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Area's missing kids listed on Web site By SARAH LEMON Mail Tribune As the school year draws to a close, all Christine Condon can think about is that her daughter Stephanie would be graduating from high school. The honor roll student had hoped to attend Southern Oregon University in the fall to study draft engineering, her mother says. Attending SOU, the 17-year-old college student still would have been close to her parent's home in Riddle. But the dream wasn't fulfilled. Instead, Stephanie has been missing for the past four years. Stephanie is one of Southern Oregon's 11 missing children listed on a Web site maintained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Many are listed as endangered, meaning that the circumstances surrounding their disappearances were out of character for the missing youths. It also would have been out of character for Washington intern Chandra Levy to disappear, police say. The discovery of her body Wednesday put an end to the most publicized search for a missing person in the past year. Elsewhere, parents and relatives of missing children have been wrestling with their own tragedies for years, some for decades. Douglas County detectives are still actively investigating the case of Stephanie Condon, who vanished from a rural mobile home where she was baby-sitting two 2-year-olds. She would have been barefoot and wearing only Winnie the Pooh pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. She left her purse, money and the two sleeping toddlers behind. "For some reason, I didn't think it would start bothering me this far away from graduation," Christine Condon says. "At her age that's what she lived for was her graduation and going to college." Noting that her missing daughter would now be 21 years old, Kimberly Cruz thinks Kaelin Glazier may have been excelling in music and art at college. But her daughter loved children and may have been a mother herself by now. "To not have the grandbaby I might have right now ..." Cruz says. "I never did get to have a memorial service. That's the hardest thing about it. I wish I could have closure." For the past five years, Jackson County sheriff's deputies and agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been delving into what happened when 15-year-old Kaelin didn't show up at a church group meeting on Nov. 6, 1996, and then never returned to her home on Upper Applegate Road in Ruch. She was last seen at a nearby residence talking to an acquaintance, Billy Frank Simmons, who police have named a "person of interest" in the case. Police are closely monitoring Simmons, who recently moved back to the area after living in Central Oregon for the past several years, said sheriff's Sgt. Rich Fogarty. Investigators interviewed Simmons about a week ago, Fogarty says. Strangers are rarely the perpetrators in missing children cases, investigators say. A person who abducts a child usually has a relationship with that child, said Medford police Sgt. Roy Skinner, pointing to a newly revived Medford Police Department case as a prime example. Two years ago, Skinner and detective Terry Newell re-opened the case of Christie Lynn Farni, missing since 1978. The 6-year-old was abducted while walking the few blocks between her foster home on Peach Street and Jackson Elementary School. That morning, she had testified before a grand jury that her father Kenneth Ray Farni had physically abused her. Skinner said he believes Christie was kidnapped by family members who either took her to a safer place or who killed her. Her father and stepmother cooperated with police, but neither interviews nor lie detector tests yielded the truth about what happened to Christie. Now, nearly 25 years later, the hard part is finding someone who knows anything about her disappearance. Kenneth Farni died in a California car crash several years ago. Christie's mother died in a motorcycle accident a year before her daughter was abducted. Christie's half-brother, Kenneth Ray Farni Jr., may have been able to provide police the information they need, Skinner said. But the 13-year-old - who briefly lived with his father around the time Christie went missing - later killed himself. Detectives keep in touch with Christie's remaining family in Michigan, Arizona, California and Oregon. Her stepbrother Charles Hughes now lives just a few blocks from Christie's former foster home. Reports that Chandra Levy's body had been found Wednesday in Washington only remind him that he would like some closure in his stepsister's case. "It just would have been nice to know what happened to a 6-year-old girl," he said. Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.