Post by admin4laney on May 18, 2006 14:10:02 GMT -5
Police Worry: Where is Laura Mackenzie?
Goffstown, New Hampshire(Crime Library) — When Laura Mackenzie disappeared from Goffstown on March 8, 2006, some people in New Hampshire were not too alarmed.
Sure, the blue-eyed brunette was on the Honor Roll at Goffstown High. According to her dad, William Mackenzie, Laura was close to her mother. Laura's father also volunteered to New Hampshire Union Leader staff writer Pat Grossmith on May 9, 2006 that Laura had been accepted by her school of choice for college.
Laura Mackenzie had also been arrested in Manchester, New Hampshire (NH) on February 15, 2006 and charged with shoplifting almost $1000 in merchandise from a mall there. She was due in court on the day she vanished. Authorities in Manchester issued a warrant for Laura's arrest when she failed to show on the 8th. Later, a Hillsborough County Grand Jury indicted Laura Mackenzie for felony shoplifting.
Laura's parents knew nothing of her arrest or the court date until after she disappeared, but to the Manchester Police she could have been just another absconder.
A look at Laura Mackenzie's Myspace profile when she'd been missing two weeks seemed to indicate that few of her friends were worried. Where the pages of other missing teens from the past, like Taylor Behl, had been filled with worried comments from the moment the person was reported missing, no one left a message on Laura's page between February 25, 2006, and March 30th. Then another comment was left again on the 12th of April. And the 14th, and the 27th. People close to Laura Mackenzie, who might very well know if she was on the run from the law, were starting to worry.
Her parents, even after finding out about the shoplifting charges, were ahead of everyone else. By March 18th the website www.findlaura.org had been created. The Mackenzies began to talk to the press. Laura Mackenzie's name was popping up on the internet on message boards devoted to discussions of true crime as well as the mysteries often presented by missing persons cases like Laura's. But even the "websleuths" didn't feel a great sense of urgency about tracking Laura's case. She'd been a high-achieving young woman confronted with real legal consequences for her alleged shoplifting. If Laura had never before been in any kind of trouble, was always considered by her friends and family to be a "good kid," then it made sense that she might just run.
It didn't necessarily make sense that Laura Mackenzie would leave with no credit card, or cell phone. It didn't make any sense that none of her close friends seemed to have heard from her by the end of March.
By May 9th, 2006, Lt. Bill Barry of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Dept. was telling the New Hampshire Union Leader that police were "beginning to think something bad happened to her."
Laura Mackenzie used the weblog attached to her MySpace profile occasionally, mostly just to vent.
On October 5, 2005, Laura wrote:
"I'm so sick of girls competing for guys. Girls hating each other over a guy. Guys hating one girl cuz he can't get another. I'm sick of people loosing friendships over guys. I'm annoyed with people constantly talking about other people behind thier backs, and even in front of their back. I'm sick of all the stuff I told people to just make them happy, stuff they wanted to hear. Whatever, ur gonna get what I think now"
Then, on December 20, Laura was thoughtful, laying out some things that were on her mind in a list:
"So much has been on my mind. I am not sure I would ever get it all out if I went on for a few years.
I feel like I am in limbo right now.
As my cousin Hank said, if it's not perfect, then keep looking.
But what if I just suddenly found prefect where I never thought it'd be?
I really like being away from home.
I am not staying around here for college. I am going at least 4 hours away.
I don't regret what I've done so far.
I wish high school had been different.
I changed over the summer.
New York City is beautiful at Christmas...you just have to look at it as beautiful. If you say it's dirty and ugly, it will be for you...But it's a memory for me.
I might miss certain things"
Laura also kept a Livejournal for a while: wynne-mack.livejournal.com. The last entry there was made in August of 2005, just before her last year in school was to begin. She wrote in that post about finally getting a vehicle of her own:
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"I finally got my own ve-hicle; a '95 VW Golf. Black. Cloth interior. I just got a nice CD player put in (the radio that was in the car when I got it...it skipped every time I went over a bump, or just when it felt like it..yes, the radio). Oh, and it also has a steering wheel, etc...ok, I'll stop. This car just made a 5 hour trip to NJ, then to NY, and then back home. It's called My/Mack's 'little tin can.'"
"Mack's little tin can" was the vehicle Laura Mackenzie was driving when she disappeared. One reason authorities have now become concerned as to Laura's whereabouts is the fact that they can find no trace of her black VW Golf, either.
Another detail brought forward in the article by Pat Grossmith in the Union Leader was the fact that Laura had been seeing someone at the time of her disappearance, fellow Goffstown High student, 17-year-old Tom Leo. Though Tom and Laura had a date as late as March 7th, Leo's absence from activities surrounding his girlfriend's vanishing has been, to Laura's parents at least, conspicuous. Tom Leo didn't join a group at the school, "Friends of Laura Mackenzie," and at first was speaking with investigators. Eventually, his family hired Attorney Brian M. Quirk of Concord, NH, and Tom Leo's direct communication with police was cut off. No one has spoken openly about Leo otherwise, except to say his lack of involvement in the search for Laura Mackenzie is puzzling.
Whatever her faults, a survey of Laura Mackenzie's journaling shows a thoughtful and intelligent young woman. Reading Laura's writings online could also suggest a certain amount of moodiness. Was she trying to flee her problems and in the process she encountered misadventure? Was she perhaps trying to flee from life itself? Not all suicides leave notes or explanations behind — some do just vanish one day. Could it be that the idea of walking into court on the 8th to confront being charged with a crime produced an emotional chain reaction in the young woman, closed off her perception of her world until she saw no other option but to just leave?
Laura Mackenzie's family doesn't believe she meant to vanish so completely. From http://www.findlaura.org:
"Laura W. Mackenzie, an 18-year-old senior honor student at Goffstown High School, left home in her car for school on March 8, 2006 and since then there have been no calls or emails from her to her family or friends.
"Since mid March, thousands of flyers have been distributed across southern New Hampshire and the world. Law enforcement detectives from Goffstown Police and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department are working full-time to bring Laura home to her family. A search task force has been formed to coordinate the community activities to find Laura"
Laura Mackenzie is 5'4" and has blue eyes and brown hair. The plate on her black VW Golf is numbered 211 0126.
Anyone who has information about Laura Mackenzie's disappearance can contact Lt. Bill Barry at the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Dept, 1-800-562-8201, or the Goffstown, NH police at 603-497-4858. A hotmail e-mail address has been set up for tips as well at find-laura@hotmail.com. There is a $5000 reward for information that leads to Laura's safe return.
www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0506/1001_laura_mackenzie.html