A New Life

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The mysterious note on an Oregon truck stop bathroom wall.

Friends and family say that April Pitzer was looking to start a new life when she moved from Arkansas to Newberry Springs, Calif. in the summer of 2003.  In the midst of a divorce from her husband, April headed west and soon made numerous friends in her new home. 

However, a year later, April decided it was time to return to Arkansas, this time to live with her mother, Gloria Denton.  Cops say April never made it home and her whereabouts remain a mystery. 

At the time of her disappearance, April was living with a friend, Chuck Hollister.  Police learned that on April 26, 2004, Hollister agreed to drive April around town and say goodbye to friends.  The next day, Chuck and April spent the day packing her belongings, although April never spoke of how exactly she was getting back to Arkansas.  When Chuck awoke the next morning, April was still sound asleep, but when he returned later that day, she was gone. 

Police tell AMW that Chuck believed that April had either gotten a ride or was given money for a bus ticket.  Detectives even checked Hollister's residence for signs of April but came up empty-handed.  When cops began questioning April's friends, they all believed the same thing...that Pitzer had found her way back to Arkansas.

Questions Surround Woman's Disappearance

April's mom began to worry since Pitzer is known to suffer from bi-polar disorder.  They usually spoke every week, and it had been weeks since Denton had heard from her daughter. 

Local authorities began posting missing person fliers around town.  However, the first lead would come not locally, but from over 800 miles away.  On September 7, 2004, detectives were contacted by Deputy Daniel Carr from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office in Oregon.  Carr said he had been sent to a Love's truck stop in Roseberg, Oregon to check out a suspicious message written on a bathroom wall.  The cryptic message said "want to find missing girl from Arkansas?  I-15 3 miles east of Barstow." 

Deputy Carr photographed and collected all latent prints from the bathroom stall and retrieved the truck stop's surveillance footage.  While he sent all the results to cops in California, no leads developed.  Nevertheless, deputies from Barstow, Calif. Sheriff's Station investigated the area three miles off the 15 freeway but found no sign of April. 

On September 9, 2004, detectives got another lead in the case.  An employee working for Barstow City Transportation sold a bus pass to a woman who, when seeing April's missing person poster, said "I know her, she's dead and stuffed in a hole and I know what hole she's in."

Detectives tracked down the woman who told them that she had known April for about a year.  The woman had heard rumors that April had been killed and the body was hidden out in the desert.

During the course of the investigation, detectives learned that Chuck Hollister and his friends were known to hang out in a group of inactive mines in the desert area 5 miles south of Ludlow, Calif.  At that point, authorities turned their attention to the numerous gold mines, most from the late 1800's, hoping that one may provide clues as to April's  whereabouts.  It was at these mines that Mike Melson of the volunteer group Equusearch began leading multiple, thorough searches.  Currently, authorities and Melson continue to check the mines for signs of April.

Chuck Hollister died of cancer in September 2006 but authorities believe that there is someone out there who knows what happened to April Pitzer.