She Vanished In The Mojave Desert In 2004, And A Mysterious Message In A Truck Stop Bathroom Seemed To Point To Her Location

It was June 22, 2004, when she called her mother and explained how she was going back to Arkansas to live with her. Before leaving, she was staying at her friend Chuck’s home.

A few days later, on June 27, April visited an elderly woman she’d cared for in Newberry Springs and said goodbye. The next day, June 28, she packed her things and intended to get on a bus back to Arkansas.

At that point, her friend Chuck reportedly brought her to a bus station.

But April never arrived in Arkansas, and she has remained missing ever since.

Her mother contacted the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department on July 16, 2004, to report her daughter missing after being unable to contact her. This sparked an investigation into April’s strange disappearance.

First, in Roseburg, Oregon, an employee at a Love’s Truck Stop came across a mysterious message on a tile in the bathroom on September 7, 2004. The tile read, “Want to find a missing girl from Arkansas? I-15, 3 miles east of Barstow.”

Authorities executed a large ground search in the area, and no evidence of April’s whereabouts was uncovered. They also weren’t able to figure out who wrote the message in the bathroom.

Then, two days later, on September 9, 2004, a Barstow city bus driver called the police. The driver claimed to have overheard a female rider discussing April’s disappearance. The rider reportedly heard rumors at a party about how April had been killed, and her body was hidden in an abandoned mineshaft in the desert.

Several months later, in December 2005, authorities searched a mine in Ludlow, California, known as the Red Dog Mine. This Mojave Desert mine also happened to be owned by one of Chuck’s close friends, Dan Dansbury.

This effort yielded many pieces of evidence, including multiple pieces of clothing and a white suitcase. These items were reportedly scattered between the Red Dog and Indian Queen mines in a three-mile radius.

Additionally, investigators found both a mattress and a sheet, which were stained with body fluids and human blood. But because of exposure to the elements, they were of little forensic value.