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Ilene Misheloff

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Real Name: Ilene Beth Misheloff
Nicknames: No known nicknames
Location: Dublin, California
Date: January 30, 1989

Bio[]

Occupation: Student
Date of Birth: March 12, 1975
Height: 5'3"
Weight: 115 lbs.
Marital Status: Single
Characteristics: White female with shoulder length, curly brown hair and brown eyes. Ilene had freckles on her face and braces on her teeth at the time of her disappearance. She has a small lump on the inside of her left ankle. She was wearing a charcoal-gray pullover Esprit polo sweater, a pink and charcoal-gray skirt with horizontal stripes, and black low-top Keds sneakers. She had two earrings in each ear. She was carrying a dark blue backpack and a hard, black, molded plastic flute case.

Case[]

Details: Thirteen-year-old Ilene Misheloff is the daughter of Mike and Maddi Misheloff. Her family describes her as a good student and promising figure skater who never varied from her routine without letting Mike and Maddi know. She had dreams of becoming a pediatrician. She attended Wells Intermediate School in Dublin, California.
On the afternoon of January 30, 1989, Ilene was excused from gym class and allowed to leave school early. At 2:30pm, she began her two-mile walk home. At around 3pm, several classmates saw her walking alone on Amador Valley Boulevard near Village Parkway and the Shamrock Village Shopping Center.
Ilene's family believes she was taking a shortcut home that day. They believe she went through a wide alley behind the shopping center and then across San Ramon Road, near its intersection with Amador Valley Boulevard. After that, they believe she followed Martin Canyon Creek, which went through Mape Memorial Park. This route would have taken her to Nielsen Elementary School, which was just a block from her home.
Ilene never called Maddi to let her know she got home, which she normally did. However, Maddi figured she had gone straight to the local ice rink for skating practice. When Maddi arrived there around 5pm, she discovered that Ilene was not there. Her coaches said they had driven to her house at 3:30pm to pick her up, but she was not home. Maddi was immediately concerned because she knew Ilene would not miss skating practice.
Maddi called home, hoping that Ilene had fallen asleep. But she got no answer. She called Mike to see if he had dropped off Ilene's skates at the rink, but he had not. She then called the police. For several hours, Mike searched around Martin Canyon Creek for Ilene. But neither he nor the police could find any trace of her. Her family did not believe she would have run away. The police did a background check and found that she had no problems at home, school, or with friends.
Ilene's key chain was later found near the entrance to Mape Park. A few weeks later, her backpack was found in the creek bed. It was located after the area had already been searched. Authorities believe someone placed it there after she vanished. No other trace of her has ever been found. Authorities believe she was abducted and possibly murdered.
Ilene was the third girl to disappear from the San Francisco Bay Area in less than a year. Nine-year-old Michaela Garecht was abducted from a Hayward market on November 19, 1988. Seven-year-old Amber Swartz vanished while jump roping in her front yard in Pinole on June 3, 1988. Then, on December 27, 1991, two years after Ilene vanished, four-year-old Nikki Campbell disappeared while playing in her front yard in Fairfield. Authorities believe their cases may be connected. The 1983 kidnapping and murder of five-year-old Angela Bugay from Antioch might be connected as well.
Each year on the anniversary of Ilene's disappearance, her family and friends gather at her school for a vigil. They then walk the route she was seen walking along when she disappeared.
Suspects: Tim Bindner is considered a "person of interest" in Ilene's disappearance. Despite the fact that some suspicion had been directed at him, he helped search for her. He also helped search for Michaela, Amber, and Nikki and is considered a possible suspect in their cases. He has maintained his innocence.
A few days after Ilene's disappearance, a man tried to abduct a girl in Union City who was practicing her baton twirling in the parking lot of her apartment complex. Fortunately, she was able to escape him. Authorities looked into the possibility that this incident may have been connected to Ilene's disappearance.
James Daveggio is considered a possible suspect in Ilene's disappearance. He is on death row for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of twenty-two-year-old Vanessa Lei Sampson. He lived in Pleasanton, five miles from Dublin, during the 1980s. In 1984, a woman in Pleasanton told police that he tried to sexually assault her. No charges were filed. In 1985, he was convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman in nearby Tracy. However, he served no prison time for that crime.
In December 1997, Daveggio and his girlfriend, Michelle Michaud, were arrested for abducting a twenty-year-old college student from a sidewalk near her home in Reno, Nevada, on the night of September 29. They forced her into a van, raped her, and released her the next day. Shortly after their arrests, two girls, aged twelve and thirteen, told police that Daveggio and Michelle had kidnapped and repeatedly raped them in a van in the Sacramento area in separate incidents in September and October 1997.
In November 1998, Daveggio and Michelle were charged with Vanessa's kidnapping, rape, and murder. She had been abducted while walking to her job in nearby Pleasanton on December 2, 1997. She was later found strangled to death off Highway 88 near Lake Tahoe. In 2002, Daveggio and Michaud were convicted in her case and sentenced to death.
A woman who was abducted and raped in Pleasanton a few months before Ilene's disappearance later identified Daveggio as her attacker. Unfortunately, the statute of limitations had expired in this case by then. She believes, due to the similarities between their cases and their close proximity, that he is also responsible for Ilene's disappearance.
Daveggio was known to abduct young women who were outside and force them into his vehicle, usually during the daytime. He was also known to strike during the fall and winter months. Two of his victims were close to Ilene's age. Some of the crimes he committed occurred close to where she was last seen. Also, he was living in Pleasanton, five miles from Dublin, at the time of her disappearance. And he had a girlfriend in Dublin at the time. Authorities have looked into him as a suspect but have not charged him in her case.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the June 13, 2002 episode, which primarily focused on Amber's case.
  • Some sources say Ilene was going to the ice rink before going home, that she left school at 2:20pm, that she was last seen at 2:30pm or 3:30pm, that she was last seen near the intersection of San Ramon Road and Amador Valley Boulevard, and that Maddi went to the rink to pick her up at 6:30pm.
  • Ilene had once competed against figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, who later went on to skate in the Olympics.

Results: Unsolved. After missing child Jaycee Dugard was found alive in 2009, investigators looked into the possibility that her abductors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, may have been involved in Ilene's disappearance. His car matched the description of one seen speeding in the area where she was last seen. Their house was searched, but nothing was found to link them to her.
Angela's murder was later solved; DNA evidence linked the crime to her mother's ex-boyfriend, Larry Graham. He was convicted of her murder and later died in prison. It is not known if he is a suspect in this case. In Amber's case, convicted child killer Curtis Anderson confessed to her murder before his death in prison in 2007. It is not known if he is a suspect in this case.
In Michaela's case, a palm print on her scooter was linked to convicted murderer David Misch, who was charged with her murder in 2020. Shortly afterward, the police looked into the possibility that he was involved in Ilene's disappearance. It is not known if anything has been found to connect him to it.
Sadly, Maddi died of bladder cancer on April 11, 2020, at the age of seventy-one. Mike and her brothers still hope to find her. A $95,000 reward is being offered in this case.
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