After 10 years, friends still puzzled by disappearance of John Cheek

[TJ]

http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_n...468195,00.html

On a bluff high above the Mississippi River, rusty Budweiser cans and tattered McDonald's bags are cloaked in the smell of rotting fish.

The Memphis and Arkansas Bridge looms in the background, just behind the exit ramp off Crump Boulevard that leads to Delaware Street.

A vista similar to this may well have been the last thing John Cheek ever saw.

Ten years ago today, the 28-year-old Memphis businessman vanished, possibly from this very spot.

His friends and family have never heard from him again.

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Rob Womsley met John Cheek at the University of Chicago's graduate business school in 1991.

The two quickly became friends. They palled around the city together, with bands like U2 and R.E.M. providing the soundtrack.

They played golf together, talked endlessly about college football and basketball.

They traveled together, including trips to Belize and other faraway spots.

"We were part of an inner circle of guys at the University of Chicago who were pretty tight guys," said Womsley, a businessman with offices in Chicago and New York.

Womsley remembers Cheek as a "social, energetic" personality, a highly competitive person who didn't mind saying so.

"He was a talker. He would jaw about anything. He'd be right in your face, whether it was a putt on the golf course, or his score vs. your score on a test," he said.

But Cheek, Womsley said, was also someone who could turn goofy if the moment warranted, as on a Chicago night when friends gathered at a bar.

"He poured a whole beer on my head while he was standing on the bar," Womsley recalled, chuckling. "Rowdy drunkenness. It was a fun night."

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After a grueling week that involved a long business trip, the single Cheek and several business associates gathered for dinner the night of Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1993, at the former Cooker restaurant at Poplar and Ridgeway.

Much of the evening was spent discussing college basketball, particularly the University of Memphis Tigers, a team Cheek followed closely.

Around 11 that night, one of his dinner companions dropped Cheek at his black 1987 Acura Legend, parked at the Crescent Center across the street.

The next day, a Thursday, came and went, and Cheek never showed for his job as chief financial officer of The Cates Co., which managed 24 apartment complexes worth more than $100 million.

At 9 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 3, Cheek's parents filed a missing persons report. His unpacked suitcases were found in the home he'd bought at 6214 Heather in East Memphis. The garage door was open.

Around 10:40 a.m. on Dec. 4, police discovered Cheek's Acura, parked on the Delaware exit ramp, now called the Metal Museum exit. There were no signs of struggle.

Police searched the bluff and the river extensively, but never found any trace of Cheek.

Nationwide searches by friends and family - complete with "missing" posters tacked to poles and doors everywhere - turned up nothing.

A toll-free number for the public to offer clues and an episode of NBC's Unsolved Mysteries proved fruitless.

"It's very strange that he just disappeared," said Lee McWaters, a Cheek friend and Bartlett real-estate broker.

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Many of those involved were reluctant to discuss Cheek's disappearance. His family - parents Richard and Arrena and sister Lucy - all declined to talk, saying the subject remains too painful.

A reluctant McWaters finally decided to speak about their friendship.

The pair attended both Memphis University School and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, joining the same fraternity at SMU.

Their friendship grew in college, in part because they were both Memphians, far from home.

McWaters remembers Cheek as both a "driven and successful" academic and a social person.

"I think (he was) driven in a good way," McWaters said. "I don't think he was driven to the point where he didn't know how to have fun."

When they returned to Memphis, the pair drifted apart, although they'd still see each other at Tiger basketball games or social gatherings.

McWaters still doesn't know what happened to his friend, and 10 years later, he retains some sliver of hope.

"The good thing about hope is that you have hope," he said. "The bad thing is you still lay awake at night, wondering. There's no closure."

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When he disappeared, Cheek was under an enormous amount of pressure.

The Cates Co. was planning a conversion to a real estate investment trust called Mid-America Apartment Communities. The deal would push Cheek's annual salary to $110,000, plus stock and options worth about $2 million.

Just before his disappearance, Cheek took a whirlwind, three-day trip to Milwaukee, Denver and Portland, Ore., to work on the deal.

When he returned to Memphis, he went straight to his office, telling colleagues he had been awake for 72 hours at one point.

During this time, something went awry with the deal, according to Memphis attorney John Good, who spent several months working closely with Cheek on the project.

Beyond calling it a "tax issue that was resolved," Good declined to say exactly what went wrong.

But he did say that it affected Cheek greatly, causing him to leave the business trip and catch a late-night flight to Memphis.

"He was very down about the fact that we had a problem with the deal," Good said. "He was almost despondent. I'd say extremely depressed."

After Cheek's disappearance, the deal eventually went through.

Company owner George Cates, who hired Cheek for the position, says an audit found nothing wrong.

"They did an exhaustive audit, and not a pencil was missing. There was no hint of wrongdoing and of course there wasn't," Cates said. "He did a great job. He did the job wonderfully when he was there. He left a great legacy."

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Those familiar with the case think one of three things may have happened to Cheek:

He committed suicide, probably by leaping into the river.

He was the victim of violence.

He's an amnesiac, lost in a "fugue state" waiting to be rediscovered.
Private investigator J. D. Douglas, a retired Memphis Police Department homicide commander, was hired by Cheek's parents.

He spent several months on the case, studying every clue, reading every report, interviewing numerous people.

After 10 years, he's come to one conclusion.

"I think he went off the bridge," Douglas said. "For this period of time, it's awfully hard for anybody to hide."

If that happened, it's not uncommon that a body may never be found, the Memphis branch of the Coast Guard said.

"If someone is not found or surfaces within three or four days, then there's a high probability that we might not be able to find them," chief warrant officer Jim Simmons said.

Cates, though, just can't believe Cheek would kill himself.

"I always thought it was a phenomenal disservice to John by those who thought it was a suicide," he said. "I've always felt that there was foul play there, but no one will ever know."

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The Cheek case has been dormant for several years, said Capt. John Wilburn, head of MPD's missing persons bureau. In August 2000, Cheek was legally declared dead in Chancery Court.

Friends and family have moved on, although Cheek still plays a role in each of their lives, no matter how small.

Every morning, Womsley looks at a picture taken during their trip to Belize, still tucked into his dresser. The picture shows a group of young men, happy, sitting on a boat.

"The first couple of years, I'd walk around on vacations and look over my shoulder, hoping to see John," Womsley said. "I still do it, see somebody out of the corner of my eye who looks like John. I still check it out to see if it's him."

[rerungirl]

Thank you for posting the article, TJ. It has been a long time since I've seen the John Creek story on UM and I had all but forgotten it. Sorry to read there has been no resolution to this case, but it was interesting to learn more about his background and the three main theories about his disappearance.

[rerungirl]

Caught the typo after I sent the message. Obviously I meant to say John Cheek.

[Mystery Man]

Still wondering what happened to him. I'll go with amnesia because I doubt someone could work for 72 hours straight and not lose at least some of their memory.

[Blackout]

any update?

[MegtheEgg86]

According to Charley Project, he's still missing:

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/c/cheek_john.html

[Psycho Penguin]

From the information given, seems like a suicide to me. I don't really listen to family and friends saying 'he didn't seem like the type' either, because really, ANYONE who commits suicide will have people say that afterwards. The warning signs are always ignored.

[porchlight]

John Cheek
When a real estate executive disappears, his family thinks he may have amnesia.

John Cheek
Missing:
Gender: Male
DOB: 8/3/65
Height: 6’
Weight:150 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
Defining Characteristics: Has a scar that starts near his nose and goes to his forehead.

Car was abandoned near bridge

Trucker says he had breakfast with John


CASE DETAILS

John’s shoes were positively identified
Twenty-six year old John Cheek seemed destined for success. Fresh out of business school, he had been hired as the Chief Financial Officer for one of Memphis, Tennessee's largest real estate companies. By the age of 28, John had bought this house in East Memphis, and was hard at work putting together the deal of a lifetime. For months, John had helped lay the groundwork to take his company public. He was working 18 hour days and flying all over the world to meet with investors.

Finally, by December of 1993, the deal was on the verge of closing. Millions of dollars were on the line. The company was about to be thrust into the national spotlight, literally overnight. Arrena Cheek is John's mother:

"John was very proud of his accomplishments. And he worked very hard, almost non-stop, to see that his duties were fulfilled and every i was dotted and every t was crossed."


A trucker recognized John from a flyer
On December 2, 1993, John didn't show up for work and surprise quickly turned to concern at the company headquarters. Dee Reed was one of John's co-workers:

"I thought maybe he was just tired and he might be somewhere resting. But it was out of character. And then, as the day went on, and then that night when no one had heard from John, we began to know that something terribly was wrong."

Early the next morning, John's car was found abandoned on Interstate 55 where the highway crosses over the Mississippi River. It was about 12 miles from John's home. Memphis Police homicide Sergeant Jack Ruby:

"There were no signs of foul play on the car. The car was checked. Everything appeared to be intact. The Cheek family examined the car also and it appeared to be just the way John would have left it."

Police theorized that John had committed suicide by jumping into the Mississippi River. However, searches of the river and its banks failed to locate his body. And, to those who knew him best, like his father Dr. Richard Cheek, suicide seemed to be out of the question:

"We didn't believe that he could be normal right up until 11 p.m. one night and then all of a sudden jump off the bridge the next day. We were just left in the same position we are right now, that it was just some big mystery that happened to him and we didn't know what."

Two months passed with no leads, no word from John, and no reason to believe that he was even alive. Then, on February 14, 1994, a trucker named Ron Jackson rolled into town. Over the years, Ron had seen hundreds of missing person flyers at truck stops all across the country. He was stunned when he saw the face of someone he actually recognized. Ron said it was the young man he had met just the day before:

"You never really expect it to jump right out at you and say, 'Hey, I know this person. I had breakfast with this person the other morning.' So that was added to my surprise of seeing this poster and this identity was so strong. And it just kind of grabbed a hold of me and shook me, like, 'This is the individual. Period.'"

Ron found the young drifter sleeping at a Virginia truck stop, 700 miles from John Cheek's hometown:

"My first impression of this man, when I saw him, was that he was not a homeless person. He was clean and the white shirt was so white, it looked like it had just come out of the laundry."

He didn't tell Ron his name, but the man did say he had spent some time in an Arkansas homeless shelter:

"I didn't press him. He just was rambling on in the cafeteria line. So, I would have to say that he was definitely not one hundred percent in all his mental capabilities."

Ron and the drifter were headed in opposite directions, so outside the cafeteria they said goodbye. For the Cheek family, Ron's sighting was welcome news. Dr. Richard Cheek:

"There were several things about the encounter that made us feel optimistic that it was a positive identification for John. And the first was the white shirt and tie, because it would be typical for him to be wearing that because that's what he wore everyday. He also mentioned the fact that he used very correct English and sounded like he was well-educated person, which was obviously correct."

For John's parents, the most promising detail was Ron's description of the young man's shoes: slip on moccasins. John had a pair that was identical and his father believed he might be wearing them:

"We knew that John had a pair of shoes like this. We had not mentioned that to anyone up until this point in time."

No one can be sure why John vanished. His father believes he might have suffered a sudden episode of stress-induced amnesia known as the "fugue state:"

"It's sort of a self-preservation mechanism. If something in their past has become so stressful that they can't stand it any longer, than that's how they deal with it. They just block it all out and you're no longer John Cheek and you're no longer a financial officer and you're no longer putting together a big deal."

Since Ron Jackson's sighting, there has been no other sign of John Cheek.

http://www.unsolved.com/ajaxfiles/mis_john_cheek.htm

[porchlight]

http://www.people.com/people/archive...107731,00.html
March 28, 1994Vol. 41No. 11Vanished—with a TraceBy David Grogan
Despite Tantalizing Clues, Memphis Businessman John Cheek Is Still MissingJOHN CHEEK WAS ABOUT TO BECOME A rich man. At 28, he was the chief financial officer of a Memphis apartment-management company. For three months he had been working 18-hour days, putting together a stock offering to take the company public—a move that was expected to bring him a personal windfall of $1 million. Then, on Dec. 2, he disappeared.

The day before, Cheek had returned to Memphis at 6 a.m. from a business trip to Portland, Ore. He had gone straight to the office and worked until 11 p.m. "That was the last anyone saw of him," says one of Cheek's closest friends, Andy Teller, 29, of Dallas.

Police found no evidence that Cheek had met with foul play. An audit of his company did not uncover any improprieties, and the public stock-offering plan eventually went through without a hitch. No money had been withdrawn from Cheek's checking account. And family members discovered nothing out of the ordinary at his three-bedroom colonial-style house, except that the garage door was open with no car inside.

Cheek's charcoal-colored Acura Legend was found that same day, parked near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River. "The police said it is not uncommon for somebody to jump in that river and never be recovered," says John's father, Richard Cheek, 54, a Memphis surgeon. But there were no other indications that Cheek might have committed suicide. Nor could his parents or his sister, Lucy Gordon, 26, a Phoenix accountant, think of any reasons why he might have done so. "I didn't know what had happened to John," says his mother, Arrena, 54. "But I have never, ever thought he was dead."

In the weeks that followed, the police searched in vain for clues to Cheek's whereabouts. "For almost three months there was not a morsel of information," says his father. Then, on Valentine's Day, trucker Ron Jackson rolled into West Memphis, Ark., and saw a missing person's poster of Cheek. Jackson called police and said the photo of Cheek bore a close resemblance to a vagrant he had seen the day before loitering at White's 76 Truck Stop in Raphine, Va., 170 miles southwest of Washington. The man wore a dress shirt and necktie and had a small bundle of clothes bound neatly by a belt. "It is so uncommon to sec someone like that al a truck stop," says Jackson, who slipped a waitress $6 to give the man breakfast while he refueled his truck. Before leaving, Jackson saw the man again and asked him if he enjoyed the meal. "He said, 'Yup,' and that was all," says Jackson.

Truck-stop cashier Amanda Hartless recalls the vagrant hanging around for a few days, sleeping in a chair in the CB-radio shop. But her boss, Pat Cash, has retracted his positive identification. He originally told police he was sure Cheek was the man he threw out of the truck stop for panhandling around Valentine's Day. Now, he says, he isn't entirely sure. Cheek's parents, though, have no doubt that the man was their son because of one important detail in Jackson's account: the man was wearing Topsider shoes. "Those are exactly the kind of shoes that are missing from John's closet," says Cheek's mother.

But why would a man on the verge of becoming a millionaire be begging for meals at a truck stop? Ray Sexton, a Memphis psychiatrist and longtime family friend, suggests that John may have developed a form of amnesia due to extreme stress and is roving around frightened and confused. The medical term for this rare condition is "a fugue state." Explains Sexton: "John was obsessed with a big project, and it is possible that this was so overwhelming to him that he blocked out his own identity."

Though Cheek has no history of mental illness, friends and family say he pushed himself beyond normal limits of physical endurance before his disappearance. A work-consumed bachelor, he had gone for months without gelling a full night's sleep and brushed off his father's warnings that he was putting his health at risk. "He kept saying, 'I can do it,' " says Richard Check.

If John Cheek is indeed in a fugue state, he needs lo be found quickly, says Emory University psychiatrist Alan Stoudemire, an expert in dissociative disorders. Such people "are very vulnerable," says Stoudemire. "They're confused, have no resources and their judgment is bound to be poor."

So far there have been some eight possible Cheek sightings in Virginia and Arkansas, but his whereabouts remain a mystery. "It's incredible how difficult it is to find somebody." says Richard Cheek, "if they are just randomly roaming around." In the meantime, Cheek's family and friends have stepped up their search. In late February, a group of John's old college buddies from Southern Methodist University in Dallas fanned out through the Southeast to tack up posters with his picture in truck stops and homeless shelters. "I believe he's out there," says Cheek's close friend Trey Jordan, 29, a Memphis businessman. "I just hope we can find him before he gets in a situation with some undesirable people and something happens."

DAVID GROGAN
JANE SANDERSON in Memphis and ALICIA BROOKS in Washington

Contributors:
Jane Sanderson,
Alicia Brooks.

[Blackout]

just watched this on VHS tape

so sad for that mother

[amandab1234]

I also think this was a suicide. I understand that it’s a difficult thing to grasp (I’ve lost three ppl in my life to suicide) and there were no signs and they didn’t seem like the type. BUT we don’t know what’s going on inside their heads.

[NDAlum2003]

I'm also siding with the suicide theory and think it was not planned out. The car was left by a bridge...some jumpers are simply never recovered, even though it is unusual. I would wonder what the statistics are of jumpers at that particular location and the recovery rate. Think back to the Robert Corrado case when he claimed to have jumped from the Delaware Memorial bridge...they figured it was staged because the recovery rate of jumpers from that bridge is so high. Any thoughts?

[Apostapler]

Add me to the list of those who believe he committed suicide. He may not have been the type, as family often says, but sleep deprivation and stress can make anyone act in ways they normally wouldn't. He could have been hallucinating by then, for all we know.

[wiseguy182]

Wow, I'm surprised so many think it was suicide. I didn't get that vibe at all. Wasn't he about to close a big deal and make a lot of money? I can't recall everything from the segment, but it seems like he was going to be set for life in a matter of hours, I can't imagine that he would commit suicide under those circumstances. I don't put much stock into eyewitnesses, but the one of him by that guy who bought him breakfast seemed pretty credible. Pretty weird to think that someone who could have made all that money could have been wandering around penniless for years afterward.

[liebchen77]

I think it was suicide and perhaps an undiagnosed case of Bipolar Disorder. His personality was intense, he frequently did not sleep when he was caught up in work, even after being awake for 3 days, he chose to go out drinking instead of sleeping...

I think that it points to suicide, and maybe he was misinterpreting the problem with the deal he was working on--it turned out to be nothing, but a mind that is manic and exhausted may see it disproportionally.

Very sad.