Case Details
- Photo URLs:
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- Missing Since:
- Missing Since 11/01/1974
- Missing From:
- Missing From Independence, Missouri
- Classification:
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Gender:
- Female
- Race:
- Race White
- Date of Birth:
- Date of Birth 11/07/1947 (77)
- Age:
- Age 27 years old
- Height and Weight:
- Height and Weight 5’7, 130 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description:
- Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Denman has a slight build. She wears a dental plate.
- Details of Disappearance:
- A mom named Denman, her son Michael, and daughter Sheri vanished along with her husband, Henry Lee Harbison (who also went by Henry Johnson). Nobody noticed they were gone for five months! Their landlord finally reported them missing in March 1975.
Police found Denman’s clothes at home, but the husband’s and children’s clothes were gone. There was blood on a cushion, but tests couldn’t say what it was from. Police suspect Harbison might have killed his family. He had a long criminal record and used different names. People he knew from the Church of the New Song also think the whole family was murdered. However, Denman’s family thinks she was killed and the kids were given away.
Both local police and the FBI investigated, but the local police closed the case, assuming the FBI would continue it—which they didn’t. The case stayed closed until 2004. Because it’s so unclear what happened, the kids’ disappearances are listed as abductions by someone not in the family. The mystery of what happened to Denman, Michael, and Sheri remains unsolved.
- Agency:
- Independence Police Department
- Source Links:
This person was missing Missing Since 11/01/1974