban community gets a substantial amount of missing person reports," said Taylor, whose department has researched reports filed on missing teenage girls. "The vast majority of them are juveniles that return fairly quickly."

The fact that Molly Bish disappeared from her lifeguard post wearing a bathing suit led investigators to suspect foul play far sooner than they might have otherwise. Even so, Worcester District Attorney John Conte said in the months following Bish's 2000 disappearance that he was still considering the theory that she had run away.

The assumption that missing teenage girls are runaways rather than murder victims delayed investigations into the disappearances of Brandi Sullivan, 17, of Tewksbury; Tracy Gilpin, 15, of Kingston; and Jennifer Lynn Fay, 16, of Brockton, costing crucial time to gather evidence, according to family members and police.

"For 10 years, they were really doing nothing," said Fay's mother, Dotty MacLean, who said the Bish case spurred police to begin seriously investigating her own daughter's 1989 disappearance for the first time. "I knew in my heart that she didn't run away, but they kept assuming it . . . year after year."

A Brockton police official admitted that investigators initially treated Fay as a runaway but said, in recent years, they have gone as far as South Carolina to find out what happened to the teenager, who was last seen walking to a corner store.

Gilpin, who vanished in 1986, was found dead in a state forest three weeks later. Sullivan, who ran away so often her own parents waited weeks to report her missing, was found dead in 1996. All three cases are still unsolved.

Captain Joseph Rowe of the Lynn Police Department admits he doesn't get the tips he used to on Jesus de la Cruz, a 6-year-old boy who vanished in 1996. But he says his department, which launched a massive search for Cruz and went as far as Puerto Rico to question a suspect, has not given up hope.

"It has been and is to this day an open case," he said. "At the anniversary each year, we remind the public that anyone, regardless of how inconsequential they may think the information is, [should] contact the Lynn Police Department."

But the reality is daunting. Among the 19 cases reviewed by the Globe, five involved children whose bodies were never found. In three other cases in which a child's body was found more than a year after they were believed to have been killed, the murders remain unsolved.

The closest that investigators have come to solving one of those crimes has been the jailhouse confession of serial killer Hadden Clark to the murder of 9-year-old Sarah Pryor. Investigators, however, are not convinced he is responsible.

Conte hopes that material recovered from the woods contains the DNA of Bish's killer, but forensic specialists have expressed doubt that any DNA evidence could have survived the elements for three years.

Still, Jerry Nance, a case manager at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who was once in charge of Bish's case, said he believes investigators' hard work will get her killer.

"My feeling today is that they will solve this case, with good police work and shoe leather to the ground," said Nance, who now specializes in decades-old missing persons cases. "I can't say that they will solve it tomorrow or next month. But they are going to solve it, because they are not going to stop until they do."

December 31, 2000

HOLIDAYS HEAVY FOR BISHES

Chris Echegaray, Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)

WARREN -- The holidays have been too much to bear for the family of missing teen-ager Molly A. Bish.

Her parents, John and Magdalen, had to get away for a few days; Molly's sister, Heather, stays busy watching her 17-month-old daughter and visits relatives and friends more often; her brother, John Jr., copes with her absence by working long hours.

Molly, then 16, disappeared six months ago from Comins Pond.

Mr. and Mrs. Bish are in Arizona. They left a day after Christmas. They went to ``recharge their batteries,'' acknowledging that they are physically and emotionally exhausted.

``The depth of the sorrow is so difficult,'' Mrs. Bish said in a telephone interview. ``She's the missing link. It all became more real. The six-month mark was the hardest milestone to overcome, with Thanksgiving and then Christmas.''

Molly, who was saving money to buy a car, was working as a lifeguard at the town beach. She mysteriously vanished from Comins Pond between 9:30 and 10 a.m. June 27. That Tuesday, Mrs. Bish, as usual, dropped her daughter off.

A day before, Mrs. Bish noticed a man smoking a cigarette who was sitting in a white car. Police continue to hold a white car that was confiscated months ago at the crime lab, but there is no information on whether it was the same car that was seen at the town beach. A composite sketch of the man was widely distributed, with little results.

Mrs. Bish is trying to contact Jean Boylan, an FBI sketch artist in Oregon, renowned for her drawing of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unibomber. Agent Boylan was also involved in the disappearance of Polly Klaas, a young California girl who was killed.

``We have to find a way to formulate a better sketch,'' Mrs. Bish said. ``A mother's loss of a child is the worst loss ... it is the hardest. You feel such immense sadness that one could melt away.''

The disappearance of the blond-haired teen-ager unified the town. Vigils and fund-raisers were held in support of the Bish family and their efforts to provide child safety kits.

People wondered how such a thing could happen in Small Town, USA.

``Sometimes we want to crawl and hide,'' Mr. Bish said. ``The stress is enough to destroy a family.''

The hot summer days whizzed by as search teams scoured the area, and rumors of Molly's whereabouts were the currency of the day. Detectives checked in Florida after learning a friend of Molly's had recently moved there. They later checked a report that Molly was in Maine. Both tips were false.

``I think maybe too much time was spent looking at Florida,'' Heather said. ``But I guess they have to look at everything.''

Time went by fast, Heather said, since that fateful Tuesday. Heather, 23, who lives in her grandparents' old home on South Street, a short distance from her parents, recalls that Molly came over with ice cream the weekend before she disappeared.

``She sat down with me and my daughter and we talked and ate,'' Heather said, sitting in her living room as her Dalmatian, Daisy, sat nearby. ``She would come over all the time in the summertime.''

Summer soon became fall, and winter quickly followed as the first nor'easter of the season began to blanket the region yesterday.

In the summer, the center of town was teeming with activity. People were bustling at the Town Common and detectives were working out of a command post in Town Hall.

Comins Pond became no man's land, at first during the search and later as people just stayed away. Today, the town beach, covered with ice, remains barren.

In the fall, friends and supporters walked, kicking up the autumn leaves, to the vigils held at the Town Common. The bustle has quieted and the police activity is nondescript. Detectives are out on holiday.

Nonetheless, Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte said there are ``a handful of suspects'' the police are eyeing.

``We are going to be methodical in looking at every lead,'' he said.

There is irony in this tragedy.

Before Molly was born, John, Magdalen and Heather moved to West Warren from the suburbs of Detroit, Mich., after a murder in that area.

Mr. Bish grew up in Warren, a relatively safe rural town. Mrs. Bish decided that it was best to raise their children in the safer environment.

``Everyone comes in touch with violence,'' Heather said. ``This has changed the way I see things and think.''

Heather, the oldest of the three children, feels a special connection with her sister. She was present at Molly's birth. There's a picture in her living room of Heather, 6 at the time, holding newborn Molly.

`'I remember this clearly,'' she said. ``There were midwives at the house and Mom had Molly at home.''

As a youngster, Molly played and collected dolls, Heather said. Heather found Molly's favorite doll while rummaging in the attic. Heather cleaned up the doll and gave it to her daughter, Mikaela, as a Christmas gift from her aunt.

``She loved dolls and anything with Winnie the Pooh characters,'' Heather said.

Molly's bedroom remains intact. Tigger collectibles adorn the room.

Mr. and Mrs. Bish will return from their Arizona trip tomorrow. They stayed with a sister of Mrs. Bish.

``We wanted to have quiet time to contemplate how to do the next six months. That's the hard part,'' Mrs. Bish said. ``We're praying for a miracle.''

Mr. Bish is a probation officer at East Brookfield District Court. Mrs. Bish is a teacher at Old Pond Mill Elementary School, Palmer.

The Bishes never fathomed this timetable of uncertainty.

``It looms over us ... Molly not found,'' Mr. Bish said. ``Such an ambiguous situation, with it going on for so long.''

``It's twofold,'' Mrs. Bish added. ``It feels like yesterday and then the torment as the days go on feels like eternity.''

Their child advocacy efforts keep them sane, they said. And the outpouring of support from the community also gives them strength. Letters and prayer cards from well-wishers flood their mailbox.

``People try really hard to get us through it,'' Mrs. Bish said. ``We want to tell them that we could not do it without you.''