Justin Gaines 18, missing Nov/2007 from Duluth, GA

[Observer]

Family searches for teen who disappeared from nightclub

By ANDRIA SIMMONS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/15/07

Fighting off a creeping sense of dread is easier when you're busy.

Erica and Steve Wilson, the mother and stepfather of 18-year-old Justin Gaines, have done everything they can think of to find their son since he vanished from Wild Bill's nightclub in Duluth two weeks ago. They've organized search parties, hired a private investigator, collected $50,000 for a reward fund for his safe return and just this week set up a toll-free tip line at 1-877-270-9500.
 
Amid all this, Steve has been trying to keep it together for Erica, who in turn is struggling to hold up under the strain for the sake of the six other children in their blended family. But when the phone stops ringing and all the people leave, it's all they can do not to plunge into despair.

"The worst thing is at night and in the morning, Your mind and hands are idle," Steve Wilson said.

The Wilsons had reason for renewed hope Wednesday, though. A nonprofit search-and-rescue team, Texas EquuSearch, arrived to orchestrate a large-scale search that is scheduled to begin today.

Tim Miller, the director of Texas Equu-

Search, said he hoped to mobilize 150 to 200 volunteers to scour the area around Wild Bill's. Anyone 18 years or older wishing to join the search can meet at Berkmar United Methodist Church at 675 Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth from 9 a.m. until dusk. The search will include the use of all-terrrain vehicles. The search team also has access to horses, helicopters and boats with sonar equipment should they be needed, Miller said.

Most of the searching since Gaines' disappearance Nov. 1 has been conducted on foot by friends and family members who have little to no experience with missing persons cases, said Erica Wilson. Texas EquuSearch has offered its services in searches for more than 800 missing people, including Natalee Holloway, 18, who disappeared last year in Aruba, and 17-year-old Ben Stanford, the grandson of Alabama state Sen. Jim Preuit whose body was found Tuesday near Villa Rica, Ga.

Miller said he expects to "hit the ground running" today. He started Equu-

Search after his own daughter was abducted and murdered in 1986.

Gaines, a Brookwood High School graduate, is Erica Wilson's second son of three. He's also the one who looked most like her.

She clutched her cigarettes in one hand and cellphone in the other as she spoke to reporters in her driveway Wednesday, as if clinging to her only lifelines. Erica Wilson said she could not sleep or eat and admitted lately she had started smoking "like a freight train." She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a hasty ponytail.

"I can't cry all day long," she said. "I have to be able to think and take care of the other kids."

On the day he disappeared, Gaines drove home from Athens to Gwinnett County and told his mother he was going out with friends. He later called his roommate to pick him up from Wild Bill's, but the friend told Gaines he couldn't, family members said.

His last phone call was made shortly before 2 a.m., relatives said, and he has not been seen or heard from since.

Gwinnett police say they have no reason to suspect Gaines was a victim of foul play, and they are still treating the disappearance as a missing-person case. The investigation has slowed over the past week because some associates of Gaines have been uncooperative, said Cpl. Illana Spellman, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Police Department.

Anyone with information on Gaines' whereabouts is urged to contact the department's Criminal Investigations Section at 770-513-5300.

Gaines was making A's and B's during the first months of his freshman year on the Oconee campus of Gainesville State College and was a popular student.

He was a bit of a partier and a regular patron at Wild Bill's on Thursday nights, which target the 18-and-up crowd. Gaines had VIP tickets. He had two fake IDs in the name of Brad Allen and Brad Shewe. He used them to buy alcohol, Gaines' friends would later tell his parents.

Gaines wasn't always so sociable, according to his grandmother, Karen Yaroma, who shares Gaines' brilliant blue eyes. Years ago he was a "chubby little freckled kid with not a friend in the world" until one summer in high school he discovered weightlifting and the tanning bed, she said.

"All of a sudden that one summer, he redesigned himself," Yaroma said.

Friends and family members reject the idea that Gaines left of his own accord. They say he would never leave for so long without letting anyone know.

"I don't believe for a second that he's got some wild college itch and he's gone off to Florida," Steve Wilson said.

"We were close," he added before correcting himself. "We are close."

http://www.ajc.com/gwinnett/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2007/11/14/missing_1115.html

[vms]

JustinsGainesMomNewbie
Joined: Nov 14, 2007
Posts: 1

 Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 5:35 am    Post subject: Thank You   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support. I want to thank the people who have been praying for Justin. Also those who have been looking for Justin and those coming out in the morning. The people that have dealt with the media for me. Set up a great website and contacted numerous site to put Justin on. I could not function with out all the help we have received. I have spent tonight reading this forum. I appreciate all the kind words you have. That means so much to me! Also thank you to all that have been hanging the flier for us. The ones who have brought meals over, and donated to Tim Millers Texas Search Team. To those Who have made 100's of fliers. The people who have donated to his funds. This all means so much to our family. God bless you all! If anyone know anything that might help find my son please contact the gwinnett Police at 770-513-5300 or 1-877-270-9500. I really need my baby Justin Gaines back!

There is a 50,000 reward for the safe return of my son.

Also a 10,000 reward for his where abouts.

There are 2 funds one:

REWARD DONATIONS: make your checks out to:
"THE JUSTIN GAINES SEARCH FUND"
and send them to:
c/o Michael Wilson
P.O. Box 1277
Lithonia, Ga 30058

The search fund in Ohio was set up so people can donate from Ohio to the JUSTIN GAINES SEARCH FUND. They are the same account, but to make it easier for people in Ohio to also help. That is where I was raised and Justin was born. To be used in helping find Justin. Also so his family in Ohio can come back and help us.

The other is
REWARD DONATIONS: make your checks out to:
"THE JUSTIN GAINES REWARD FUND"
and send them to:
c/o Michael Wilson
P.O. Box 1277
Lithonia, Ga 30058

This is to help with reward money to find our son.
Both these accounts are set up at the Peoples Bank in Lithonia. We have them sent there since his father works right by the post office and people bank there. It has been The Wilson's family bank for years and Brenda at that bank was a great help setting this up for us.

I guess i may see some of you in a few hours. Once again Thank you all so much!

Erika and Steven Wilson
 

[klaasend]

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=106506



Volunteers Search for College Student
 

The search for missing college freshman Justin Gaines resumed Thursday morning.

Gaines was last seen at Wild Bill’s nightclub in Gwinnett County on November 1st.

About fifty volunteers gathered at Berkmar United Methodist Church Thursday morning to help in the search. They spent much of the morning getting trained on the techniques that they would need from search experts.

Gwinnett County Police are investigating the disappearance as a missing person case. They were not part of the private search that was being held Thursday.

Police say their investigation has been hampered by friends of Gaines' who have not been cooperative.

[vms]

SEARCHERS AND SUPPLIES WILL BE NEEDED FOR 11/16 SEARCH
http://www.berkmarumc.org/directions.htm
Berkmar United Methodist Church
675 Pleasant Hill Road, Lilburn, GA 30047
Must be 18 w/ a valid ID
Closed toe shoes and Long pants must be worn


Please come out if you can, and if you can't, spread the word to someone who can!!

Thay are also in need of food & drink donations.

[vms]

Tim Miller on this clip:
CBS 46

11 Alive

Fox 5

WSB TV

[vms]

Police: Missing Teen's Friends Not Cooperating

Search for Missing Teen

[vms]

Searchers turn up no signs of missing teen

By ANDRIA SIMMONS
Published on: 11/15/07

Another day of searching Thursday yielded no answers for the family of missing college student Justin Gaines.

A turnout of 27 volunteers disappointed relatives and members of a nonprofit search-and-rescue team, Texas EquuSearch, but searches remained optimistic.

If they turn up nothing by dusk, they said, they plan to suspend operations at night and resume beating the bushes Friday.

"We've had a lot of success in the past," Texas Equusearch founder Tim Wilson said. "Of course, every day that goes by, we get more and more concerned."

Gaines, 18, vanished two weeks ago after friends dropped him off at Wild Bills nightclub in the bustling Gwinnett Place Mall area of Duluth. Gaines, a former Brookwood High School student, attends the Oconee campus of Gainesville College in Athens. He often returns to his family's split-level home in Snellville on weekends to make extra pocket money working on roofing projects with his stepfather, Steve Wilson.

Gaines is also a regular patron of Wild Bill's on Thursdays, the 18-and-up night. Friends later told Gaines' family that he has two fake IDs which he uses to buy alcohol.

The muscular, outgoing teenager was last heard from shortly before 2 a.m. Nov. 1, when he made several calls from his cellphone to friends asking for a ride home from Wild Bill's. None of his buddies was able to pick him up, and he never returned home, family members said.

Since then, relatives and friends have had no reprieve from worry and anxiety.

Gaines' mother, Erica Wilson, stood nervously among volunteers who gathered at Berkmar United Methodist Church Thursday morning to start the search. Someone handed her a missing flier with her son's picture on it. She promptly bent down and kissed the photo before bursting into tears.

"I'm just tired; I'm stretched out like a rubber band," Wilson said.

Jeff Carr, who met the Wilsons on a build for Habitat for Humanity, said he took the day off from work to help search. Carr said he has been trained in search-and-rescue techniques as a Georgia National Guard member.

"I just hope we can find something," Carr said as he donned knee pads and grabbed a walking stick. "We need some evidence to lead to where he's at."

Other volunteers like Joe Roberts, who lives two houses down from the Wilson family, were beginning to doubt Gaines would be found alive after so much time has passed.

"I want to look for a person, but I'm afraid it will be a body," Roberts said.

Link

[vms]

FOX 5 at Noon

[vms]

FOX 5

[Nut44x4]

WAAAAAAAA.......those vids do not load on my puter..WAAAAA 

[vms]

WAAAAAAAA.......those vids do not load on my puter..WAAAAA 

I'm sorry. 

[Peaches]

WAAAAAAAA.......those vids do not load on my puter..WAAAAA 

If you Google "my foxatlanta" you'll run into it.  Channel 5 is our local Fox affiliate.

Or  http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/

I'm trying here.  It's early.  And cold.

[vms]

Fox 5 Video Link

Article Link

[MumInOhio]

Found this on another site

I have been thinking about this and connecting these two in my mind. These are my thoughts and mine alone, but I cannot somehow wonder if the disappearances of Justin Gaines and Kyle Fleishchmann are not possibly connected.

Justin Gaines was last seen at Wild Bill’s in Duluth, GA on Thursday night, November 1st. Kyle Fleischmann disappeared from Buckhead Saloon in Charlotte, NC in the early morning hours of Friday morning (was at the club also on a Thursday night) on 11/9/7.

As you see from the map, these two bars are approximately a 3 ½ hour drive.


Kyle Fleischmann is a 6′0″, 24-year-old male with brown hair. He has a muscular build and weighs approx. 180lbs.


Justin is described as being 5″11′ and 210 lbs with a muscular build. He has blue eyes and brown hair with a short buzz cut.

Looking at their pictures, they look very similar.

Justin is 18, Kyle 24. Both men reportedly stepped outside the bars they were in and made phone calls. Neither has been seen since.

Could there be a possible connection?


VMS Thought I would post this as a possibility. Thanks for all the links VMS.

[Nut44x4]

  mmmmmmm...interesting

yes...ty vms

[pdh3]

Why are his friends not cooperating with police?
They have to be hiding something either about their activities that night, or about Justin, or about what happened to him. But they are definitely hiding something.

[MumInOhio]

Why are his friends not cooperating with police?
They have to be hiding something either about their activities that night, or about Justin, or about what happened to him. But they are definitely hiding something.

I agree, and what about the altercation he supposedly had inside the bar?

[Jennifer34]

Any updates on this case?  I take it TE were not able to uncover any leads?  there has to be something ... people do not vanish into thin air.  Maybe the parents or LE can lean on the uncooperative kids .. they know something.  Hopefully some one with a conscious will come forward soon. 

[vms]

Searches everyday except Thanksgiving Day

Command Post:
Berkmar United Methodist Church
675 Pleasant Hill Rd.
Lilburn, GA
http://www.berkmarumc.org/directions.htm

[Nut44x4]

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:703842839&start=12

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
November 20, 2007 Tuesday
Main Edition 
 
GWINNETT NEWS; Pg. 3J 
 
223 words
 
 
Search for teen pared in Duluth
 
ANDRIA SIMMONS; Staff
 

Relatives of a missing college student say they will continue searching for him despite the departure of a nonprofit search-and-rescue group.

Three days of scouring the area around Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth for signs of Justin Gaines yielded no clues about his disappearance, said Cindy Wisdom, case manager for Texas EquuSearch. Texas EquuSearch is a Houston-based nonprofit search-and-rescue group. It helped search for Gaines but left Saturday.

Wisdom expressed disappointment that her team was unable to bring closure to Gaines' family before Thanksgiving, but said they had to pull out because the volunteers had holiday plans of their own.

"I couldn't ask them to stay away from their families," Wisdom said.

Gaines, an 18-year-old student at the Oconee campus of Gainesville College in Athens, vanished Nov. 1 after friends dropped him off at Wild Bill's nightclub in Duluth.

He was last heard from shortly before 2 a.m., relatives said, when he made several calls to friends asking for a ride home.

None of his buddies were able to pick him up, and he never returned home, family members said.

A handful of local volunteers plan to continue searching for Gaines this week using Berkmar United Methodist Church in Duluth as a base of operations, said his mother, Erica Wilson.

"I'll never give up on finding my baby, never," Wilson said. 
 
November 20, 2007