LANSDALE — After three or four days, the people who knew Joseph Sarni the best began to worry.
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The last time anyone saw the 38-year-old Walnut Street resident was July 8.
On Thursday evening, a group of about 14 concerned family and friends of Sarni’s gathered near the intersection of Sixth and Walnut streets to canvass the neighborhood and circulate some of the 200 fliers they had printed up.
“He’s probably one of the nicest guys you could meet,” said John Hurst, who worked with Sarni at two different Lansdale auto detail businesses.
Sarni’s boss at Lansdale Auto Recon, Jamie Posavec, called him “my right hand man for a long time.”
The fliers being circulated state that foul play is suspected. Several of Sarni’s friends commented that he seemed nervous and scared right before he disappeared.
“He seemed like he was ready to go out somewhere,” said a tearful Judy Weiner, a friend who was one of the people who last reported seeing him. She said that he stayed overnight at her residence because it was hot and she had air conditioning.
Sarni’s asthma inhaler, his backpack and an urn containing the ashes of his mother — items he would never leave without, according to his sister, Jaime Parsons of Telford — were found in his unlocked apartment.
“The apartment was left the way that you would leave it if you were going to go outside, if somebody called you and said ‘meet me outside,’ or you were going to go outside and have a cigarette” she said. “His food was out, his drink was on the floor next to the bed.”
Calls placed to his cell phone have all gone to voice mail.
Lansdale Police have been investigating Sarni’s disappearance since Monday, have contacted other police departments in an extended area, and entered Sarni into a national missing person database, police said.
Sarni’s sister, Jaime Parsons, said that a private dog search of the neighborhood “did well,” but declined to go into more detail. She said that her brother may have been assaulted during the last week of June.
Meanwhile, Matthew Tartaglia, a sergeant with the U.S. Search and Rescue Task Force, who said he knew Sarni through an outreach program from his church, offered to do an additional dog search. “For this to happen this way, something is wrong,” Tartaglia said, lamenting that search and rescue is usually the last agency called for an missing person investigation. He said that he would contact police about the search.
“I think my brother is either hurt or worse,” Parsons said, hoping to find a clue like a piece of his wallet or his watch or sunglasses. “He’s had a lot of hard times in his life and he’s come a long way and he doesn’t deserve this.”
According to a press release from Lansdale Police, interviews have been conducted with family, friends and co-workers.
A Facebook group page dedicated to finding Sarni described him as well-mannered, soft spoken and having tattoos on both arms and a Celtic heart tattoo on the right side of his chest.
He is approximately 5’8” with hazel eyes and brown hair. The flier says that he is between 180 and 190 pounds. He has a scar under each eye and tattoos on both arms. Experienced in auto detailing, landscaping and pool cleaning, he does not own a vehicle and may be on foot or on a bicycle, police said.
Anyone with information on Sarni’s whereabouts is asked to please contact the Lansdale Police Department at (215) 368-1801.

The North Carolina Center for Missing Persons is asking citizens to be on the lookout for an 84-year-old woman who was last seen in Lumberton.

Margaret Britt Simmons was last seen on Smyrna Church Road in Lumberton and is believed to be suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment.

According to the report, Simmons is possibly headed to Evergreen, N.C., in Columbus County. She is driving a 1995 green Jeep Grand Cherokee with a license plate that reads “ADH”.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

Simmons walks with a cane. She was last seen wearing glasses, a striped shirt, blue pants, and tan, leather shoes. She is white and has short, gray hair. According to the report, she is 5 feet, 5 inches tall.

Anyone with information should call the Robeson County Sheriffs Office at (910) 671-3170.

SHAKER HEIGHTS — The family of missing Amherst native Randall Super has hired a private detective to help with the search after a truck similar to his was spotted in Southern Illinois.

Encie Super, of Shaker Heights, said that police in Mount Vernon, Ill., were told a man spotted a maroon pickup truck similar to the one belonging to Randall Super, her brother-in-law.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

The truck was spotted in a small town in southern Illinois near Mount Vernon.

“They sent out these flyers out to the post office and a guy at the post office said he saw the truck the day before,” she said.

The police are investigating the man’s claim and checking the area, she said.

“The police will check out the report and get back to us,” Super said.

Encie Super said she got the call from the Mount Vernon police about 4 p.m. yesterday.

She and her husband, Dennis, met with the private detective yesterday concerning the disappearance of Super, 57, Cove, Ark., who has been missing since Friday, July 13.

She said the detective would start combing the area for clues to the man’s disappearance.

“It is not usual for him, it just isn’t making sense,” she said.

Super is a native of Amherst. He is a diabetic and Encie Super believes he may have had a diabetic seizure.

“We want him home, we miss him and we really think he might be in medical distress,” she said.

Super is driving a maroon-colored 2000 Ford F-350 truck with Arkansas plates, AR 216-JDE.

Those with information about Super’s whereabouts should contact the Mount Vernon, Ill., police department at (618) 242-2131.

CHATEAUGAY — It will take several days for State Police to excavate portions of a 3-acre property behind 12 White St. as part of a missing-persons investigation.

Dale Jarvis Sr., 48, was last seen Feb. 20, but the probe into his whereabouts did not begin until recently, when “BCI became aware of a potential missing person and initiated an investigation,” according to State Police Troop B Criminal Bureau of Investigation Capt. Robert LaFountain.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

Jarvis had lived in the home just off Route 11 in the Village of Chateaugay since 1988 and sometimes shared it with his son, Dale Jr., known as D.J.

The missing man, who is also known as “Cookie Joe” or Stephen Dale Jarvis, also has a teenage daughter, Christina, who lives in Constable.

Allen Jarvis of Churubusco, an older brother of Dale’s, said the teen had reported her dad missing in April, but LaFountain would not comment on that.

SEARCH DOGS

Tully, a cadaver-detection dog handled by Trooper Kevin Beattie, was unleashed to begin her work in the backyard of the property about noon Wednesday after Kelley, a K-9 handled by Trooper Matthew Ross, had made an initial 20-minute search earlier in the day.

The K-9 sweeps were performed before heavy equipment was brought in to begin digging up the yard and portions of a large vacant parcel that Dale owns adjacent to the rear of his house.

At the same time, investigators with the State Police Forensic Investigation Unit were mapping and measuring the property and processing a burgundy Dodge Caravan recently towed to the home and parked nearby.

LaFountain said a search warrant issued Tuesday by Franklin County Court Judge Robert Main Jr. covers evidence collected from “the premises and anything associated with the whereabouts of Mr. Jarvis.”

An investigator was seen carrying several weighty red evidence bags through the front door of the home.

Yellow crime-scene tape flapped in the breeze, roping off a good portion of the Jarvis property, as well as part of the front yard at 14 White St. situated to the right of the Jarvis garage and an old pickup truck parked there.

ESTRANGED

All of this activity was watched for several hours by Allen and Maynard Jarvis, father of the missing man, and Allen Jarvis of Churubusco.

They stood across the street from the property, talking about the last time they saw or heard from him.

Allen saw his brother a few weeks after Christmas for a few minutes when the two bumped into each other at a Chateaugay convenience store.

Maynard said that, following the death of his wife, Bertha, he and Dale had been estranged for three or four years, so he didn’t know much about what was going on in his son’s life lately.

He said Dale had worked construction on the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation for a time and made money more recently by removing troublesome trees from farmers’ fields in exchange for the wood he could harvest.

He said Dale had disappeared for several months in 2007 and was found to have been out of town, working.

D.J. LAST TO SEE HIM

Maynard said his grandson D.J. was living at the house with Dale and was apparently the last one to see him.

D.J. had told Maynard that a man came to their door about midnight on Feb. 20, asking to speak to Dale in private. The two went out to the garage and were there about an hour, D.J. told Maynard.

D.J. said that when his dad came out, he handed him the keys to his vehicle and his cellphone and said he was leaving with the visitor. D.J. told his grandfather that Dale said, “‘If I don’t call or see you in a few days, I guess I won’t be back.’ He said he was heading south, and when D.J. asked him where, he said, ‘I can’t tell you.’

“Then he got into a car with the other man and drove off. When he got to the end of the street, we don’t know if he went left or right.”

Maynard said D.J. told him Dale instructed him not to file a missing-persons report if he didn’t return.

“D.J. said he didn’t report it because he thought (Dale) would be back in two or three months,” Maynard said. “But when you’ve got no money and no vehicle and you get into a car with someone else, you have to do what the other guy wants. I just don’t know.”

IN JAIL

D.J. was arrested Tuesday night, charged with felony criminal contempt, apparently not related to the missing-person case. Bail was set at $50,000 with no bond. He remained in Franklin County Jail on Wednesday.

The Jarvis home, third on the right from Route 11 and one of five or six houses on the dead-end street, is sided with particle board, with a roof that is part metal and part tar paper. It was initially a camper trailer to which a number of additions and rooms were added, Allen said.

He said D.J. was removing dirt from under the home by the bucket full to enlarge a crawl space underneath so he could shore up the sagging floor.

Allen said his nephew told him he was also repainting the interior of the home to cover stains caused by his dad’s poor housekeeping and was fixing the house up so someone could move in with him.

The front yard is fenced about 4 feet high with chicken wire that Dale had installed to pen his golden retriever. The dog is now being cared for by another relative.

Sitting to the north of the house is a backhoe that belongs to Maynard, and an adjacent lot holds piles of logs from trees Dale had cut.

Investigators measured and documented the area around the wood as well as the interior and exterior of the backhoe.

“We’re executing a search warrant for however long it’s going to take us,” said Bureau of Criminal Investigation Lt. Brent Davison. “We can’t rule out anything at this point.”

Dale Jarvis is Caucasian, 5-foot-9-inches tall and weighs about 200 pounds. He has brown hair, blue eyes and a burn scar that runs from his right forearm halfway to his shoulder.

Sacramento resident David Adebayo, 65, has been missing since Wednesday, according to a police report filed Thursday with the Sacramento Police Department.

Adebayo is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing 165 pounds with salt and pepper black hair. He was last seen in the Natomas area of Sacramento.

Daughter Darnisha Kittling said her father probably went missing about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday during his daily routine of picking up cans and taking them to nearby recycling plants. She said her father would also walk around the Natomas Marketplace shopping center for can collection. He has done this for roughly 15 years, she said.

http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html

There were no packed bags or notes left behind, Darnisha said.

Spokesman Sgt. Andrew Pettit said there are no new leads on the case.

About 12 years ago, Adebayo suffered a stroke, Darnisha said. She said she is worried because her father needs medication to maintain his blood pressure and to prevent extreme moods.

Adebayo lived with his daughter Morayo in Sacramento.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Sacramento Police Department at (916) 264-5471 or Sacramento City Police Missing Persons at (916) 808-0650.