Enid News Article 2

July 28, 2010
Family employs Internet in search for Kipper Lacey

By Cindy Allen,
Managing Editor Enid News and Eagle The Enid News and Eagle Wed Jul 28, 2010, 10:54 PM CDT

ENID — Friends and family still trying to locate the whereabouts of Kipper Lacey 42 years after he disappeared in a parental abduction case are hoping a new website, social networking and Internet technology will create more leads to finding him.

Kipper was just 2 years old when his grandmother, Dorothy Groseclose Lacey, picked him up from his mother in Oklahoma City for what was supposed to be a routine parental visit in Enid with his father, Mike Lacey. The boy was never returned to his mother, Joreta “Jo” McFadden, and Kipper, Mike and Dorothy have not been heard from since.

Over the years, friends and family have tried to locate the boy; however, at the time of the abduction, there were no laws against a parent taking his or her own child.

Friends and family of McFadden recently stepped up their efforts to find Kipper Lacey.

A new website, www.kippersmom.com, has been established, and the case also is on Facebook, the popular social networking site. Jerry Kunkel, of Enid, took an interest in the case about three years ago and has been working with local, state and national media to call attention to the story. The News & Eagle, The Oklahoman and some Oklahoma City television stations ran the story about the case in late 2009.

With the establishment of the website and Facebook site, those working with the case hope more national attention will follow.

“There are about 12 magazines and 15 television shows and programs we’re targeting,” Kunkel said. He also has garnered the help of Dan Vogel, a retired FBI investigator, and former Oklahoma City news broadcaster Terri Watkins has been helping with the case.

Watkins did a taped interview with the mother, McFadden, and that interview is available for broadcast media who want to use it.

Kunkel said it’s imperative more information about the case get out to the public because the more people know about the case, the better possibility someone, somewhere will remember seeing Dorothy, Mike or Kipper over the years.

“The information on the website and Facebook is meant to generate memories,” Kunkel said.

Vogel, whose expertise included fugitive cases, child abductions and kidnappings, said he is hopeful the new technology will generate some leads to Kipper’s whereabouts.

“We have more technology today than we have ever had in law enforcement,” he said.

Vogel said the longevity of this case has made it difficult to locate Kipper, whose name likely was changed when he was a young child. Investigators suspect Dorothy and Mike changed their identities to hide their tracks.

Certainly the length of time since the boy was taken — and the fact there has been no paper trail linked to Dorothy or Mike — has made the case even more of a mystery. Kunkel said Mike Lacey walked away from a job in Dallas, Dorothy walked away from a pension at the former Pillsbury plant in Enid, and both walked away from a substantial inheritance that occurred several years ago.

“That money would be worth over $1 million in today’s money,” Kunkel said.

Investigators trying to locate Dorothy and Mike over the inheritance in the early 1980s established the pair’s Social Security numbers hadn’t been accessed since 1968 and there were no driver’s license records in their names either. It later was discovered Mike’s Social Security number was stolen in an unrelated identity theft.

The investigators working on the case now are hopeful Kipper eventually will be found. Dorothy likely has passed away, or she would be 96 years old. Mike Lacey would be in his 70s and Kipper would be 44.

The group has age-progressed drawings of what Kipper would look like at around 20 and what he might look like today.

“Whether he knows he was taken from his mother, we don’t have any way of knowing,” Vogel said. “I think he’s out there somewhere and I think it’s very possible we will solve this case.”