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Missing Misty Donna Copsey 
Misty, approximately 1992; Age at the time of disappearance: -progression to Age at the time of disappearance: 35 (approximately 2013) Date reported missing : 09/17/1992 Missing location (approx) : Tacoma, Washington Missing classification : Non-Family Abduction Gender : Female Ethnicity : White DOB : 03/10/1978 (43) Age at the time of disappearance: 14 years old Height / Weight : 5'8 - 5'9, 105 - 120 pounds Description, clothing, jewerly and more : A navy blue pullover sweatshirt, baggy light blue stonewashed jeans with funky stitching and rolled-up cuffs, brown suede shoes and a gold ring. Distinguishing characteristics, birthmarks, tattoos : Caucasian female. Blonde hair, green eyes. Misty has a mole under her right eye and a scar underneath her right knee. She has previously fractured both forearms. One of her teeth has a root canal and three other teeth have fillings. Information on the case from local sources, may or may not be correct : Misty was last seen walking to her family's residence in the Tacoma, Washington area on September 17, 1992. She was returning from the Puyallup Fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington at the time; she had gone there with a close friend, Trina Bevard. Misty missed the 8:40 p.m. Pierce Transit bus back to her neighborhood in Spanaway, Washington. She called her mother and said she might get a ride with Rheuban Schmidt, an eighteen-year-old friend. Misty's mother didn't trust Schmidt and told her daughter to find someone else to help her. Misty eventually decided to walk home, a distance of eight miles. A witness saw her at 10:00 p.m. in downtown Puyallup, walking along Meridian toward the westbound onramp of Highway 512. She never arrived home and has not been seen again. She is not believed to have been carrying any money at the time of her disappearance. Misty's mother reported her missing the next day, after she contacted relatives and Misty's friends and found out none of them knew where she was. Schmidt said she had asked him for a ride the night before, but he didn't have enough gasoline. His roommate said Schmidt left shortly after the phone conversation. The roommate thought Schmidt had gone out to pick up Misty, but Schmidt denied the story and maintained he hadn't seen her and didn't know her whereabouts. Police initially assumed Misty had run away from home. One female classmate claimed Misty called her after her disappearance and said she was okay, and another classmate said she thought she saw her on September 21. Both witnesses knew Misty only slightly, but based on their evidence, authorities closed the case and falsely informed the media that Misty had been found. They refused to reopen the investigation for weeks. It wasn't until December 1992 that police acknowledged Misty might have met with foul play, and it wasn't until five months after her disappearance that they interviewed Brevard and Schmidt, the last two people known to have seen her. When she was interviewed, Brevard said Schmidt was supposed to take her and Misty home from the fairgrounds that evening. He told them he couldn't pick them up because he didn't have enough fuel. Misty called him back and told him how to get inside her house so he could get money and buy gasoline. Schmidt still refused to come, however, saying he didn't even have enough gas to get to Misty's house, which was six miles from his own home. After that, Brevard said, the girls decided that she would walk home and Misty would take the bus. Brevard stated she and Misty parted ways at approximately 8:45 p.m. Police later discovered Brevard had lied about part of her story. She hadn't walked home; her 23-year-old boyfriend, Michael J. Rhyner, had picked her up. He had no criminal history as an adult, but at sixteen he was accused of abducting and raping an eleven-year-old girl at knifepoint. No charges were filed in that case. Brevard stated she offered to let Misty ride with her and Rhyner, but Misty didn't trust him and refused to come with them. Brevard said Rhyner dropped her off at home and she told him Misty had taken the bus. Police theorized Rhyner returned to the fairgrounds later and convinced Misty to get into his car, but Rhyner denied this, and he later passed a polygraph and was eliminated from the investigation. |