Shadow of Laci: Kristen Modaferri
July 22, 2003 -- Six years ago, Bob and Debbie Modaferri thought the mere mystery surrounding their daughter Kristen's disappearance would generate publicity and help them find out what happened to her. But they say it has worked against them.
"When you just have a disappearance-vanished into thin air [case], it doesn't have the same kind of appeal … at least as far as the media is concerned," Bob Modaferri told ABCNEWS' Primetime.
According to the Center for Missing Adults, there are more than 100,000 active missing persons cases nationwide. Oakland, Calif., police say they open an average of 10 new missing persons cases every day. In June 1997, Kristen Modaferri became one of those cases, and her disappearance remains one of the most baffling mysteries that most people have never heard about.
Kristen seemed to be excited about the life ahead of her when she vanished. The 18-year-old North Carolina State University student had earned a scholarship to study photography at the University of California at Berkeley. Kristen moved to California in the summer of 1997 and settled in a house with four male students in San Francisco. She started working in a coffee shop in the Crocker Galleria in downtown San Francisco as she prepared for her courses.
Unfortunately, Kristen disappeared the day before she was to begin her classes.
"I don't believe she's voluntarily missing. I don't believe she committed suicide," said Tim Hames, a private investigator who has been working on the case. "We have no victim, we have no witness. We don't have anything. She left us nothing to go on. I've looked at her bank records, Social Security number … there's nothing to indicate that she's alive or dead."
Last Seen at Work
The only thing investigators know for sure is that Modaferri worked at the coffee shop and punched out at 3 p.m. the day she disappeared. Some co-workers told investigators that they saw her shopping with a blond woman in the mall after work. Co-workers also remembered Modaferri asking about bus directions to a city beachfront called Land's End, which some friends had warned her was a dangerous hangout.
"The last thing I said to her was 'Kristen, please take someone with you. Our beaches aren't full of just people hanging out and enjoying sunny weather,' " said Bernie Melvin, the coffee shop manager who supervised Modaferri. "There are caves that homeless people settle in. It's definitely a desolate place."
Days after her disappearance, bloodhounds picked up Modaferri's scent near Sutro Baths, which is close to the Land's End beach. But investigators did not find a body or a crime scene.
"We organized a search party. We walked over cliffs," said Hames. "We turned over every rock that could be turned over. And, of course, we came up with nothing. Nothing."
Delayed Search, a Phony Tip
Early in the investigation, Modaferri's vanishing generated local news coverage on TV stations and newspapers, which police say is vital to any missing person case.
"You can go on and on and on about how many cases out there have been solved because people saw either a photo, saw this person on TV, because of a news story," said Detective Dan Casthano. "It's astronomical the importance of having media coverage in missing persons cases."
Still, the search for Modaferri was hampered almost from the beginning. She had been missing for four days before any of her roommates filed a missing persons report and called her parents. Modaferri, they said, had a habit of going out without telling anyone where she was going.
"I can't imagine why he [one roommate] would file a missing persons report without first contacting the parents and saying, 'Hey, we have a serious situation here, we think, and are we ready to file a missing persons report?' " said Bob Modaferri.
False leads also frustrated investigators. A man called in a tip to news station and claimed two lesbians killed Kristen in the backseat of a car at the intersection of Market and Castro Streets in the heart of San Francisco's gay community. Kristen, the caller said, was killed because she spurned their advances.
The tip turned out to be a hoax and the caller, John Onuma, became a focus of the investigation. But police have not found any evidence linking him to Kristen's disappearance.
"It's very unusual, very odd, that somebody would come up with a story like that and their reasons for it," said Detective Pat Mahany. "That's what kept him in our focus for so long."
Contacted by phone in Hawaii, Onuma insisted he is innocent and said the phony tip was a bad mistake. The phone tip, he said, was intended to get even with two women who had fired a former girlfriend. Onuma said he had passed a polygraph test and was willing to take another one. Police focused on him, Onuma said, because they had no other promising leads.
When the Spotlight Fades
As years have passed without a break in the case, so has media coverage of Kristen Modaferri's disappearance. Media coverage can generate new leads to investigators and new developments usually dictate media coverage. But, as with many other cases, news coverage in missing people wanes without new leads and developments.
"If you don't have a person arrested, it [media coverage] doesn't go anywhere," said Stephen Schoenthaler, a sociology and criminal justice professor at California State University, Stanislaus. "You have to have something new. And the public eventually loses interest if you don't have something sustainable."
And the family and friends of missing people have to try to keep their story alive, But Bob and Debbie Modaferri admit the years of searching for her daughter and trying to generate news coverage have taken their toll.
"I spent hours. … I came home from work and then spent many hours on the phone, calling all the television programs, to try to get our story out," said Debbie Modaferri. "People need to know that there is not just Laci Peterson that went missing out there."
For more information on the case, please visit the following Web site:
• Kristen Modafferi
www.modlink.com