Special Report: Sleepless Nights When You Can’t Find Your Loved One

We cherish time spent with our loved ones, and sometimes even take their presence for granted.

But what happens when they’re there one day, and gone the next?

In this special report, 9&10’s Adora Namigadde brings you the stories of a few Northern Michigan families searching for closure.

“Even after 20 years, it’s hard,” said Carol Reffitt.

In 1995, Manistee man Vince Adamczak was murdered.

It took 20 years for Michigan State Police to put the pieces together and get his killers behind bars.

“Most people think that their loved one is out there somewhere. And I probably had just a little bit of that in me, but not very much.”

Carol Reffitt is Vince Adamczak’s sister.

First, Vince just disappeared.

But he wasn’t reported missing for six and a half years.

“January of 2002, a friend of Mr. Adamczak’s contacted the state police post in Manistee and reported that his good friend Vince Adamczak was missing, and he had not seen him for several years and he feared the worst,” said Michigan State Police Deputy Sergeant Mark Miller.

“I started calling my sister-in-law and asking her. I said, ‘Well, are you checking everything? Have they checked his social security number or is he working?’” said Reffitt.

He hadn’t been working, and he hadn’t checked on his kids.

“It appeared that Mr. Adamczak had dropped off the face of the earth,” Miller said.

With so much time between Vince’s disappearance and state police investigating, they only had interviews to rely on.

“He’d been killed, we believed we knew we thought who was involved in the killing. And we had a general idea of what we believed happened to the body, but we didn’t know specifically where the body was.”

Then a big break — police found skeletal fragments.

They were key in the first-degree murder convictions of suspects Pete Peterson and Robert "Scott" Knauss.

“Juries oftentimes want to see the physical evidence. They want to be absolutely positive that this person has died, and they’re not just having left the country living somewhere.”

That’s where people like Michigan State Police Detective Sergeant Sarah Krebs come in.

“It’s really neat to be able to use my artistic talents to apply to something that actually solves cases and bring families answers,” Krebs said.

Krebs is a forensic artist with the Michigan State Police.

Art helps in missing persons cases, especially when remains are recovered, but no one knows whom they belong to.

“It’s very helpful for us to have an image associated with the sets of unidentified remains, because that’s what people are really going to look at and try to recognize the person.”

The public is crucial.

Tips from everyday people help crack cases.

“Law enforcement is very short-handed. And we could definitely use the extra eyes out there.”

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NAMUS, keeps track of who’s missing in the United States, and Americans abroad.

Lori Bruski is the regional system administrator of the agency in Michigan.

“A commonly used phrase is it takes a village. And it really does. There’s a lot of pieces to these puzzles,” Bruski said.

She says NAMUS is like a full-service crime lab – they even provide DNA testing and forensics experts to help resolve cases.

“We try to keep an open mind. We always want to find people alive and well,” Bruski said.

Sometimes they do and families find closure.

But some people are still waiting.

“Every time I just drive into town, even though I go over the bridge and I look over and just – my heart drops. Is my dad, is my dad in there?” Shawna Hubble said.

Hubble lives in Sears in Osceola County.

Her father, Donald Tiegen, vanished the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year. His car was found in the Muskegon River, but a search didn’t turn up any sign of Donald or his body.

“It’s not like he’s missing and we just can’t find him. It’s that we know that he’s probably in the river and just can’t locate his body.”

Hubble believes in her heart her dad is gone.

“I got a lawyer so I could take care of his finances and things, and they told me if he is a missing person it could be four to seven years in order to get a death certificate.”

Without finding him, there’s no closure.

“What if they don’t find him? I’m just gonna sit here and take care of his house and keep buying propane to run the furnace?”

Whether they’ve been missing for 20 years –

“I want to find the rest of my brother. I hope to do that yet. I don’t care what it takes,” said Reffitt.

Or a few months –

“I feel like I’m just sitting here waiting. And every day wasted is a day that goes by

All it takes is the right break, the right tip, witness or technology to bring hurting families some sense of peace.