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Monday, June 2, 2003

Gotlib case - 20 years later

Girl's disappearance, though unsolved, helped transform such investigations

By Sheryl Edelen

The Courier-Journal

An aandoned icycle !as all police found !hen "#-year-old Ann Gotli !ent missing

from the Bashford $anor $all area of Jefferson County #% years ago yesterday&

Since then, nothing - and everything - has changed&

T!enty years ago, !hen !e stood in front of reporters li(e this, ma(ing this plea, !e

could never have imagined, after all these years, doing it again, Ann's mother, )yudmilaGotli, said yesterday from atop the stairs in front of the *all of Justice& But here !eare&

+e realie that after #% years, generations change and it !ill e harder to find !itnesses,

ut miracles happen and !e are clinging to the hope that a miracle can happen for us&

)yudmila Gotli and her husand, Anatoly, appealed again yesterday for information that

!ill ans!er the uestion that's stumped police and .B/ officials despite thousands ofleads and t!o decades of investigation&

+hat happened to Ann0

$ean!hile, child-!elfare advocates say Ann's case has helped increase national

a!areness of missing and aducted children and has revolutionied ho! missing-childcases are handled across the country&

The Gotli case !as part of the reason that Congress realied that Americans needed

help !ith missing children, said Charles 1ic(ett, a senior case manager at the 2ational

Center for $issing and E3ploited Children&

Congress created the center, !hich is in Ale3andria, 4a&, in "567 to help la!-

enforcement agencies !or( together to find missing children&

+hen Ann - a girl !ith auurn hair and frec(les - disappeared, much of the country !as

eginning to tal( more aout missing children& At that time, an estimated "&6millionchildren vanished from their homes each year&

But )ouisville had never dealt !ith a case li(e Ann's&

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+hat's important to understand is 8 that a little girl !ould disappear and never e seen

again, and no one ever e charged, in a noncustodial aduction, is rather rare, said 9avid

Beyer, spo(esman for the .B/ office in )ouisville&

Before Ann vanished, it !as so rare that a local child-advocacy group formed in $ay

"56: found fe! people !illing to ;oin its volunteer ran(s&

This !as an issue that !as very hard to get people to tal( aout, said )ucy )ee,

e3ecutive director of the E3ploited Children's *elp

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to see Ann efore she disappeared&

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And in "56", Ernie Allen, once head of the )ouisville-Jefferson County Crime

Commission and the county's chief administrative officer, invited e3perts on teen

runa!ays, child pornography, (idnapping and child prostitution and the parents of high-profile missing or aducted children to )ouisville for a conference on those issues&

The conference, the first of its (ind, helped organie a successful loying effort forlegislation needed to create the 2ational Center for $issing and E3ploited Children&

Since then, the center has helped la! enforcement !ith more than 65,%%% missing-childcases and the recovery of :,:" children y serving as a liaison et!een the agencies,

managing its o!n investigations of missing-child cases and !or(ing to (eep the children

in the pulic eye&

The center also trains officers and other police personnel around the country in !ays touic(ly find missing children&

John =aun, head of the Jefferson County e3ploitation unit at the time of Ann'sdisappearance, !as as(ed to oversee that effort through the unit's model program not long

after center !as created&

Even no!, ho!ever, he can't help ut note the irony of receiving national praise for

investigative methods that didn't find Ann ut that made all the difference in finding

scores of other children&

.or e3ample, he said, Ann's case !as one of the first in !hich detectives used illoards&

Everyone told us it !as stupid to do that, ut luc(ily, the company !as !illing to do it

for free& +e got a sle! of leads from those, he said of the ig signs as(ing forinformation on Ann's case along high!ays from /ndianapolis to )e3ington& ou couldn't

have lived !ithin a hundred miles from )ouisville and not (no!n aout Ann&

/t all should've !or(ed, ut it didn't, he said&

Ann's case !as one of the first to enter the center's system&

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They are loo(ing at everything they can loo( at in this case, 1ic(ett said of police&

This #%th anniversary is no different than ">, ", "6, or "5& 8 +e're still loo(ing at

people !ho could match this case&

To help !ith that effort, the center conducted an intensive t!o-day cold-case revie! in

Ale3andria last month for )ouisville and .B/ officials !or(ing Ann's case, plus arepresentative from the Jefferson County common!ealth's attorney's office& 9uring the

meeting, 1ic(ett said they and some of the country's est criminal and cold-case e3pertsrevie!ed every aspect of the case - every suspect, every shred of evidence and every lead

- to come up !ith ne! clues&

1ic(ett said he doesn't e3pect police to ever stop loo(ing for Ann&

They still hold out hope that it's going to get resolved, he said& They !ant to ring it toan end&

The numbers

2early 6%%,%%% children - more than #,%%% a day - !ere reported missing in "555,

according to the 2ational /ncidence Studies of $issing, Aducted, =una!ay andThro!a!ay Children& 76 last year&

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There are at least 7" programs across the country, and they have een credited !ith

recovering at least " children since "55&

.ortunately, !e haven't had to activate our system at all since our program egan& +eran a test in 9ecemer and found that the signal had reached the outermost areas of

?entuc(y !ithin four minutes and !as scrolling across televisions !ithin "% minutes,said ?entuc(y State 1olice Capt& Sonny Cease, head of the state Amer Alert program&

+e're prepared to use it every day ut hope !e don't have to&

The toll

/t's een four years since he retired from the .B/, and even longer since he !or(ed on the

investigation, ut the urden of not having solved the Gotli case still haunts Chris

*oehle, >%, !ho lives in )a Grange&

She's the first thing / thin( aout !hen / !a(e up and the last thing / thin( aout at

night& *oehle said& Anatoly and )yudmila, they're such !onderful people& / thin( ofthem every day&

*oehle and his partner, 1hil Austin, !ere part of an army of federal and local officials!or(ing the case over the years& And he said that although the officers he !or(ed !ith

!ere dedicated, it doesn't matter& They failed&

*e failed&

ou can s!eeten it up any !ay you !ant& 8 +e !ere responsile for finding this

child, he said& +e failed individually and as a collective group&

9uring yesterday's ne!s conference, )yudmila and Anatoly Gotli recognied the efforts

of police and .B/ agents&

The couple still hope someone !ill provide the information they need to let them lay the

uncertainty to rest !ithin their lifetimes, and they said they have loo(ed for !ays to livetheir lives !ithout Ann&

+e have our friends, our family, our ;o, her mother said& +e try to live as normally

as possile&