New Search in Minn. Cold Case of 13 yo Amy Sue Pagnac, Missing Since 8/1989

[MuffyBee]

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/state-and-regional/mn/police-search-home-of-long-missing-minnesota-girl/article_7ba6dfda-a60d-5f44-8960-dfb3f336b3e5.html
Police search home of long-missing Minnesota girl
May 19, 2014

MAPLE GROVE, Minn. (AP) — Authorities are searching the Maple Grove home of a girl who disappeared 25 years ago at age 13, but they're not saying what prompted the search or what they're looking for.

Maple Grove police, the FBI and sheriff's deputies searched the home Sunday where Amy Sue Pagnac used to live, Police Captain Keith Terlinden said at a news conference.

"We plan on being on this site for several days and we'll try as much as we can not to disrupt the community," Terlinden said. "The actual details of why we're here today, I can't give them to you at this time. The search warrant that we executed today is a sealed document, so it will not be public data."

Amy disappeared from an Osseo gas station in August 1989. Her stepfather had stopped to use the restroom, and he told police she was gone when he returned.

Terlinden declined to say whether the parents, Susan Pagnac Sr. and Marshall Midden, were suspects. Nobody has been arrested, he added.

Susan Pagnac said she wasn't sure what led authorities back to her home or whether police considered her a suspect. She said she was just glad authorities were stepping up their investigation.

"I have been trying to get law enforcement to do things for 25 years now, and having the fact that they're going to do something, even if it doesn't make much sense to me, is wonderful," Pagnac said.

Midden declined to comment.

Susan Pagnac Jr. was 8 when her sister went missing. She said she didn't think anyone in the family was a suspect, and that she and her mother believe police didn't take the initial disappearance too seriously because they thought Amy was a runaway.
 

[MuffyBee]

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/05/18/police-search-residence-as-part-of-1989-missing-person-case/
Police Search Residence As Part Of 1989 Missing Girl Case
May 18, 2014

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — There could be a new development in a missing persons case from 1989. Authorities announced Sunday they executed a search warrant as part of the decades-old investigation.
The search warrant was executed around 9 a.m. Sunday at a residence on the 9700 block of Hemlock Lane North in Maple Grove.
At a press conference Sunday afternoon, Maple Grove Police Captain Keith Terlinden says it’s in connection to the disappearance of Amy Sue Pagnac, who was 13 years old at the time. Pagnax used to live in the residence searched Sunday.
“We plan on being on this site for several days and we’ll try as much as we can not to disrupt the community,” Terlinden said.
On Aug. 5, 1989, Amy went on a day-trip with her non-biological father, Marshall Midden, to a family property in Isanti County. On the way home, the two stopped at a Holiday gas station in Osseo. Amy waited in the car while Midden used the restroom.
Midden told authorities that when he returned to the car, Amy was gone.
Mellisa Johnson, Amy’s childhood friend, remembers the day well.
“It just feels like it was just yesterday that, you know, the feelings of what I felt for her, the frustration and anger, and scared for her,” Johnson said.
Amy’s mother, Susan Pagnac, had no idea investigators had a lead until they showed up at her house with a search warrant.
 
Susan wouldn’t comment on if police were considering her a suspect, but does say she hopes someone has information.
“Even if they have not come forward or been contacted, they need to do that. The time is now for people to help bring Amy home,” Susan said.
The latest search is part of an effort between Maple Grove Police, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Police are being quiet on the exact reason why they’re at the residence.
“The actual details of why we’re here today, I can’t give them to you at this time,” Terlinden said. “The search warrant that we executed today is a sealed document, so it will not be public data.”
Terlinden says no one is in custody at this time.

[MuffyBee]

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3440542.shtml
Maple Grove Police Search Home of Amy Sue Pagnac, Missing Since 1989
Posted May 18, 2014, Updated May 19, 2014


Amy Sue Pagnac, 13, was reported missing from the Holiday Gas Station located on the 100 block of Central Avenue in the City of Osseo.
Photo: Maple Grove Police

Maple Grove Police on Sunday searched the home where 13-year-old Amy Sue Pagnac lived when she went missing in 1989.
Law enforcement started to search the home on the 9700 block of Hemlock Lane North around 9 a.m. Police expect to remain on the scene for several days.
Police would not give details as to why they were searching the property. Records show the home is still owned by Marshall Midden and Sue Pagnac. They couple was asked to leave the home by police.
"Since the Maple Grove Police Department took this report in 1989, we have actively investigated this case. We have been following up on every lead. Part of the investigation is still ongoing; that is why we are here today," said Maple Grove Police Captain Keith Terlinden.
The search warrant in this case is sealed. No one has been taken into custody and no suspects have been named.
A large tent has been set up in front of the home, and police were investigating toward the back of the property.
On Aug. 5, 1989, Amy Sue Pagnac was reported missing from the Holiday Gas Station located on the 100 block of Central Avenue in the city of Osseo.
She was last seen sitting in her non-biological father’s vehicle when he went inside to use the rest room. She has not been seen since.
The Maple Grove Police Department, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are all investigating.
Amy Sue Pagnac was one of three children to go missing in 1989.
More...

[MuffyBee]

http://**/crime/ci_25788904/maple-grove-police-execute-search-warrant-at-home
Search for missing girl, 13, gets reboot after 25 years
Posted May 18, 2014, Updated May 19, 2014

 
Amy, who disappeared from an Osseo gas station in 1989, has never been forgotten.

"We have never closed her case," Terlinden said. "We've had someone actively working it since 1989."

The police department has kept Amy's photograph and subsequent age-progressed images of her up in its office since her disappearance.
 
Crime-scene tape cordoned off the street in front of the house, tennis courts next to the house at Forest View Pond Park and part of a neighbor's yard. Investigators had erected a large tent in the Pagnac driveway and another on a nearby lawn. The home is still owned by Amy's parents, Marshall Midden and Susan Pagnac.

Amy was 13 when she disappeared Aug. 5, 1989. That day, she and her father had gone to the family farm in Isanti County and were on their way back to their home in Maple Grove when they stopped at a gas station in Osseo about 4:30 p.m.

Midden told police he went to the restroom and when he returned, Amy was gone. No one reported seeing her at the gas station.

Amy suffered from seizures and "fits of anger," according to previous Pioneer Press interviews with her mother, Sue Pagnac. Authorities initially thought Amy had run away or had a seizure and wandered off, disoriented. That impression changed the longer she remained missing.

"She's a 13-year-old girl. Someone who goes missing at that age, we don't believe they are able to go missing on their own," Terlinden said.
 
The Pagnac house, which is painted bright green and purple and has solar panels on its roof, became a source of curiosity for the neighborhood kids who would try to peek through the fence into the back yard, he said.

"Everyone knows about the purple house," said Danny Quam. "It was a landmark in the neighborhood.

He sometimes saw Amy and her mother at the park adjacent to the Pagnacs' house. "She was a very nice girl. But you could tell she was on her own and left to wander and do things on her own," he said.

Neighbors said school buses had been notified Friday not to come down Hemlock Lane on Monday; Terlinden did acknowledge authorities had been planning to execute the search warrant "for quite some time." Investigators from Hennepin County and the FBI are assisting in the investigation, Terlinden said.

Nobody has been arrested in connection with the girl's disappearance, he said.

He wouldn't comment on the tactics employed in the search, but on Sunday evening, sounds of heavy equipment could be heard emanating from the scene.

Terlinden wouldn't say whether authorities have searched the home before, but neighbors said there seemed to have been a similar investigative operation at the home a few years ago, although not to the same extent.
 
Terlinden said authorities have followed tips as far as Iowa and California, but to no avail. Reported sightings of Amy Pagnac in Minneapolis shortly after her disappearance were never confirmed.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.bringmethenews.com/2014/05/18/police-uncover-new-evidence-in-decades-old-missing-person-case/


Amy Sue Pagnac at age 13, left, and as she might look at age 35.

 
Last year, Susan Pagnac and Marshal Midden told Fox 9 News that they believe their daughter is still alive, and said the rescue of three women who had been held captive for more than a decade in Cleveland gave them hope.

[MuffyBee]

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/259737411.html
Police search family home of Maple Grove girl missing 25 years
May 19, 2014

 
According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), Amy went missing while she waited in her father’s car outside the gas station. The BCA website said she “may have had a seizure and been disoriented.”

Amy and her father had gone to tend crops at the family’s farm in Isanti County that day about 11 a.m. or noon, and were returning home when they stopped at the gas station about 5 p.m., Pagnac said. Midden went to use the bathroom, came out to find his car empty and assumed that Amy was in the women’s restroom, Pagnac said Sunday.

But a stranger came out of the women’s restroom, and Amy was nowhere to be found, her mother said.

Her mother believes Amy could have experienced a seizure that triggered disorientation and a habit of wandering off, leading “someone or some group” to “interfere” with her. But she could not confirm whether witnesses placed Amy at the gas station.

“I don’t know if anybody saw Amy at the gas station,” Pagnac said. “I’m not aware of them telling me anybody saw her.”

When asked whether authorities have verified that the girl was at the gas station, Terlinden said it was part of the investigation and that he could not comment. Midden didn’t respond to requests to talk about the case Sunday.

Amy’s sister, Susan Pagnac Jr., was 8 when Amy went missing.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said of the search at her parents’ home. “I’m sad that the only thing they can do is look at the family.”

She said she doesn’t believe anyone in the family is a suspect. Amy’s sister and mother believe the police department has lost some key police reports about the disappearance, and Amy’s mother feels that they didn’t initially take her disappearance seriously, thinking her daughter was a runaway.

Two neighbors, Deb McLennan and Jill Reichel, said that they rarely saw anyone outside the family’s home in recent years.

Reichel said that because the case had been treated as an abduction, she found it “shocking” that authorities would be searching at the home. Digging was underway in the back yard, she said.

McLennan recalled having been part of a volunteer search for the girl in the nearby Elm Creek Park Reserve.
 

[MuffyBee]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2632701/Police-search-family-home-girl-13-went-missing-25-years-ago-Minnesota-gas-station.html
Police search family home of girl, 13, who went missing 25 years ago from Minnesota gas station
May 19, 2014


Crime scene: Maple Grove police have erected a large tent in front of the home and police are focusing their investigation at the back of the family's property, pictured


Disappearance: Amy was last seen sitting in a vehicle at the Holiday Gas Station, pictured, in Osseo in 1989

[Nut44x4]

She has a very distinct chin line and cheekbones. If I had come across any clay busts or drawings in any UID's I would remember her. I have not, as of date.
This is an interesting case, indeed.