Six Months

It has been six months since Gail Nowacki Palmgren went missing.

Melpomene asked in comments on the previous post:

I would love to hear from some of the people who knew her, loved her and are missing her..


Did she enjoy celebrating Halloween? Did she enjoy decorating the house, dressing up and handing out treats to the children in the neighborhood?

I think these are terrific questions. While I did not know Gail, my thoughts today are with her children as they get ready for Halloween and as we embark on the winter holiday season. I wish them peace and closure, and most of all to be reunited with their mother.


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Gail was last seen driving away from her home at about 12:15 PM on April 30, 2011. She was driving a 2010 dark red Jeep Rubicon in Red Rock Crystal Pearl color. The Jeep has a tire cover with a blue daisy and "Life is good," and her trailer hitch had a novelty Goofy cover. Her license plate reads "EAZY ST." Gail is 5 foot 8, 135 pounds, with blonde hair and brown eyes.

Gail and her husband Matt Palmgren were about to separate with plans for divorce. In the months before her disappearance, she had given paperwork and evidence to friends to hold for the impending divorce proceedings. Also, Gail had been speaking to friends and relatives for a few weeks prior to her disappearance about fears that she was being followed. She had given several items and even money to relatives and friends to hold in case something happened to her.

Her last phone call was to her husband Matt Palmgren, apparently to let him know she had dropped the kids off at home. She has not been heard from since. Her phone last pinged on May 2nd, the day she was reported missing, and it has not been found. No sightings of her Jeep have been confirmed since the sighting by a neighbor around noon on April 30.

Matt Palmgren did not call police about his wife missing until after her sister Diane Nichols called police first, about 45 hours after last hearing from Gail. Soon after Gail was reported missing, Matt, his girlfriend Tammy Helton, and his mother Julanne Palmgren retained criminal defense attorneys. Neither Matt, Helton, his mother, nor his kids (the last to see Gail before she disappeared) have been questioned by police and no person of interest or suspect has been noted.

Police searched the Suck Creek area in May, reportedly did an aerial search several months ago, and are planning another when the leaves fall. After several months while hashing out an agreement for restricted searches as dictated by Matt's defense attorneys, law enforcement finally began searching the Palmgren homes in July. To our knowledge, nothing was found, but items had been removed from the homes and people had been staying in the homes during the months since Gail disappeared. Volunteers and relatives have searched the Chattanooga area looking for signs of Gail. None have been found, and no signs of an accident have been uncovered.

There are two main theories from the people who say Gail simply ran off. One is that she withdrew (or "stole" as some people put it) $420,000.00 from bank accounts just before she left. Since then it has been stated many times that she did not withdraw money but rather changed PINs on her own retirement accounts. These accounts have not been accessed by Gail since she disappeared, and she never attempted to get the money she gave others to hold for her.

The other theory is that she is in an underground safe shelter for women. Since it has been six full months, I personally feel that by now she would have gotten the legal assistance and protection she needed, and could have resumed returning to her children and her life. No woman would simply languish underground without her kids, her relatives, her friends, her money and her belongings. She would be trying to get her life back. Further, her friends and relatives say she would not have abandoned her kids, and I see no reason for them to lie.

Something happened to Gail. While it's true that she could have been in an accident or done something while despondent, the circumstances and timing of her disappearance point to foul play. To my eyes, it seems evidence of foul play has not been found simply because it has not been seriously searched for.

However, eventually someone will come forward with information or Gail and/or her Jeep will be found. That is simply all that there is to it. It may take time, it may take a lot of luck and even upset a lot of people who would rather this case not even be discussed, but she will be found. When she is found, the truth will come out.

Missing Persons Cases Often Ignored

Below are several quotes from a sobering but important article published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2003. This is a very lengthy article that was originally published in 10 parts. You can find all of them at this link which starts with the first part of the article, and remaining parts are linked in order below. Quite a bit of the article is about serial killers and identifying remains, but much in the beginning is about the difficulty getting law enforcement to take missing person's reports seriously.

Note that in the article, when they say "the P-I" they mean the Post-Intelligencer, not private investigator.

The article specifically investigates cases in Washington state, but the article details problems with nationwide databases and records, so I see no reason to think the problems are confined within the borders of one state.

Some choice quotes, all from the first two parts of the article:

Because of a lack of knowledge, indifference or poor training, police officers in Washington state -- and around the nation -- routinely fail to take even the most obvious steps, conduct routine follow-ups or comply with the law when handling missing-persons cases, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found in a yearlong investigation.

"If people knew how little was done with missing-persons cases, they'd scream," said Gary Bell, forensic dentist for the Washington State Patrol's Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit.

Police consider missing-person cases a low priority, and there's no real penalty if they let them slide.

"Police departments hate missing-persons reports because they tend to be a pain in the butt," [Detective Tom Jensen, a longtime Green River Task Force member] explained. "Detectives will look for ways to dump cases so they don't have to do the follow-up work."

The P-I article describes specific problems of missing persons ignored who later turn out to be victims of serial killers:

...detectives often were overly eager to close cases on rumor or hearsay without confirming whether a missing person was really alive and well. Four women believed to be victims of the Green River Killer -- Gail Mathews, Andrea Childers, Mary Bello and Tammy Liles -- had been reported missing to various police departments. Yet their cases had been closed on the basis of unconfirmed sightings or rumors that they were alive. Investigators later learned the reports could not have been true -- the women had long been dead.

The problem of balancing respect for an adult's privacy and the possibility of foul play:

...small children don't disappear on their own. Adults are a different story. They can go and do what they please, and it's no crime if someone isn't where someone else thought they should be.


They also know, from past experience, that few missing people are victims of foul play.


In each of the past five years, the FBI reported that for every new missing-person case on the books, more than one was resolved. In 2001, for example, 841,266 cases were reported to the FBI, but 861,918 were cleared, reflecting closure of old cases.


Experts agree the number of missing adults reported each year -- almost 200,000 in 2001 -- is low because local police routinely take a wait-and-see approach. It's a matter of cost-effectiveness, they say.


"When you look at your midsize and smaller departments, probably none of them have a missing-persons unit," said Bremerton Police Capt. Craig Rogers. "With our resources, we have to make decisions on priorities and, obviously, crimes of violence are going to take top priority.


"So, when you get a missing-persons report with no obvious sign of foul play, it's probably not going to get the attention. You'd like to investigate every case, but you have to strike a balance."

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A missing-person report is not a crime report. Nor does filing a report mean that anyone will go looking for the subject -- there's no law that says adults have to be where someone thinks they should be.


The report is a tripwire to alert police of a possible crime, and in many cases it is a way to reach across time and distance to identify any human remains that might turn up years later, hundreds of miles away.

The P-I article continues, saying that even when foul play is indicated, cases are ignored:

Through hundreds of interviews and analysis of hundreds of police reports and information in three state computer databases, the P-I found that police statewide routinely botch or ignore missing-person cases, even when there are ample indications of foul play. As a result, families have been left with unanswered questions, countless dead have been buried without a name and killers have been allowed to roam free.

This particular quote made me cringe (bolded by me):

"I don't think any law enforcement agency is going to dedicate those kind of resources to track down each and every missing person" without signs of a crime, said Bremerton Police Capt. Craig Rogers.


When asked about open cases, Rogers said: "Is it possible that some of these cases might end up with foul play involved? Anything's possible."

Sound familiar?

"If there was credible evidence to show us that we would focus on criminal activity here, perhaps we would have moved a quicker on some of these things," said Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond.

In an interview Wednesday, Hammond told Channel 3 this is still a missing persons case.

"I've seen cases strange enough where you would just swear somebody was dead to foul play and they do turn up, even years later," said Hammond, "so you can't discount that."

Gail Nowacki Palmgren was last seen on April 30 at about 12:15 p.m. while driving away from her home in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. She was driving a darker red (Red Rock Crystal Pearl) Jeep Rubicon with a Goofy tire hitch, a personalized Alabama plate that says "EAZY ST," and a black tire cover with a blue daisy and "Life Is Good" printed on it. Gail is 5 feet 8 inches, 135 pounds, blonde hair and brown eyes. If you have seen Gail or her Jeep, contact Hamilton County Sheriff's Office at 423-209-8940 or call your local police. If someone may be in danger, call 911.

Discussion: Who has been interviewed?

This was brought up in the first post on the blog, and I thought it would be a good place to start for discussion.

BGHN mentioned a source in the media:

My source said: "Unless there have been new developments in the past 4 or 5 days no one has been interviewed" ~ that was 09/20/11

Praying4Gail asked:

What about other people like Arlene, Diane, Susie B, other friends like the G's, CC from the siting? Did they say if they been interviewed about phone calls or emails or the sightings? Or any conversations with Gail. What about friends of Matt or friends or coworkers of the gf? In other words, is the LE being active going out looking for information? Or just waiting for somebody come to them. Thank you.

That's an excellent question. Has anyone been interviewed by the PD? We know Arlene spoke with the FBI, but I don't know of anyone else who has been interviewed. Who do you think should be interviewed? Do you think Gail's children should be, or are they too young?