Mother who lived in Oklahoma still searches for son after 40 years

BY RON JACKSON Comments 3
Published: November 8, 2009
Modified: November 18, 2009 at 3:17 pm

ENID — Joreta McFadden doesn’t go to sleep without whispering "good night” to her wide-eyed, 2-year-old son, Kipper. She has done so for the past 41 years.

This is what Kipper Lacey might look like today, according to the age progression talents at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. If alive, he is 43 years old. Photos provided

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"Every night I tell him good night, every single time,” said McFadden, choking back tears. "I just tell him, ‘I love you.’”

McFadden, a Moorewood native now living in Colorado, last saw her son in June 1968. She thinks he was abducted by her then-estranged husband, Mike Lacey. Two months later, Dorothy Groseclose — Mike Lacey’s mother — sold her Enid home and quit a job she had held for 20 years. She too vanished.

No one has reportedly seen the three since. Private investigators have tried to contact Lacey and his mother through the years. They’ve checked death records, driver’s license records and have run traces on their Social Security numbers. Each time the results have been the same: No activity since 1968.

"People have told me, ‘A person can’t just disappear,’” said McFadden, 66. "Well, I’m here to tell you they can.”

Authorities at the time told McFadden her estranged husband had broken no laws and called the matter "a domestic dispute,” she said. Today, the U.S. Department of Justice says "parental abduction is a crime in all 50 states.” Information about an alleged abductor can now be entered into the National Crime Information Center database, which alerts law enforcement agencies nationwide.

McFadden is again exploring her legal options.

Barbara Maly, Groseclose’s younger half sister, said she hasn’t seen her sister or nephew since 1968. For Maly, Kipper’s disappearance is an unpleasant subject.

"She (Dorothy) just came over to the house one day, and said goodbye,” said Maly, 76 and a lifelong Enid resident. "Didn’t say where she was going or nothing. Haven’t seen her since.

"You know, I’m getting real tired of this story. I’ve lived with this story for 40 years, and from time to time, people come around here, asking questions. People have made me feel like I’m on trial. I’m glad Dorothy and Mike didn’t tell me what their plans were or where they were going.

"If they had, I’d have been drug into court every time someone wanted a question answered. I can tell you this, I won’t bad-mouth Dorothy or what she did. I have grandchildren, and I’d do anything for them, too.”

Sydney Webb, who shared a Dallas apartment with Lacey in 1968, remains baffled by his friend’s disappearance.

"He gave me no indication he would do anything like this,” said Webb, now 70 and still living in Dallas. "In fact, he left all his clothes and everything. I carried them around for a long time afterward before finally giving them to Goodwill.”

Webb said he received only one clue about Lacey’s whereabouts. Lacey sent him a postcard later that year from San Antonio.

McFadden recently renewed her search with the help of a new acquaintance, Jerry Kunkel, former director of the Enid High School Alumni Association. Kunkel’s duties once called for him to locate missing alumni, but it may be his years as a broadcast reporter that serve him best in his new quest.

Kunkel, who said he was part of the Dallas media corps in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, is tapping into all his old resources. He’s garnered the help of sources connected to the FBI, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and Social Security Administration, to name a few.

Recently, he was successful in getting an age-progression photograph of Kipper Lacey, who would now be 43, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"In order for Mike to have pulled this off, he probably told Kipper his mother had died or something to that effect,” Kunkel said. "Their names have likely been changed, and they may very well be living in Canada or Mexico, although we have evidence that leads us to believe they are still living in the United States. Personally, I think they can be found.”

McFadden has never given up hope, but is reluctant to dream.

"I’ve gotten real skeptical,” McFadden admits. "I’ve had so many ups and downs over the years, false hopes, and people saying they’re gonna do this or that. Over the past 41 years, I’ve done just about everything. I’ve even thrown a little money at private investigators — foolishly.”

A few years ago a man called McFadden from a Louisiana bayou with the suspicion he was her son. Sadly, the man’s age and story didn’t fit.

Just last week a psychic left a message on a toll-free hot line set up by Kunkel. The psychic claimed Mike Lacey and his mother were killed in a car accident in the 1980s, and Kipper was living in Tijuana, Mexico.

"Emotionally, I’ve been through it all,” McFadden said. "I’ve never given up hope, but for self-preservation, I’ve learned to put it aside at times. I can’t do this 24/7.”

Kunkel started by retracing the events of 1968, back when Mike Lacey was picking up Kipper at McFadden’s home in Bethany for regular visitation. On that day in June, Groseclose picked up the child on her son’s behalf.

By Sunday evening, McFadden was concerned.

"I called Dorothy and asked where Mike was,” McFadden recalled. "She said not to worry and that he’d be there any minute. But he never came.”

Groseclose left behind her job and forthcoming benefits at the Pillsbury Co. in Enid. Lacey was her only surviving child.

Farrel Roper, then 23, bought Groseclose’s two-story home for $13,000.

"She sold her house and all her furniture,” said Roper, who now lives in Edmond. "I remember her saying that she and her son were going away to raise her grandson, and that they were running away from a negligent mother. At the time, I never even gave it a second thought. In fact, I hadn’t even heard her name in 41 years, not until Jerry (Kunkel) contacted me.”

In 1987, International Genealogical Search Inc. filed a report to the Evelyn C. Taylor Estate, which was trying to locate Mike Lacey about an inheritance left by his aunt. The three-year investigation concluded, "It would appear when Michael, Kipper and Dorothy disappeared in 1968, they left the United States and either immigrated to a foreign country or possibly obtained new identities.”

If alive, Groseclose would be 95. Lacey would be 70.

"Personally, I think they’re somewhere in Mexico,” said McFadden, who remarried and has a 37-year-old son. "I just hope, maybe in a secret box somewhere, Mike has left Kip a note to find, telling him the truth about me. I’d hate to think he’d take this secret to his grave.”