WOMAN'S DISAPPEARANCE STILL PUZZLES SHERIFF

For 17 Thanksgivings now, no one has seen or heard from Linda Jean Crites. "I was very upset then and I am to this day," said Wanita Anderson of Piedmont, who is Linda's only sister. Until the evening of Nov. 23, 1983, Crites had lived with her husband, Lou, and son, Eddie, in Seabaugh Acres outside of Jackson on Highway 72. She was supposed to go to her mother's home the next day for Thanksgiving, but she never arrived.

As a result of poor relations among family members and a shortsighted law enforcement investigation, Crites' disappearance has gone unnoticed to all except a few.

Detective David James of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department has been pursuing information about Crites since 1988. A lack of conclusive evidence and hesitancy by past sheriffs has kept details about Crites from the public, he said."When you have no leads and no body, there's not much you can do," James said.

Investigation records at the sheriff's department show that Linda Crites, then 37, had come home from her job at Lee-Rowan in Jackson after finishing her shift at 11 p.m. on Nov. 23, 1983. Not long after that, Lou Crites came home from work at Procter and Gamble. Their 9-year-old son, Eddie, was staying with his grandmother, Sylvia Crites, who looked after him when his parents worked late.

Although the couple was going through a divorce, they still lived together in their home at 204 Ora Lee, James said.

When Lou Crites came into the house, his wife was talking on the phone with her son, Ricky Fischer, about plans for Thanksgiving dinner. She would be coming to her mother's home along with her two brothers, one sister and their spouses."Lou probably thought she was talking with her boyfriend," James said.

Eldon Maloney, Linda Crites' boyfriend, was studying at a technical college in St. Louis, and the two had been seeing each other for several months, James said.

After having a couple of beers and something to eat, her husband told investigators that he went into her bedroom to talk. They sat on her bed and discussed what would happen to their son after the divorce.

At some point, the two got into an argument.

In the report, Lou Crites told Detective Lonnie Moore of the sheriff's office that he wanted to hit her or break some dishes, but he didn't do either. Lou Crites told investigators that he had another beer and something to eat before taking a shower. After that, he said he went to tell her good night, but her bedroom door was closed.

It was still closed the next morning, Lou Crites told the detective. He then gathered up trash to take to a dump near Scopus and went to wash his truck before going to his parents house in Cedricville. When Linda Crites didn't show up at her mother's for Thanksgiving, Fischer became concerned. He contacted Lou Crites, who said he didn't know where she was, the investigator's report states.

Both Fischer and Maloney made attempts to find Linda Crites, James said.

Discord within the family and misinformation from the sheriff's office got in the way of filing a formal missing person's report until almost a week later on Nov. 30, said Sherri Long, who at that time was Linda Crites' sister-in-law. Fischer finally filed a report."The family tried to convince Lou to do it, but he wouldn't," Long said.

Between her disappearance and filing the report, Linda Crites' purse was found on a sidewalk in Benton, as if it had been tossed out of a car, James said.

Inside the purse, investigators found her wedding ring, payroll check, driver's license and cash. Her house key and the key to the trunk of her car were missing.

At Crites' house, no evidence indicating a struggle was found, James said. But Linda Crites' car was still in the driveway.

After conducting interviews, Moore concluded in his reported that Linda Crites had run off. "Unless foul play is mentioned, you generally assume that missing adults have left on their own," James said.

Investigations had shown that Linda Crites was friendly with truck drivers, which added to the assumption, the detective said.

But over time, details have emerged that make James think Linda Crites was abducted. No records exist by her social security number that she has been employed, or that any money has been paid into her social security account, he said."At this point we believe she is dead," James said. "We just want to find the body, give it a good Christian burial and bring whoever is responsible to justice."Although Fischer has been arrested and Maloney is currently imprisoned for an unrelated crime, available evidence shows that they are probably innocent, James said. No motive existed for Fischer to kidnap his mother, and Maloney had sent Linda Crites love letters up through the week of her disappearance."They were really in love," James said.

The possibility of Delbert Fischer, Linda Crites' first husband, being involved is also unlikely, since he was not in Missouri at the time and he lacked a motive, James said.

Attempts to contact Lou Crites in person and by telephone about his former wife's disappearance were unsuccessful.

Another factor that limited Moore's investigation at the time was the discovery of a truck driver's bullet-ridden body that same Thanksgiving morning along Interstate 55 near the Perry, Cape Girars," James said.

Most family members agreed that Linda Crites would not have left without telling anyone.

Mary Long of St. Louis, who is Linda Crites' sister-in-law, remembers her as a quiet person who would go to her mother's home almost every other day. Long had known her since Linda was 7 years old."I thought from the beginning that foul play was involved," Mary Long said. "I knew that she did not run off."Since the family has remained at odds with each other over the years, little effort was made to find out Linda Crites' fate, Mary Long said.

Eddie Crites, who is now 26, remembers his father telling him how they went to sleep in different rooms, and when he woke up, she was gone.

Many accusations have been made within the family, but Eddie Crites said he tries to avoid them."When I was young, I used to think that she just went off with someone," he said. "But now, I honestly don't know what happened."A private detective was hired by Linda Crites' sister, Anderson. The detective worked on the case for over a year, but did not produce any tangible results, Anderson said.

Most family members have tried to forget, Anderson said."I've just tried to close it out of my mind," she said. "I couldn't sleep at night if I didn't."Mary Long's husband, Hubert, was one of Linda Crites' brothers. He doesn't talk about his missing sister anymore, she said."He just doesn't think it would do any good now, after 16 years," Mary Long said.

James doesn't agree."We won't ever stop working this case," he said.