They just now posted the update on the Facebook page, so, I feel free enough to talk about it. This will be a bit of a read, i'm sure, but bear with me.
First.. Here's where I originally found the story at..
Lori Reaves Richardson | Unsolved Mysteries Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia
I was nosing through that Wiki site, because I remembered the case of Walter Rice on Unsolved Mysteries back in the day. He was a gentleman that was found in his home a year after he died and had $150k or so in the bank and no known heirs. I was looking to see how that case ever turned out. The answer to that, they never found his heirs, much of his info was fake (Birth Certificate and SSN) and the money went to the state.
I looked through the other South Carolina cases and saw the case of Lori Jane Reaves. It caught my eye, and I just decided to use some of the tools I have, Ancestry, newspapers.com and findagrave to see what I might turn up. First few searches turned up nothing, and on a whim, I decided to search for Lori Reeves, as I thought it would be a common mistake.
Bang.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...88/lori-reeves
DOB matches, DOD matches the last known contact with her.. But, honestly, at this point, I'm thinking there's no way. I thought about it for a few minutes, searched around a little more to try to discredit the info, but.. I couldn't. No obits.. Nothing I could find to say this was NOT her. I decided that it was better to share this info and just be wrong or be giving info that was already known than to not say anything and have it wind up being her. At this point, I really don't believe that it's her, there's just enough of a chance there that I need to bring it up.
I sent a message to the Facebook page for Lori and received responses from Lori's sister and friend from school that they were not aware of this information and had passed it along to the Richland County detective assigned to the missing persons case. After some discussion with them about the case, I still thought it was a long shot, but.. I was intrigued by the possibility. I contacted the person who documented the grave in FindaGrave and asked them the circumstances of the documentation. I thought they would reply that they had added it based on the missing persons report or something like that. I researched the cemetery and found that it was basically a 'paupers' cemetery for Richland County. Now I really started getting curious. All the above happened this past Thursday, June 28th.
On Friday.. I got a reply from the findagrave user "B.K" who documented the grave and they replied that they had actually documented it standing in front of the marker and were looking for a photo they had taken of it. At that point, I let Lori's sister and friend know and basically told them I was driving down there the next day unless "B.K" found the image before then. I arranged with them to be on the phone with them when I got to the cemetery as I felt it was important that in some way, someone connected with Lori be as present as possible, even if it were just on the phone. I was also constantly repeating for them to not get their hopes up, because I still thought it was a long shot (Though not as long a shot as I first thought) that *I* could stumble across this information that noone else had put together.
Saturday morning. I was up at 6am. Just totally restless all night. I did some research at home to burn a few hours before leaving for the 100 mile drive to this cemetery. I got into town about 11:30am and started searching for the cemetery. I 'found' it about right away, but could only see it through someone's yard. In an effort to avoid being shot for traipsing across someone's front yard one Saturday morn, I decided to pull up a satellite view of the area and saw there was an industrial road behind the cemetery that might provide access.
I drove to that road, could not find cemetery access. I stopped at the only place that didn't have big gates and padlocks on it, Northeast Church. I encountered Pastor Larry there mowing the grass, and asked him if he knew about this cemetery. He did not, however, he allowed me access behind the church to search. After a 15 minute hike through the woods lining some back yards (And thankfully not being shot) I got to the cemetery, where I promptly found the access road that I should have found 45 minutes before.
I walked the half mile back to the church to retrieve my vehicle (walking on the road this time) and let Pastor Larry know that I had found the cemetery I was looking for and thank him.
I drove back to the cemetery, using the access road this time, and called Lori's sister immediately. Described the area as best I could so far as what I saw, then entered the cemetery, turned right and began the search with her on the phone.
I've volunteered for FindAGrave myself for a little over 2 years. This is the fastest that I have ever found a grave I was looking for. I made it about 50 feet down the fence, and there is the marker for Lori Reeves. Talked with Debbie a bit more and decided that we'd switch over to messenger so that I could take photos and videos showing them everything. I sent them all that I could and by the time I left, I was very hopeful that we had located Lori.
Sunday I sent them some information about how to directly contact the Richland County Coroner, as well as some information that I had on the cemetery.
Monday at just prior to 6pm, Lori's sister Debbie sent me a message saying that they coroner had given them confirmation that it was, indeed, Lori Jane Reaves Richardson. Missing 24 years. She had passed away on December 2, 1994.
The real key to this, in my mind is the FindaGrave user "B.K". Without her documenting that grave, there was no information for me to put together. So, while I'm proud of the small part I played in this case, the takeaway I would like people to have is that findagrave is a more valuable resource than you could possibly imagine. I volunteer for them myself and spend my weekends (Outside of summertime, too hot here) doing just what "B.K" did. I never expected something like this to come out of it.. But, if you have the time, need the exercise. Think about volunteering with FindAGrave in your area.
You never know.. You... May be able to help solve a mystery.
Little shout-out to the late Robert Stack there.
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