Protest planned to convice BSO that canal sweeps may find missing people

Protest planned to convice BSO that canal sweeps may find missing people
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By Sofia Santana
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

December 17, 2006

Ever since a missing teen's body was pulled from a Weston canal in May, about
seven months after he vanished, a local missing children's advocacy group has
wondered whether there are more bodies in the murky water.

Missing Children International Ministries, based in Pembroke Pines, wants the
Broward Sheriff's Office to search the canal for cars and bodies but said
detectives and officials keep brushing them off.

The group is planning a protest this afternoon on the bank of the canal along
U.S. 27, near Griffin Road, in hopes of getting the agency's attention.

"What if there are remains in the trunks of those cars?" asked Dinorah Perry,
the group's founder.

She persuaded detectives to listen to her on other issues surrounding missing
children but said she hasn't had luck with this topic.

Sheriff's officials said they'd be more than happy to search a canal if Perry
could convince them that it's likely they'll find a body in the water. Spokesman
Elliot Cohen also said sheriff's divers routinely check area canals during
training.

"If she has any specific evidence, then we certainly would welcome her
cooperation," he added.

Perry said she doesn't have any specific information on a case but instead has
proof that there are more than a dozen cars submerged in the canal. She argues
that if there's any possibility that a body could be inside one of those cars,
the Sheriff's Office has a duty to remove it from the water.

In May, divers scoured the canal and found a pickup truck with the body of
18-year-old Matthew Stirling, of Royal Palm Beach, inside. He went missing after
leaving a party in Southwest Ranches in November 2005. Sheriff's officials at
the time said they scoured several canals in their search for Stirling and
uncovered 45 abandoned or stolen vehicles.

Perry said she thinks the dark water of the area's canals could hold the answers
to the mystery surrounding scores of disappearances, especially cases where the
missing person's car vanished, too.

"Until we pull out all the cars, we'll never know," Perry said.

Sofia Santana can be reached at svsantana@sun-sentinel.com.



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Many of you might recall the endless searches we conducted for Mathew using SWFK9 teams and the complaints we brought up then concerning the canal situation. They did remove cars but almost every canal plays host to many more. I cannot believe that they cannot just pull the cars on a monthly basis as a project that continues. The money is well spent if one person is recovered and brought home. Yes, that has already been done, so move forward and get the rest. Almost every canal that was dove searching for Mathew; cars were in the canals. What a shame.
Protesters urge BSO to reel in sunken cars
The family of a teenager found in a Weston canal wants the Broward Sheriff's Office to remove all vehicles submerged in local waterways, in hopes of finding more missing people.
BY ANI MARTINEZ
armartinez@MiamiHerald.com
Standing beside the colorful, artificial flowers decorating an accident marker on U.S. 27 just north of Griffin Road, Elisa Stirling clutched a picture of her son Mathew Stirling, who was found dead in the canal May 10 by BSO divers.

Elisa Stirling, 41, of Royal Palm Beach, held a rally Sunday afternoon at the spot where BSO divers found the truck in 14 feet of water in the C-11 South New River canal in Weston. Stirling, along with family and friends, are asking BSO to dredge all the canals in Broward County and remove any cars they find, in hopes of finding other missing persons.

40 CARS FOUND

''I had hired a diver and for a month we tried to find him. The diver said he found 40 cars down there,'' Stirling said. ``Who's to say there can't be any other missing people down there.''

''We're trying to ask BSO for a commitment to bring up these cars,'' said Mathew's aunt, Alison McManus.

A BSO spokeswoman said Sunday that it's rare to find bodies in submerged cars, most of which are stolen or deliberately placed in canals for insurance fraud.

Mathew Stirling, 18, disappeared Nov. 6, 2005, and was found six months later by BSO officials, only a few miles away from a nearby gas station where he was last seen by security cameras. Mathew was Stirling's only son, who helped care for her after her husband committed suicide in 2003.

SEEING A THERAPIST

Mathew, who was taking the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and seeing a therapist, had been hanging out at a friend's house in Southwest Ranches on Nov. 6, where he had a beer or two, his friends said at the time. He left there around midnight and then called friends to meet him at a gas station at 1 a.m. A surveillance camera at a Sunoco station on U.S. 27 captured the last known image of Mathew at 4:30 a.m.

His body was found May 10 in his red Ford F-150 truck in the canal.

BSO spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said the agency's divers often recover cars from canals as part of training exercises.

''The dive team goes out often. Usually, when they go out and recover cars, they are reported stolen or they are insurance fraud cases,'' Coleman-Wright said. ``It is very rare to find bodies.''

Coleman-Wright said that when divers are in the canals they are thoroughly checked.

The next ''canal sweep'' is in January, Coleman-Wright said.

Since Mathew's disappearance, the family has been working with Dinorah Perry of Missing Children International Ministry. They set up a foundation called Cars Being Held Hostage: In Memory of Mathew Stirling.

''I went to Publix one day and saw the beautiful picture of Matt. I called the family and asked them how I could help,'' Perry said. ``It's a shame families of missing children can't have the closure and are wondering if their son or daughter is in a canal.

''Perhaps 90 percent of the cars could be insurance fraud, but then they should pull these cars up and process the claim,'' Perry said. ``If one car has a body of someone's child, that may bring closure to a family.''

GETTING PERMISSION

''BSO is saying it is going to cost them, but through the Missing Children International Ministry I can make it so BSO doesn't have to waste time and money,'' Perry said. ``They just need to give us permission to dive in their district.''

Stirling feels so strongly about this that she donated $1,400 from the foundation she set up in her son's name to Perry's ministry.

''It took six months for them to find my son,'' Stirling said. ``It shouldn't take that long for others.''


Monica Caison
CUE Center for Missing Persons
PO Box 12714
Wilmington, NC 28405
(910) 343-1131
(910) 232-1687 24 Hour Line
Email: cuecenter@aol.com
Website: http://www.ncmissingpersons.org/