Special Projects

Above all, Manuel José Ordóñez was a person with a large family until his disappearance on Nov. 6, 1982. Manuel had his parents in Milwaukee, a wife, and three daughters, but one thing was not right. He also was one of the city’s drug dealers, the police reports allege. “He was to come back home. […]

Lisa Flowers was last seen on Aug. 15, 1991, by her mother, Melba Flowers, at approximately 2 p.m. The last to hear from her was her boyfriend at the time, Anthony Taylor, at 9 p.m. via phone. She was never heard from and seen again after that day. Lisa called Anthony, whom she met working […]

Chandra Jennings and Kraig Jenkins had been dating for just over two years. The couple was attending a party together, drinking, smoking and having fun. A short argument later and Jennings asked to go to a bar, so Jenkins took her. Before he even stopped, Jennings hopped out of the car and slammed the door. […]

Think about the most infamous missing persons cases. Natalee Holloway vanished during a trip to Aruba, Chandra Levy disappeared while having an affair with a high-profile congressman, and Gabby Petito took social media by storm with a highly documented missing case. These were all tragedies, but what else do they have in common? They were […]

The winter of 1994 was especially brutal, with what was described as the 1994 North American cold wave occurring over the Midwestern and Eastern regions of the United States. When 20-year-old Leonard Demarcus Foster went missing that winter, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, became colder. Friends and family called him Mark – referencing his middle name, Demarcus. He was last […]

On May 30, 2020, Larry Green Jr. told his mother Catherine James that he was going to an unnamed cousin’s house and headed off. This was not out of the ordinary for Green, who was homeless and was known to bounce around family member’s houses, staying a few nights here or there. Unbeknownst to James, […]

Resting next to the desk belonging to Sgt. Chue Thao of the Appleton Police Department is the photo of a man he vaguely knew but hasn’t seen for nine years.  “Every day I think about him,” said Thao. “I have four kids. I treat John like all my kids.”  John Lee, who went missing in […]

The handling of missing persons cases, particularly those involving marginalized communities, has long been a topic of controversy forever. Ruben Burgos, a former Milwaukee Police Officer, spoke out about how the police department’s priorities and attitudes contributed to the lack of attention given to certain missing persons cases and how this has changed over the […]

On Easter night in 2005, Bobby Curry stopped by his girlfriend Patricia Wade’s house to drop something off for their two kids, who were only 1 year old at the time. Then Curry and three family members went to Erv’s Lounge, a small local bar in Kenosha. Later that night, Curry got into an argument […]

Ayanna Krzyzanowski was 16 when she went missing on March 19, 2023. She also lived in a group home, from which she left with nothing besides the clothing on her back, according to police reports. She is one of several juveniles listed as missing in Milwaukee, but she didn’t become a big news story. Media […]

Milwaukee’s crack cocaine epidemic, which peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, had significant social, economic, and public health impacts on the city. Addiction, like many other illnesses, has no set demographic. This epidemic was a catalyst for trafficking, gang wars, and violent crime. “You could just see it, little kids running the whole […]

In the early morning of New Year’s Day in 1991, Timothy Harris, 19 years old at the time, dropped off his cousin, Vanessa L. Blacks-Smith at a bus stop on the corner of N. 28th and W. Wisconsin Ave. in Milwaukee, Wis. He and his then-girlfriend Sarah Herron were going grocery shopping that morning. He […]