European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 02, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Doil Magazine the missing sgt. Theodore Newman of new York City police missing persons squad briefs detectives. By Carey Winfrey new York times the girl in the White dress looked familiar. She vaguely resemble the photographs in newspapers Andin flyers posted around new Yor City by a private detective hired by her family. As she left the unemployment office in lower Manhattan police Detec Tive Eugene a. Reavis followed her. He watched her walk up the Block. Then he watched her turn the Corner and disappear behind a  looked at his watch and made a note on a police form about the girl in the White dress. I could t have stopped her anyway he said even if she was Ellen hover. Violation of  Ellen Jane hover 23, who friends say is considerate and conscientious has been missing since july 15. Police believe a photographer with a Ponytail a John Burgh or John Burger May know something about her disappearance. It is believed she met him at the unemployment office. By the time Reavis got Back inside the Man he had been watching in the claim ants line who wore his hair in a Ponytail had disappeared. The detective shrugged. I imagine the real Guy would Cut his Pony Tail off after All this publicity he said. A Check through the unemployment cards turned up no John Burger or John Burgh. Ellen Jane hover is one of an Esti mated 17,000 people who will be re ported to the missing persons squad of the new York City police depart ment this year. But the average poor Shook says sergeant Theodore i. Newman the acting commanding officer of the unit is not going to get his name in the  one reason Ellen hover s name has been in newspapers across the country is because her father Herman hover is the former owner of Giros a Hollywood night spot often frequented by entertainers. Hover says that Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin Are his close friends. According to her Mother Sophie Tucker was the girl s godmother. Jimmy Durante bought Ellen hover her first tricycle. But it is who she is not As Well As whose is that makes her Case unusual for the missing persons squad. Unlike most missing persons she is not 18 years of age or younger. She does not have a history of mental problems. She is neither elderly nor senile. Of the 16,979 persons reported missing in new York City last year nearly 13,000were Young runaways who returned Home on their own within a few Days. In such cases making a few Telephone Calls to friends to the school or to City hospitals is about All that the 33 detectives who work for the squad can be expected to do. If there is a history of mental problems they do More. If there is a history of running away they do less. The majority of missing persons cases solve themselves in a Day or two says sergeant Max Sanders one of the five supervisors in the squad. Flyers describing two cases that did not solve themselves provide the Only ornamentation in the Antiseptic Cally spartan squad offices on the eleventh floor of the new police head quarters building near the Manhattan Entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. One describes the squad s most famous Case that of the honorable Joseph Force Crater who disappeared without a Trace 47 years ago. The squad considers the Crater Case Active and periodically up dates its files on him. There Are still people half a dozen who Call us every year on the anniversary aug. 6 of his Dis appearance says Neuman. The other flyer on the Wall describes a 48-year-old Brooklyn woman and refugee from the nazi holocaust who disappeared last december. She was last seen heading toward a shoe store that burned to the ground killing 13 persons. Newman and Sanders believe she was the 14th person to die in that fire but after going through rubble no body was Ever found. Until recently her husband called the squad nearly every Day. There Are about 35 Long standing Active cases in the squad s files. Other flyers yellow with age show a pretty girl of five years old smiling sweetly. She is Alice Pereira who disappeared july 7, 1972. Virginia Domeneck an attractive woman in her late 30s, was last seen May 31, 1967. Alan Holden vanished from 1199 Park Avenue at 7 00 . On july 3,1967. But while tracking the missing gives the squad its name and its largest number of cases its most time consuming and grisly function is identifying the 4,000 Anonymous dead whose remains find their Way each year to the City s four morgues. Most Are those of elderly persons who die alone without identification. Others have had their identities erased by fire or other mutilating disaster. Like much police work it is a Job Short on Glamor and Long on laborious checking and Cross checking of re cords the tracing of articles of cloth ing the comparison of photographs and fingerprints. All too often it is a matter of Matching an unidentified body with a missing person. In the morgue basement where bodies Are kept in stainless steel compartments Reavis was going through the dead Book looking for a Man whose relatives had just been located. When he came to the Man s name in the Book he copied the words City cemetery onto a form he had brought with him. He walked upstairs to keep an appoint ment with the father of a 25-year-old Man who disappeared a month ago. For a year before his disappearance the son had been hearing  the voices Are so real to him the father said to the detective. He gets scared and he follows  the father had come to the morgue a week earlier to try to identify a badly de composed body that had been found in a bowery hotel. Near the body the son s Wallet had also been found. But after examining the remains the father was certain they were not those of his son. A comparison of the son s dental charts supported his conviction. Now the father and the detective theorized that the son May have been mugged by the person whose body was found in the hotel. The father remembered that his son once worked for a Wall Street Bank. Possibly he suggested the son was fingerprinted when he took the Job. The detective said he d Check with the Bank. I m positive it was t Bob i saw the father said to no one in particular. Later that afternoon Reavis called a re Porter. I just wanted to let you know he said that i went to the Bank and got those fingerprints. They match the ones we took off the body. We just sent a squad car to Tell the  new York times 3 cases Range from 1930 file on honorable Joseph Force Crater to Ellen hover missing since july. Friday september 2,1977 the stars and stripes Page 13