Missouri Mom still searching for her daughter’s remains 13 years later
A mid-Missouri Mom is still searching for her daughter more than a decade after she went missing.
While most of us were enjoying our holiday with our families, nearly a thousand families in Missouri have a loved one still missing this year.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol currently has 960 missing person cases still active.
ABC 17 News spoke with one Marianne Asher-Chapman who hasn’t given up the hunt for her daughter, who disappeared nearly 13 years ago.
Asher-Chapman told ABC 17 her daughter, Angie Yarnell, was 28 years old when she vanished. In 2009, Michael Yarnell, her husband, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with Angie’s death. Her remains, however, have never been found, which is the reason for her to continue to search for answers even if that means doing it herself.
“I still look for her remains. I physically look for her remains in the warm weather, ” Asher – Chapman said. “I just won’t give up looking for her.”
Even if people think that’s weird, Asher-Chapman says it’s part of her coping mechanism.
“I just expected she’d be home and every year I expected she’ll be home,” she said. “I’m not so much expecting that now.”
Asher-Chapman along with nearly a thousand other families had one less loved one at the dinner table this holiday. It’s a number that Angie Yarnell’s mother doesn’t want to increase which is why she decided to run a nonprofit organization called Missouri Missing.
Asher-Chapman told ABC 17 News she didn’t know where to go or who to turn to when her daughter went missing and hopes to be a resource for other families going through similar situations.
“We can guide them and tell them the exact steps to take and what is absolutely crucial in the beginning,” she said, “all the things I didn’t know over 13 years ago.”
She says there have been great success stories with happy endings- people being found from her posters and fliers on social media.
She contributes a lot of those success stories to social media and the power of Facebook sharing.
Holidays continue to be a hard time for her and other families she says, but she has started a tradition that she hopes will bring peace to other families with missing persons.
“I have 162 handmade ornaments with people’s names on it from across the country,” she said.
She knows the names and stories of all 162. She told ABC 17 News it’s like it’s a part of her own family.
She wants to remind families out there with missing people that it’s never to late to file a missing person’s report with law enforcement officials.
Experts also want to remind people who spend time outdoors to be observant and report anything immediately. Several missing person cases in mid-Missouri have been solved by people who were out doing outdoor activities.
