Published: Sunday, September 1, 2013 at 5:36 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, September 1, 2013 at 8:27 p.m.
DAYTONA BEACH — When detectives stepped into Deborah Hohenshilt's bedroom they found two teeth and blood at the bottom of the stairs.
Hohenshilt has not been seen since the night of Feb. 13, 1988, and investigators still don't know where she is or what happened to her, said Daytona Beach police cold case investigator Clem Malek.
One thing police learned for sure is that the 26-year-old who worked two jobs adored her cats and would not have abandoned them. The felines were found unattended in the Tanglewood Street apartment.
Malek retired from the Daytona Beach Police Department in 1998 but returned as a cold case investigator in 2008 when a serial killer left prostitutes shot to death in the city beginning in 2005.
Malek paged through a stack of papers listing nine missing persons and 77 unsolved homicides — silenced victims whose killers did not leave much for detectives to work with. But the names, some ages, limited information gathered on the missing and the circumstances that took the lives of homicide victims tell their stories, however brief they may be.
Almost a decade before Hohenshilt's disappearance, a mystery began involving an exotic dancer. What is known about 19-year-old Mary Sprague is that she was working at the Shingle Shack Lounge and was last seen working in her leopard print dance outfit. Known to like hitchhiking, Sprague hasn't been heard from since leaving work about 1 a.m. Sept. 12, 1979. All police know is that she left a 3-year-old child with her live-in boyfriend, who reported her missing when she didn't come home.
Police learned that on the night she disappeared, Sprague had a fight with her boss, threatening to turn him in to the Internal Revenue Service if he didn't pay her back wages.
NAMES, DATES, NO CLOSURE
Since Sprague's disappearance, several others came on the Daytona Beach Police Department's books as missing:
Diane Hollins, 31, and her daughter, Tammy Hollins, 14, a student, disappeared while walking from home toward the railroad tracks on Park Drive in 1979;
William Henning, 33, part owner of a business, who did not return from a business trip in 1980;
Darlene Webb, 20, not seen since leaving the Beachcomber Bar on Grandview Avenue in 1983;
Julie Seay, 24, last seen at her Ormond Beach workplace in 1988;
Marintha McCoy, 26, seen leaving the Marriott Hotel in a limo in 1989;
Linda Little, 43, who disappeared while riding a bicycle at Peninsula and Broadway;
Helen Vanbeek, 46, missing since Bike Week 1998.
“We are trying to get answers so families who have not heard or seen their loved ones can at least get some closure,” Malek said.
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