A candlelight vigil and walk will be held on Thursday evening to mark the 31st anniversary of the disappearance of Ilene Misheloff, a girl who vanished while walking home from a Dublin middle school in 1989.
Misheloff, an ice skater, was 13 years old when she vanished while walking home from Wells Middle School on Jan. 30, 1989.
Family and friends of Misheloff will participate in the vigil, which begins at Wells Middle School at 6800 Penn Drive at 7 p.m.
They then will go on a walk that follows most of Misheloff’s path on the day she disappeared, starting at Wells and proceeding for 2.5 miles to St. Raymond Catholic Church at 11555 Shannon Ave., where an ecumenical prayer service will be held.
Misheloff’s family said that with the help of Dublin Police Services and the FBI it continues to search for her.
The family said in a statement that Thursday “marks 31 years since our precious daughter, Ilene Misheloff, was kidnapped by a stranger from the streets of Dublin.”
The family said, “Please help us spread the word, as far and wide as possible, that we want our child back.”
Too bad she has never been found for the families closure.
This family deserves answers, and their child back in their lives <3 I'll be there in spirit from AK.
I remember this case as well as others at happened around that time, only one has closure.
Amber Swartz-Garcia disappeared from Pinole in June of 1988, she was born August 1980.
Michaela Garecht was kidnapped from Hayward November 1988, she was born January 1979.
Polly Klaas was kidnapped from her bedroom in Petaluma Oct. 1993, she was born in January 1981. Her kidnapper and killer was caught and convicted.
There no real closure in the other cases, although in the case of Amber Curtis Dean Anderson confessed to her abduction after he was caught and convicted of abducting and killing Xiana Fairchild of Vallejo, he died in prison in 2007. I was living in Benicia when Xiana Fairchild was kidnapped. They other cases stand out, because all of those girls were close in age to my daughter, who was born in June 1980, I lived in Foster City when she was growing up, so all of these abductions, including Ilene’s were very scary to me, and it is sad and horrible for these families that there are no closure.
In this same time frame was my cousin Jenny Moore. Kidnapped from Novato, CA on 4/13/1989. We do have closure as her remains were found within a week and the POS who did it turned himself in the night before her memorial. He is currently rotting away with no possibility of parole.
The late 80’s were a scary and confusing time for us Bay Area kids.
I’m still so thankful for the Klaas family picking up the torch from the family of Kevin Collin’s. The Collin’s foundation did so much during the time we were still hoping to find Jenny alive and well. They came out of their pockets for the zillions of fliers that were printed and distributed. The Polly Klaas Foundation has continued on raising awareness and supporting families in their darkest moments.
I hope that one day we find closure for Amber, for Michaela and for Ilene’s families. It was the beacon of hope re-lit when Jaycee Duggard was found in Antioch.
Hug your children as tight as you can for as long as you can, you just never know. 🙁
So sorry to hear about your cousin, don’t remember that name or story, could be because the case was solved quickly. Was she around the same age as the other girls 7-12 years old? I use to see Marc Klaas on TV usually Larry King or Nancy Grace’s show, I always felt so bad for him and the other families that lost children in such a horrible way.
Thank you. <3
She was found within a week, along a road in Novato in black garbage bags (which my mother to this day has never purchased again, only white). The "wait" period is fuzzy as I was 7. She would have been 13 in June of 89.
She was deemed a "runaway" for the first couple of days, which didn't help. And a murderer being caught in the same period had taken over much of the news. But being as the time between being taken off the street to her death was "brief," no one could have helped save her in time. Just maybe have sped up finding her.
On the 20th anniversary my sister and another cousin went to Novato to visit her memorial and do some research at the library. As we struggled to work the microfish machine (I think that's the dinosaur we were using) we found a story pinpointing her last seen outside of the Novato Library at about the same time as we were sitting there. That moment was bizarre, poignant and we knew we were meant to spend that day together on that journey.
Ok this got super long! It's not something I talk about much these days.