The disappearance of Elizabeth Campbell

[Kane]

http://www.kcentv.com/news/c-article.php?cid=1&nid=6924

I came across the link above this message. It is a recent article (dated April 28, 2005) on the disappearance of Elizabeth Ann Campbell. The article acknowledges that April 25 marked the seventeenth anniversary of her disappearance.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the case, Elizabeth Campbell was a young Korean woman who disappeared from Coppreas Cove, Texas, on April 25, 1988. In the UM segment that aired in the fall of 1989, there were interviews with eyewitnesses who claimed to have spotted her in the company of an Asian man. One convenience store worker noticed that the man in question was holding her by the wrist. It was very obvious that she wasn't with this man willingly.

When the segment was later rerun on Lifetime, an update was added. The update mentioned that Elizabeth Campbell's purse had been found. It was discovered in west Texas, 180 miles from Coppreas Cove.

I feel sad when I think about this case, especially after reading the new article. Admittedly, her mother Son Campbell, has been unable to pack up Elizabeth's clothes, because it would mean that Elizabeth is really gone.

Needless to say, regardless of the fact that Elizabeth has been missing for 17 years, her family hasn't given up looking for her. Like everyone else in their situation, they deserve answers.

Here's her Doe Network profile:

http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/113dftx.html

[U.M. Fanatic]

Thanks for the heads up Kane.

You can just feel the agony her mother, Son, is still going through after all these years. The video accompanying the article, showed a composite sketch of a possible suspect, boy what an odd and frightening character!

As long as there is someone still looking for her, there's always hope.

[Avante]

The Doe Network site is now http://www.doenetwork.org/

See Case File 113DFTX

[lilmissd]

Yes, the not knowing is the worst part. At least if they knew for certain that she was dead, they could have some peace. I feel so sorry for the Campbell family. I hope one day they will find the answers.

[skypilot]

not sure if the doenetwork is still online, but i just watched this story for the first time on unsolved mysteries. i'd be curious if the ice witness @ the ice-cream store was considered realiable. something struck me as being "odd" about someone kidnapping this young woman then taking her for ice-cream.

http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_...-campbell.html

[amandab1234]

I don’t mean to sound so cold hearted by are Elizabeth’s parents still alive?

[skypilot]

this is the last report of that case that i saw and it doesn't mention either parents being deceased so i'm hoping they're still around

[TheCars1986]

I think I'm in the minority, but I don't believe the Asian woman seen with the controlling Asian man was Elizabeth. I just don't see how an abductor would take his captive out in public for some ice cream.

[wiseguy182]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

I think I'm in the minority, but I don't believe the Asian woman seen with the controlling Asian man was Elizabeth. I just don't see how an abductor would take his captive out in public for some ice cream.

I'm normally leery of eyewitness sightings, but weren't there 3 different sightings of her and they all said basically the same thing? That might give it more crediblity.

Then again, I always thought it unlikely that the supposed abductor didn't take her out of state.

[skypilot]

i thought TheCars1986 was joking. he basically repeated what i first said.

also, anyone notice that the actor who portrayed the kidnapper in this case was the actor daniel dae kim from lost?

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by skypilot

i thought TheCars1986 was joking. he basically repeated what i first said.

also, anyone notice that the actor who portrayed the kidnapper in this case was the actor daniel dae kim from lost?

I wasn't joking, I just agree with your thoughts. I've echoed them in previous threads. And Daniel Dae Kim was in a UM segment, but it wasn't this one.

[skypilot]

okay. i apologize then. i thought it was a light-hearted remark

[coatjones]

Daniel Dae Kim was in the segment about the husband and wife who opened a store in Brooklyn, and the wife was found in a dumpster. He played the brother or friend of the husband helping search.

[Francium]

Two angles. First, she was either killed immediately, and her purse was abandoned far from where the body is. The only way this can be supported is that Texas is huge, and it would take a long time for a body to be discovered.

Two, if the eyewitnesses are correct, we have two possibilities: one is misidentification, and the other is kidnapping. Misidentification is possible. It wouldn't be unusual to see a much older Asian guy who hold a woman above the wrist and controlling her that way depending on the region. I've known older Chinese men to do exactly that. Further, her overlapping tooth isn't necessary for a positive identification. I've known several girls who had an overlapping tooth, and many of them (for whatever reason) happened to be Asian.

"Speaking a language I could not understand" was said by the gas station clerk, and it's meaningless. The only language she could have known was Korean, and it's doubtful she knew it very well. (Unless there is a large Asian community present, which in small town Texas in the 80s, there almost certainly wasn't, first generations seem to have a hard time knowing an Asian language. Further complicated by having a white father, she was probably assimilated in ways that a lot of people of those family backgrounds are unless there is a broader Asian community to link with. But that's unlikely, since her boyfriend was a white hick type.) So I agree with the police on that matter.

So where is she now? She was either killed immediately, or she has been forced into prostitution (human trafficking).

The problem with the latter angle simply stems from its means of socialization. The story would go that some guy, who happened to be Asian (probably less than 2% of the population at the time), happened to be driving by, saw her at a gas station at night, and determined "I'm going to force her into prostitution." Partly why human trafficking works so well is that victims often don't speak the language of their work place, they never leave their home unless on assignment (hence why the ice cream angle doesn't hold), and they're often foreigners in something far more organized. Pimps and hustlers don't make more money by kidnapping American girls. They make money by suckering Euros (or other places) from poor countries, taking their IDs and passports, and putting them in a brothel. I just don't see the human trafficking angle, because doing such a thing (abducting her) would draw unnecessary attention to an industry that doesn't need anymore attention than it gets.

I just think she was kidnapped, none of the sightings hold (having more to do with cultural ignorance than being critical), and she was killed shortly thereafter. She was disposed somewhere in the Texas countryside, which again is massive, and her bones are probably all over the place due to animals.

Her purse was found in Ozona, Texas, which has a population of less than 4,000 people in a county that only has one city (Ozona). That's a ton of unexplored space. I might add too that the Asian population was less than 1%. An interstate and a lot of highways are nearby. So it's a transient county, meaning the guy was bypassing - not a sign of a human trafficker but a kidnapper and killer.



A very sad case, really. I feel terrible for her parents in ways that I don't for others. You can tell she was genuinely loved, but it was her poor sense of judgment that did her in by waiting near a gas station miles away from her boyfriend's place. Just tragic...

[bluejazz87]

Originally Posted by Francium

Two angles. First, she was either killed immediately, and her purse was abandoned far from where the body is. The only way this can be supported is that Texas is huge, and it would take a long time for a body to be discovered.

Two, if the eyewitnesses are correct, we have two possibilities: one is misidentification, and the other is kidnapping. Misidentification is possible. It wouldn't be unusual to see a much older Asian guy who hold a woman above the wrist and controlling her that way depending on the region. I've known older Chinese men to do exactly that. Further, her overlapping tooth isn't necessary for a positive identification. I've known several girls who had an overlapping tooth, and many of them (for whatever reason) happened to be Asian.

"Speaking a language I could not understand" was said by the gas station clerk, and it's meaningless. The only language she could have known was Korean, and it's doubtful she knew it very well. (Unless there is a large Asian community present, which in small town Texas in the 80s, there almost certainly wasn't, first generations seem to have a hard time knowing an Asian language. Further complicated by having a white father, she was probably assimilated in ways that a lot of people of those family backgrounds are unless there is a broader Asian community to link with. But that's unlikely, since her boyfriend was a white hick type.) So I agree with the police on that matter.

So where is she now? She was either killed immediately, or she has been forced into prostitution (human trafficking).

The problem with the latter angle simply stems from its means of socialization. The story would go that some guy, who happened to be Asian (probably less than 2% of the population at the time), happened to be driving by, saw her at a gas station at night, and determined "I'm going to force her into prostitution." Partly why human trafficking works so well is that victims often don't speak the language of their work place, they never leave their home unless on assignment (hence why the ice cream angle doesn't hold), and they're often foreigners in something far more organized. Pimps and hustlers don't make more money by kidnapping American girls. They make money by suckering Euros (or other places) from poor countries, taking their IDs and passports, and putting them in a brothel. I just don't see the human trafficking angle, because doing such a thing (abducting her) would draw unnecessary attention to an industry that doesn't need anymore attention than it gets.

I just think she was kidnapped, none of the sightings hold (having more to do with cultural ignorance than being critical), and she was killed shortly thereafter. She was disposed somewhere in the Texas countryside, which again is massive, and her bones are probably all over the place due to animals.

Her purse was found in Ozona, Texas, which has a population of less than 4,000 people in a county that only has one city (Ozona). That's a ton of unexplored space. I might add too that the Asian population was less than 1%. An interstate and a lot of highways are nearby. So it's a transient county, meaning the guy was bypassing - not a sign of a human trafficker but a kidnapper and killer.



A very sad case, really. I feel terrible for her parents in ways that I don't for others. You can tell she was genuinely loved, but it was her poor sense of judgment that did her in by waiting near a gas station miles away from her boyfriend's place. Just tragic...

This doesn't make sense (what I bolded in your statement).

And there is no way you could know how much Korean Elizabeth did or did not know. Let alone how she was raised. You're making assumptions about her heritage without any basis for your conclusions.

And human bones don't travel all over the place because of animals. If that was the case no one would be found ever.