Chris's Crime Forum

Here is a case about a boy who went missing..
and his parents never reported him missing until now..2009!!

Authorities in Kansas are looking for a boy who disappeared about a decade ago, but was not reported missing until a few weeks ago.

"We don't know what happened to Adam Herrman past '99, when he was last seen," Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy said at a news conference in El Dorado.

"Is he alive, is he dead? That one I can't answer because we don't know," he added.

Adam was 11 or 12 when he was last seen, Murphy said. At the time, he was living in a mobile home park in Towanda, a small town in southern Kansas, with his adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman. The couple did not report him missing, Murphy said.

A few weeks ago, a person notified Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Children's Unit of a "concern" regarding Adam, Murphy said.

The agency did not immediately return CNN's phone call seeking additional information.

Wichita attorney Warner Eisenbise, who is representing Adam's adoptive parents, said the couple "really rue the fact that they didn't" report the boy missing.

"They feel very guilty" about not doing that, he said in a telephone interview. The couple told him the boy had run away frequently, he said, and they believed him to be either with his biological parents or homeless.

Although the Herrmans did not report him missing, "they were very worried about him," he said.

Authorities have searched the Pine Ridge Mobile Home Park, where the family had lived, and discovered an "answer" to one of their questions, Murphy said, without explaining.

"We did find one of the answers we were looking for, but I am holding that one very tightly," he said.

Eisenbise said authorities also executed a search warrant on December 15 at the Herrmans' home in Derby, a town just outside of Wichita. They took the couple's computer, he said.

Murphy said the couple is cooperating and had not been charged with anything.

Citing a relative, the Wichita Eagle reported the Herrmans had taken Adam into foster care and later adopted him.

Michelle Ponce of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which oversees adoption and foster care, said she could not release any details regard Adam's case, and could confirm only that he had been in foster care at some point, but was no longer in foster care in 1999.

Adam had been placed in the Herrmans' care when he was about 2, Murphy said in a phone interview. He had been named Irvin Groeninger III when he was born on June 8, 1987, Murphy said, and it was not clear when his name was changed.

His biological parents relinquished their rights as parents about two decades ago, and Adam and his siblings were put in different foster homes, CNN affiliate KWCH reported.

"I thought what I was doing for them was in the best interest of the children and evidently it wasn't," Irvin Groeninger told KWCH. "If he was still in my custody this would have never happened."

Adam's sister, Tiffany Broadfoot, 22, said she last saw her brother about 14 years ago at a birthday party.

A year or two later, he sent her a Christmas card, she said. "And that was the end of my contact with him," she told KWCH.

"He had the cutest little round face, little bitty freckles right up here on the tip of his cheek," she remembered.

"I'm just awestruck as how something like that could actually happen, and how he could be missing as long as he's been and nobody say anything," she said.



Murphy said Adam's name appears on a legal document later than 1999. "We know that he was listed in a legal action as if he was still living at home, and I'm not certain of the date, but it was beyond 1999," he told CNN.
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What happened to Adam?

By KSNW News
KSNW-TV
updated 12:15 a.m. ET, Wed., Jan. 7, 2009
BUTLER COUNTY, Kansas - Where is Adam Herrman? Is he still missing or could he be dead? So many questions remain in what is now a nearly month-long investigation.

The only thing Butler County investigators seem to be sure about at this point is that Adam was 11 or 12 when he disappeared from a Towanda mobile home park back in 1999.

Even after a morning news conference by Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy, so many questions remain unanswered. Besides Adam's whereabouts, also unknown is why he was never reported missing until just a few weeks ago. It's those unknowns that continue to torment his loved ones.

"Baby brother just come home," said Tiffany Broadfoot, Adam Herrman's biological sister. "I just want you to come home. Don't be afraid, just come home."

Broadfoot last saw her brother, Adam Herrman, about 15 years ago. And given that his whereabouts have been unknown since 1999, she fears she'll never see him again. Monday, she gave investigators a DNA sample.

"Should it turn out that Adam is deceased or somebody comes up with a body that can't be identified, than we would have Adam's DNA to rule in or rule out," said Sheriff Murphy.

But in a morning news conference, Murphy said there's just as good a chance that Adam is living somewhere in the U.S. or the world. He is seeking as much publicity as possible. He appeared on CNN Monday afternoon. Adam's story is now on CNN.com.

"We don't know what happened to Adam Herrman past 1999, when he was last seen," Murphy told CNN.

Adam disappeared from the Pine Ridge Mobile Home Park where he lived with his adoptive parents. The park was searched last Wednesday by investigators after they got a tip from an undisclosed person a few weeks ago who told them Adam had been missing all these years.

Investigators said on Wednesday they found one of the answers they'd been looking for, but will not give details. As for the adoptive parents, who live in Derby, the sheriff says they could be charged for - among other things -- never reporting him missing.

"I just don't understand how you could let something like that go. If it was my child, I'd be calling the police every day," Broadfoot said.

An attorney representing Adam's adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman, says they are filled with guilt for never reporting him missing, but they just figured he had run away to be with his biological family.

But the Herrman's could be facing some serous charges. Their attorney has so far asked them not to speak.

Investigators still ask for the public's help. The Butler County Sheriff's Department can be reached at 316-322-4254.

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Boy’s 1999 disappearance raises questions, regrets

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — No one claims to know what happened that summer in 1999 when 11-year-old Adam Herrman disappeared from the mobile home park where he lived with his adoptive parents.

But the biggest mystery may be why no one reported him missing until nearly a decade later.

The search for Adam — who would be 21 if he is still alive — has confounded authorities and left family members regretting that they did not do more when they noticed he was gone.

His disappearance finally came to light last week when authorities — acting on a tip to the Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Children’s Unit — searched the empty lot in Towanda where the family’s mobile home once stood.

Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy has refused to say much about the case except that no human remains were found during the search.

The publicity around the search has spawned a flood of tips to the sheriff’s office. More tips are expected following Tuesday’s release by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of a computer-enhanced photo showing what Adam might look like today.
No charges have been brought against his adoptive parents, Valerie and Doug Herrman. Murphy said consideration of any charges would wait so officials can concentrate on the search for Adam. Investigators plan to scour the banks of the Whitewater River just west of the mobile home park on Saturday.

Doug Herrman, who lives in Derby and owns a masonry business, said Tuesday that the family would not comment.

Family attorney Warner Eisenbise said Adam had a history of running away and that the Herrmans feel “very guilty” they did not report him missing. The family assumed he had found one of his siblings or went back to his biological parents, he said.

The boy’s biological father, Irvin Groeninger II, also expressed regret. The Indiana trucker was divorced when authorities took Adam and his siblings from their mother’s home after alleged abuse. He says he was cleared of any wrongdoing and tried to get custody of his children, but child welfare officials terminated his parental rights.

“Basically, I have lost him twice,” Groeninger said.

The boy — whom he knows only by his birth name of Irvin Groeninger III — was 18 months old when Groeninger last saw him. He had hoped his son would try to contact him when he was old enough to search for his biological family.

He says he wishes he could tell his son: “I love him and I wish I had fought harder back then to get him and keep him in my custody.”

While Adam and two younger siblings were adopted by the Herrmans, Adam’s older biological sister, Tiffany Broadfoot, was adopted by another Wichita family. Broadfoot has not seen her brother since a birthday party when he was 7 or 8 years old.

Broadfoot said the first time she called Adam’s adoptive mother she was told everything was fine and Adam was doing well. Other times she was told not to call again because Adam and his siblings did not know they were adopted.

In August or September, she called Valerie Herrman again. “The last time I talked to her she was very in my face and very adamant: ‘You have no business calling here. You have no right. That is not your family. Don’t call here. Don’t talk to us. Don’t do anything. That is not your concern. Back off,”’ Broadfoot said.

Linda Bush, a former sister-in-law of Valerie Herrman, remembered Adam as a timid little boy. She has not seen him since he was at least 6 years old.

“He wasn’t boisterous, running around making a lot of noise like other children. And he stared a lot. That was strange,” Bush said. “He gave me the creeps sometimes because he would stare. But it was nothing to hate him for.”

Bush said she remembered Valerie Herrman telling the boy he was stupid.

“It was the tone. It was constant. She constantly berated him and put him down, a hateful tone,” Bush said. “It was constant and we couldn’t figure out what that boy had ever done to make her hate him like that.”

The Herrmans did not treat Adam’s two younger siblings the same way, she said.

Bush said she first heard Adam was missing last month, when Valerie Herrman called her and said police thought the boy was missing and may have been murdered. That was the first she heard that Adam had a history of running away.

Bush said the Herrmans told other family members that they had turned Adam back to the Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services. She said she had no reason to believe otherwise because the couple had other foster children who went back to state custody.

“They had turned other children back, whether voluntary or mandated,” Bush said. “Nobody had any reason to disbelieve. Who would think of something so heinous happening? Nobody did.”

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