There are approximately 1,140 missing persons cases in Indiana, according to the Indiana State Police Missing Person Bulletin. About 280 of these cases fall under the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. IndyStar examined some of these cases in the 1990s and early 2000s to see where they stand. As of December, more than 185 people reported missing in Indiana a decade or more ago are still listed on the state bulletin.
Karen Jo Smith’s ex-husband has been convicted of murder, but her body remains missing.
Photo of Karen Jo Smith celebrating Christmas. Smith went missing on December 27, 2000.
Karen Jo Smith’s then 14-year-old son last saw her sleeping on the armchair in their living room. Her former husband, Steven Halcomb, sat with her.
That was December 27, 2000. The next morning she was gone.
Before her disappearance, Halcomb had threatened Smith several times and said he would harm her family and children. Her stepmother Patti Bishop said Halcomb physically abused Smith.
Smith’s case was a rare instance in which Halcomb was convicted of murder despite the absence of a body. He was sentenced to 95 years in prison in January 2005.
The family has continued to search ever since. According to her stepmother, Halcomb said Smith’s body was in Kentucky.
Bishop, who moved to Kentucky and searched for her stepdaughter with the help of family and friends, fondly remembers Smith’s loyalty and her love of family.
“When Karen loved Jo, you knew it,” Bishop said. “She had a loyalty that was fierce.”
Bishop now volunteers at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and founded IN Hope in 2006 as a support system in Indiana for families with a missing person.
“There are so many people I know who are still searching, and we don’t have the final answer. If you go missing, you will do almost anything to find them,” Bishop said.
Cold cases: What happened to these missing persons cases in Indiana decades later?
This article originally appeared on the Indianapolis Star: An Indiana woman’s family moves to Kentucky in hopes of finding her body
