The Mysterious Disappearance of Charlotte Heimann

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Case Uncovered, where we lift up the voices of the missing, the murdered, and the ones left behind. I'm Jen Rivera, and today I'm sharing the story of Charlotte Hyman, a brilliant young woman with a sharp mind, a fiery spirit, and a future that was abruptly cut short. In nineteen eighty one, Charlotte vanished from Rochester, New York, just weeks before completing her PhD. She'd overcome incredible odds, survived a serious accident, and worked tirelessly toward a better life for herself and her daughter. But just days after telling hospital staff she feared for her safety, Charlotte walked out of the Rochester Psychiatric Center and was never seen again. What happened to Charlotte is still a mystery, but what's not a mystery is how hard she tried to stay safe. She warned people, she asked for help, and still no one protected her. This case hits especially hard because Charlotte isn't just a missing person. She was a fighter, a mother, a sister, a daughter, and today her granddaughter, Shilah, who she never got to meet, is continuing the fight for answers Shilah worked with me directly on this episode, helping bring together the facts, the timeline, and the family's perspective. Throughout this episode, I'll be sharing clips from our conversation. Case Uncovered is part of Shores of Strength, the nonprofit I founded to support families like Charlotte's. We work to amplify these stories and stand beside those still waiting for justice, because no family should ever have to fight alone. If you believe in that mission, I invite you to join us. Visit Shores of Strength dot org to get involved, make a donation, or help share these stories. Your voice matters, and together we can be the strength that keeps these stories alive. Charlotte's story isn't just heartbreaking, it's a call to action, one that's long overdue. So let's dive write in. Charlotte Elaine Hyman was born on July twenty third, nineteen fifty four, in Cameron, Texas. Charlotte stood out not just for her striking green eyes and long auburn hair, but for her drive and intellect. She was in the final stretch of earning her doctorate, which, as many of us know, is such a remark achievement. Charlotte Hyman's story, as told by her younger brother, Richard, haints a picture of someone who was gentle yet full of depth. He describes her as the kind of sister who made the world better just by being in it. When Richard was young and ill in Kentucky, Charlotte became his teacher and caretaker, reading to him, helping him learn to spell, even quizzing him with math questions and rewarding him with candy when he got them right. Charlotte's upbringing was inconsistent. Richard doesn't recall much about her elementary school years, but she went to junior high in Indiana before they moved to Kentucky, where she dropped out around age sixteen. Charlotte's early life was shaped by frequent moves, military ties, and a fractured family dynamic. When Charlotte was born, her family was stationed at a military base. By nineteen fifty nine, they had moved to Hampton, Virginia. One of her siblings, Jeanne, was born there but sadly died shortly after birth. The next few years are unclear, but by nineteen sixty two the family had relocated to Rochester, New York, where Richard was born. Between nineteen sixty two and nineteen sixty nine, Richard is Ensure, where Charlotte lived, but in nineteen sixty nine, at Alice, who played the biggest role in raising the children, divorced Ralph and married Richard Senior in East Chicago, Indiana. By nineteen seventy they were living in Kentucky, and around nineteen seventy one, Charlotte moved to Cincinnati, where she later suffered a serious motorcycle accident, an event that changed the. Course of her life. Richard believed she. Was about nineteen when it happened, likely in nineteen seventy three. After the accident, Charlotte returned to New York, though the timeline is a little blurry. From nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty one, Charlotte was living in Rochester, New York. In nineteen seventy nine, she moved from a house on North Street to an apartment on Alexander Street. There was a restlessness about Charlotte, Richard said, though he wasn't sure what it stemmed from. She was tough, a little guarded, and had this fascination with war and combat. She'd watch old combat shows and even sketch war scenes. Charlotte Hyman was many things, protective, determined, complicated, but above all, deeply loved by the people who knew her best. Alice once told The Democrat and Chronicle in a nineteen eighty two interview, She's just a tiny little squirt. Somebody could have picked her up and put her wherever they want. She could not defend herself against anyone, but those closest to Charlotte knew that underneath her small frame was a fiery spirit. Millie, a family member who looked up to Charlotte, remembered her as tough in the outside, but warm and loving at heart. Charlotte baby sat Milly when she was young, taught her self defense, and spoiled her. Milli described Charlotte as a tomboy who loved riding her motorcycle, someone who could be blunt, a total asshole, she joked, but always had her back. If she loved you, she said, Charlotte would give her life for the people she cared about. Milly recalls that Charlotte wasn't easily pushed around. She was stubborn, fiercely determined, and had clear goals. One of them was finishing college in Rochester to create a better life for her daughter Elisa. Leaving Elsa behind in Ohio with Alice was incredibly hard on Charlotte, but she called home often to check on her, and she never stopped trying to balance motherhood and ambition. According to Milly, the motorcycle accident Charlotte suffered in her late teens was a major turning point. It humbled her and changed her in ways that lingered before that. Charlotte seemed invincible after she became more guarded with her emotions, but still loved just as deeply. The bond between Charlotte and her brother Joey was especially strong. Milly said, if joe was somewhere, Charlotte was right there with him. That's why she's certain if Charlotte had been alive, she would have shown up to Joey's funeral even a year after she disappeared. Milly shared that Charlotte enjoyed spending time with her brother's Joey and Neil. She had a fierce personality, a rebellious streak, and she wasn't afraid to hide it. She was a raging bull, Millie said, but also the kind of person who could light up a room and fiercely protect though she cared about, which, as you can tell, is clearly the running theme about Charlotte. Milly also mentioned that when Charlotte was reported missing, the police response was callous and dismissive. Alice was allegedly told, we don't have time for this. Your daughter is probably in the bottom of the Hudson River. That indifference still haunts the family. Despite the passage of time. Charlotte hasn't been forgotten. Milly said she would research and investigate when she could, but she believes Shilah, Charlotte's granddaughter, has gone above and beyond. She said Charlotte would be so proud of her, and Aunt Alice would be too. Charlotte was loved dearly. This is not just a name. In the final days of October nineteen eighty one, Charlotte Hyman experienced what was officially described as a drug overdose. Whether it was accidental, intentional, or something more sinister remains unclear. What followed was in panic. It was a plan the only ones she thought might keep her safe. Charlotte voluntarily admitted herself to the Rochester Psychiatric Center, not for treatment, but for protection. She made it clear to hospital staff she wasn't there for psychiatric help. She told staff she was terrified of a specific man, someone she believed posed a serious threat to her safety, and that she was hiding out. She had done everything she could to stay safe. Then came Friday, October thirtieth, nineteen eighty one, the day Charlotte Hyman walked out of that hospital and was never seen again. That afternoon, Charlotte was granted a four hour pass to leave the hospital and pay her rent, but before she walked out, she voiced her fear again. She told a nurse that the man she was hiding from might be waiting for her at her apartment. Then Charlotte stepped through the hospital's front doors and into a world she didn't feel safe in. Later that same day, a man reportedly showed up at the psychiatric center asking for Charlotte. His identity, though was never released. Was it the same man she feared, or was it someone else Entirely to this day, we don't know if the hospital staff or police investigated the lead. That information has never been made public. What could have been a pivotal clue became just another shadow in the case. Charlotte never returned from her outing, she missed her check in, she didn't go back to the hospital, and she never returned to her apartment. She didn't call her family, her bank account remained untouched, and her disability checks went uncollected. These weren't the actions of someone running away. These were the signs of someone who never had the chance to come back. She simply vanished, and in the days and weeks that followed, the silence surrounding her apples since only grew louder. Perhaps one of the most haunting details of all is that Charlotte's mother tried to report her missing almost immediately, but the police refused to take the report. It wasn't until November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty one, twenty six days after Charlotte disappeared, that law enforcement finally opened a case. By then, any hope of preserving a crime scene, collecting evidence, or chasing viable leads had already been lost. The trail had gone cold. Despite her mother's efforts, investigators found no useful leads. Interviews with hospital staff, friends, her landlord, and even local bar owners turned up absolutely nothing. Charlotte's last known contact with her mother had been a phone call on October twenty second, she said she planned to come home for the holidays and might even move back permanently. Instead, she vanished without a trace, without a word. The implications of her statements before her disappearance, her fear of a specific man, her plea for safety, her reluctance to return home, points strongly to foul play. But there are no known suspects, no surveillance footage from the time, no recovered vehicle, no phone records, no body. Charlotte simply vanished into thin air. Her purse and personal belongings were left at her apartment at three twenty five Alexander Street, and there were no signs of a struggle. However, a few personal checks were missing, though none were ever cashed. Her bank account remained untouched, and she had very limited financial resources, receiving only two hundred and fifty dollars a month in disability payments. Whether she was abducted from her apartment, met with foul play on her route to pay her rents, or lured into a trap by someone she knew, her disappearance was not random. She predicted her own danger, according to multiple accounts. The Rochester Police Department declined to take action sighting outdated and harmful assumptions often made at the time, which were namely, that adults had the right to disappear even when the circumstances were clearly alarming. Now there were reported sightings of Charlotte at Midtown Plaza on November thirtieth and December first, nineteen eighty one, but those reports were never verified. The location no longer exists, and no surveillance footage was ever recovered, although there probably wasn't any considering the time frame in nineteen eighty one. Despite the urgency, the investigation lacked basic follow through. Charlotte's apartment was never fingerprinted, no cadaver dogs were brought in, no nearby bodies of water were searched, no sketch artist was used, despite it being a common investigative tool even in nineteen eighty one. Charlotte was sometimes described as paranoid or suicidal, but those closest to her firmly believed she was not mentally ill. They knew her, and they believed her. Charlotte talks about her experience advocating for her grandmother and the challenges that she's faced throughout her investigation of this case. Take a listen. I started my journey on trying to locate my grandma about ten years ago when I was eighteen. I was in college, and I thought, you know, now. That I'm eighteen an adult, maybe I can look into her case. So I decided. This was about twenty fourteen. I decided to call Rochester Police Department and you know, asked about my grandmother's case. And when I did, whoever. Answered the phone asked me if I had spoken to Sydney Girande, which is a family member of mine, And it didn't make sense to me at the time, but I said, yeah, of course I spoke to Sydney, but there's nothing to offer. So they sent me on my way to talk to my family member Sydney, which at the time, again I was eighteen, so I just looked it at that I didn't feel that I should keep going and look into her case at that point, so then I decided to leave it alone. So I started looking to her case this time. March ninth of twenty twenty five. I decided to start this time around by requesting records using a foiler request to try to get some case details. I still don't have anything from the boiler requests. Yet it has been about ninety days now since I've done in the boiler requests started also by reaching out to Profit Cold Case. Early March, Crystal for Graphic. Cold Case had emailed me and they ended up making a face of posts and a couple other social media posts on Charlotte and her story based on what I had given them. They also discussed with me some questions I could give to the police officers and to reach out to the Dootchester Police Department to see what the next steps are in her case. The first time I reached out to them was mid March. I had left a voicemail with Laurie, the head of Missing Person's Department, and asked about my grandmother's case. Laurien called me back on March twenty sixth and she had told me that somebody was assigned to look over the case. So I was happy about that. And at that point I. Thought, you know, Okay, somebody's assigned to the case. Something's going to happen. We're going to move forward. So I was excited. And then from March twenty sixth, I waited. I made a couple of phone calls between then and April third, when I officially talked to Investigator car from the Rochester Police Department. My first phone call with him on April third was forty minutes. I did record and typed that whole conversation because I felt it was important and to not miss any details and to see where the police were in the investigation. And then after after that, I typed it all up and I learned not much, I would say. I questioned him about your investigation itself, what led up to her going missing, the days before she went missing, and what was going on in her life around then. I asked about a officer that I was told about by my family, and Officer Beck that supposedly was really good friends with Charlotte at the time. I was told that when she went missing, Officer Beck and my great grandma Alice, as well as my great aunt Janet went to Charlotte's apartment right after she went missing. I don't have the exact date, but it was shortly after she. Went missing, and they went to her heart to see if it figure anything out, and at that time they didn't see anything out of place. The only thing they found was a white baggy of substance that was in her closet, and that was where it was reported by my great grandmother and my great aunt Janet that the officer took that white substance and bagged it up and then put it in his car and said he was taking it to evidence. However, that never made it to evidence. According to Rochester Police Department, I don't have exactly what is in evidence of my grandmother's which is really disheartening to not know exactly what the police are still holding onto as it's the last memories or physical items of Charlotte's that happened in the evidence locker for forty four years now, I still today. Don't know what evidence they still have. I was able to figure out from my conversations with Detective Car that around October twenty second, Charlotte had overdosed on substances. When asked about what substances she overdosed on, Detective Car could not tell me what substances they weren't, just that she had voice of the hospital on or around the twenty second. He then told me that from then she was in the hospital, and then from the twenty second until if she went missing on October thirtieth. Between those sevent days is when she was transferred. From the regular hospital to Rochester Psyde Hospital due to the algened fact. That she was fearful of a man. I did request her psychiatric records from Rochester Pside Hospital, and him at the Pside Hospital was more than happy to give them to me as long as my doctor would write a letter on my behalf that it would be beneficial to my own mental health and physical health. And my doctor did end up writing that letter, and Rochester psych Hospital did end up sending all of the records to my doctor's office. However, after my doctor's office received those records, film En lawyer between then and now, my doctor specifically, I guess spoke with the compliance officer in my doctor's office and they feel that giving me the records is a violation of the HIPPA, even though Rochester already verified that it was not a violation. So if they felt like it was going to be a violation, they would have I feel they wouldn't have sent the records. So I feel if they did all of their HIPPA rules and policies and that will checked out, that is why they said the records. So right now I do not have any of Charlotte's mental health records or divisible health records or anything like that. I do not have the police records either, as I'm still waiting on the foil requests. So back to my conversation with Detective Car, I asked them about my grandmother because I don't really know anything other than what my family has told me about my grandmother. Investigator Car said that looking through her file that she had a history of alcoholism as well as struggle with her mental health. According to Investigator Car, she said that when they interviewed people about her case, a lot of her friends in close years reported that she was paranoid a lot and frequently talked about ending her life. However, I don't have any record of that. This is just what Investigator Car had told me. On top of that, during an investigation, Rochester Police Department went around November thirtieth and interviewed two security officers at Midtown Plaza. It's a plaza in Rochester that doesn't exist anymore, but the security had reported seeing Charlotte at the Midtown Plaza or November thirtieth, and just so her first how everyone's speaking with Investigator Car. He had told me. That she doesn't feel personally that it would make sense that that person was Charlotte, as that was a whole month after she had disappeared, and nobody had any reported sightings from the day she had disappeared until that reported sighting. It was only a couple of blocks away from her house, so it wouldn't make sense why she was at a midtown plaza and not going home. So Investigator car went back to the fact that the last no location of her was the Rochester Psyde Hospital, so that was where they were giving her last known alive location. He still could not confirm with me if she had made it back to her apartment or she went missing straight from the nite hospital. They were never able to figure that out or is not in the case file. I have a lot of frustrations I feel with Rochester Police Department because while I understand that my mother's case is forty four years old, I feel that they should be actively working on a new lead because we're in to them twenty five now, and there's so much available technology and resources available that they didn't have in nineteen eighty one, and I feel a state would just sit down and look at our case with a new set of eyes and a new perspective and took a different avenue. I feel that we would make progress. I feel that. If it was possible to reinterview people, even though it was forty four years ago, I feel if there was any work being actually done on the case, that we would have maybe some answers or have found for by now, I personally have went on the journey to try to find unidentified people that masked the description of my grandmother. I found the unidentified person up eleven eight to oh eight that was found in Sanoma County, California. So I went down the rabbit hole on that and when I contacted Investigator car as well as Sanoma County, California, I was able to get in touch with Detective great Station in Tanama County and she informed me that unidentified Jane Jo was not my grandmother, which is sad. However, she was being identified currently, which is happy for another family. And I'm very happy that you know, somebody's identity will be found after forty four years. Because that thing doo was found in nineteen eighty three, it was reported or there was some thoughts some people had talked about Charlotte possibly being pregnant when she went missing. However, there was no proof or documentation from an investigator car that shows that she was pregnant, so I have no proof that she did ever have another child. I've been on ants here DNA for a while now and have not found any lengths to any ancestors of Charlotte that would show that. She is still living somewhere. From what I've gathered, she's about five foot one inch tall. She was about one hundred and ten one hundred and thirty pounds when she went missing. She lives in Cameron, Texas because my great grandmother, Alice, was married to Ralph Hinnan, who we thought was Charlotte's father all of these years, and she was in the military. He was in the Army and he was stationed in Cameron, Texas. So that is why Charlotte was born in Cameron, Texas. But throughout the years, she only through her twenty seven years before she went missing, she moved to on a few states, Ohio being one of them, here in Cincinnati where some of us live, Kentucky where some of our other relatives live, in Guiana, where Millie lives, who is Charlotte's cousin, and Millie is the one I interviewed to talk about Charlotte and to gain some information about Charlotte. Charlotte also lived in New York as well as Texas. Knowing that she moved around so many states in so many places in our short twenty seven years plays a role and maybe her story, you know, in her life and never having maybe a sense of. Home or belonging. I remember it was really hard for my family to talk about Charlotte growing up. The only thing I knew when I was a child about my grandma Charlotte was in our living room. We had a photo frame. It was a four x six photo of Charlotte and her brother Joey, my uncle, my great uncle Joey, who passed away in a car accident a year after Charlotte disappeared, and that was in my living room and anywhere we moved as a kid, that photo was always in our living room. So that's the memory I had of Charlotte. It's a picture that has been shared all over. There's also a baby picture of Charlotte that was in our living room that my mom always kept up as well. So those are the two memories I have of Charlotte. But other than that, I really don't know her. Growing up, I actually created my own story of how Charlotte went. Missing because I didn't know we would talk about it. I just knew that my grandmother went missing, so you know, I just I pictured somebody snatching her up, like in the movies or something like that. So it's kind of crazy to think that this is real. Life, it's not the movies, and that this is our personal life. Alice talked about how fraggle and little she was, but then when interviewing Milly Millie would talk about how fierce Charlotte was and how you know she she knew self defense, and that she had a top exterior but a loving heart, so she was she was a very kind, loving person, but also so it could be tough. Miliary referred to her as an asshole sometimes, and that Charlotte thought it was funny to be an asshole to people, which I think is funny because I relate I am the same way. So it makes me happy to know that there are some traits that I have from my grandmother even though I've never met her. And then I talked to my great uncle Richard, who is the only living sibling of Charlotte, and I asked him if there was something he wanted to tell me about Charlotte, and you know who she was as a sister, and he said that she was a wonderful sister and that if anyone had a sister. Like her, the world would be a better place. He remembers, you know, when he was young, he was born very very premature and had a lot of medical issues, and Charlotte was eight years older than him, so he remembers Charlotte being, you know, like a motherly figure to him, but of course she was his big sister and for him, and he remembers Charlotte teaching him how to read, and teaching him math problems, and teaching how to spell, and that Charlotte would give him candy every time he got a question. Rate he talked about how she loved her siblings and loved Joey the most. Joey's the one that passed away in a car accident a year after Charlotte went missing. And everybody in our family truly believes that if Charlotte was still alive and living a year after her disappearance, that she would have some way communicated with somebody in the family or would have been present at Joey's funeral because of how strong their relationship was. So it was really disheartening, and a lot of the family members automatically thought that Charlotte was dead after that, because they truly believed that Charlotte would have never missed Joey's funeral. So that really hit me in the gut because if that was true. Role for her brother was kind of like. Closure for some people in the family, while others like me will not stop the look for Charlotte until she's actually found. Now, there were more leads that were never fully explored by the Rochester Police Department. Joe Nasso a name that surfaced more than once in the shadows of Charlotte's story. A convicted serial killer from California. Nasa was found guilty in twenty thirteen of murdering four women between the nineteen seventies and nineteen nineties. His victims, all women, were strangled and discarded near remote roadsides. But long before his arrest, Nassau led a life that often slipped beneath the radar, one that included frequent travel between California and Rochester between nineteen seventy seven and nineteen eighty three, the very window during which Charlotte Hyman vanished. Nassau moved back and forth between the two states. Records show that he once lived at two twenty Oxford Street and later at five sixteen Short Street, both Rochester addresses located just blocks from Charlotte's last known location. The overlap is chilling. Meanwhile, Naso's own writings, discovered decades later during a probation search, revealed a handwritten list of ten ten women initials, cities lose. He kept photos of unconscious women, journals filled with violent fantasies. It was a private archive of horror hidden in plain sight. Was Charlotte supposed to be one of them? The connection has never been formally made, but the timelines due align, the geography overlaps and the man she feared he may have been closer than anyone realized. Joe Nasso wasn't just passing through Rochester. He lived there, right in the heart of the city where Charlotte vanished without a trace. It's a lead that demands more than passing attention. And then there's the Shannon family, a name quietly woven into Charlotte's past but never publicly examined. Charlotte's daughter never knew her biological father. His identity remained unclear for decades, but recent genealogical research and DNA tracing had brought new details to light. A confirmed match links Charlotte's granddaughter to Kenneth Shannon, a man with direct Rochester ties. Kenneth had three brothers, Charles, James, and Raymond Shannon, and together they formed a family with a long tangled history in the area. Their mother, Dorothy Featherlely, owned forty eight acres of land off Long Pond Road in Rochester. For years, that stretch of property sat untouched, dense, wooded, and isolated. It was the kind of place where you could scream and no one would hear, the kind of place where someone could vanish and never be found. That land was only sold recently, decades after Charlotte disappeared. What makes it us more than coincidence is the silence surrounding the family. Little is known about the Shannon brothers during the early nineteen eighties, where they were living, what they were doing, or if they knew Charlotte directly, But the connection through blood uncovered only through modern DNA testing. Inside a relationship Charlotte may have kept hidden or once she was afraid of. Did Charlotte know something she wasn't ready to share? Could one of the Shannon men have played a role in her disappearance? Or was the proximity of that forty eight acre tract just another chilling coincidence in a case full of them. We may never know what secrets the land on Long Pond Road once held, but the fact that Charlotte's family tree leads directly there, that her granddaughter's DNA ties her to a family with remote property and deep ruts in Rochester, well that can't be ignored. We are left with so many more questions rather than answers. What if the man Charlotte feared was one of them? What if she told someone the truth and was dismissed as paranoid. What if one of those men were interviewed by police and simply labeled her troubled so no deeper questions were asked? And what if buried in those interviews is the truth about what really happened to Charlotte Hyman? What she abducted from her apartment before she could even step inside, Did she make it home and encounter that man that she feared. Was she intercepted along the way on a bus route she likely used. Was she lured by someone she trusted or forced into silence by someone she couldn't escape. What happened to her? Each possibility points toward the same conclusion. This was not random. Nobody, of course knows what happens. But from theories that have come about for Charlotte's disappearance have emerged from both family members and from people around the world on websites, I've found that some of them seem logical. Some of them are based. More on feelings of, you know, being part of the family or gut feeling. So one of the theories was as the she just left theory. Rochester Police Department really settled on that theory. I feel I was being guided to that theory. That Rochester thinks that she was just a young mother under a lot of pressure and just wanted to walk away from her life. They reported that she could have had personal barriers and due to the fear of the man and the struggles with alcoholism and mental health, they feel that she could have just up and left and started a new life and nobody would have ever known. However, our family feels that with her being so close to the family and her brother Joey, when having a four year old daughter at the time, my mother Lisa that Charlotte wan no matter how down she was or in a tough spot, she wouldn't have abruptly left all of the family and the support that she had. So the theory of she just left is not a theory that I completely agree with. It's not good enough for me. I don't feel that people that plan to up and leave are planning their future like Charlotte was. Charlotte was in college, she had. Goals and dreams, and you know, she didn't pack up her belongings, and you'd. Think that if somebody was gonna up. And leave, you'd at least take your belongings with you, like your clothing. None of that was taken with her, not her identification, her purse, nothing, So that theory doesn't sit well with me. The next theory that is talked about is of course felt. Way by a stranger. Is so she was pretty little, she did have that injury to her leg, and so the question is could she really defend herself from somebody, whether or not she knew self, ifness or or not. She was a very little person and technically disabled with her leg So the question is if she crossed paths with somebody who thought she was an easy target due to her limp or because they saw her leave being Rochester psych Hospital and thought that she was an easy target because she was mentally ill. That theory, obviously isn't ruled out. The next theory that I just talked about a lot is somebody that she knew. Obviously, statistics show that it is often most likely and explained that somebody the victim of doos is usually harmed by somebody close to them, like spouses or friends or neighbors. So what it did with somebody she knew? Who was the man. That he reported that she feared? How did this man know that Charlotte was at the Life Center? Why did that man come to see her at the Slafe Center? While was it that man that came to speak with the nurse at the Site Center? Wasn't appear from college? Was it her ex boyfriend? It could be somebody that she knew that harmed her. It could be that the father of my mother didn't want her to have my mother, or he wanted involvement with my mother and was angry about that could have been retaliation. These are, of course, just theories. They also have a theory, which this one was not very logical whatsoever, a theory that Charlotte was taking some sort of forensic science classes and participated in some autopsy and revealed something that she wasn't supposed to see. They feel that something put her in danger and that maybe she learned something she shouldn't have. So some people think the theory of it's a corrupt law enforcement case. Again, I don't feel that that's a real logical theory whatsoever. Another theory is mental health and addiction. Of course, Charlotte is reported that she struggled, maybe Cherlete more than people weren't aware of. I was told by Milly that the motorcycle accident that she had when she was about nineteen years old changed her not only physically but mentally. She did struggle a little bit with the pain pills that were prescribed after all her surgeries, and it could have been much more than just a short term fix. We're unaware if she was still using substences or what kind of substances she was using as October twenty second, or around that time. She did have that overdose, so there's another theory of you know, did she decide to take her own life? Then I look into that theory. If she were to take her own life, wouldn't she have been found by Now, people that tend to take their lives don't typically hide me themselves when they're going to take their lives. I just don't believe in that theory. I've had quite a few family members in my life, including my dad and my mother in law, who have committed suicide, So I with the experience that I have in suicide, I truly believe that Charlotte would have been found. But actually wrong. It's another theory of a serial killer. So when doing some digging, there are a few serial killers that I had found when doing my research, and one of them was Arthur's Shawcross and he was from the Rochester area. He had murdered many people. But when talking with investor investigator car he didn't feel that that theory fits. I also looked into Arthur Shawcross because of the time frame, and I learned that he was actually incarcerating at the time that Charlotte had went missing. But there was another serial killer around that time. That was active in that area. So, Joe Nasso is a serial killer that's known for killing women from New York to California, and he is now incarcerated. They tried to get. Him for the eighty c murders in Rochester, which were the murders of three that I know of, three young girls in the area. Their cases are still unsolved, and they thought that she could have had something to do with it. He also was charged with killing women in California. He moved from Rochester to California, but also trans was transit from California to Rochester because he was born in Rochester and his address. He had two addresses, and both of his addresses that he had were close to my grandmother's addresses in New York. So she lived on North three at one point before she moved into Alixander Street and from Alexander Street, Jo Naso only lived two blocks from her at the time of her disappearance. So I connected those two together because I felt that there was a lead to Joe Naho. I still feel that there could be a lead to Jo Naso. It's not ruled out, However, I'm not an investigator. I wish that the Rochester Police Department would look more into that and to see if Joe Naso was around that area around that time, he could have been killed by Yum Naso. I know that's an out there type of faery, however, with his extensive history, I just feel there's too much of a coincidence. So when looking at that, up that I'm a gentified person. Eleven eight eight then tried to also link j Naso to her as well when there's looking into that. But that's also why I felt that I should look into Dymnaso on my grandmother because of the connections. Charlotte's disappearance wasn't the result of carelessness, confusion, or a desire to run. It was the result of something calculated, targeted, and likely premeditated. Her own words, actions, and mounting fear make that clear. She anticipated danger, she tried to avoid it, she asked for help, and still no one protected her. The truth is, someone out there knows someone crossed her path that day October thirtieth, nineteen eighty one, and changed the course of her life and her family's lives forever, whether out of malice, obsession, or a desire to silence her. That person has never been held accountable. The man she feared still nameless, and whether he was ever seriously investigated, remains a mystery. So that leads us to another haunting question, which has been quietly whispered but never confirmed. Some believed that Charlotte may have been pregnant when she vanished, just a few weeks, a long maybe enough to raise questions about who the father was and whether that pregnancy had anything to do with the man she was so afraid of. There are no medical records to confirm it, nor is there any definitive proof, But in a case already marked by fear, silence, and missed opportunities, the possibility of pregnancy only stirs up more unanswered questions about what really happened that day Charlotte left to pay her rent. Charlotte Hymen's disappearance has gained national attention through organizations like Project Cold Case and the Charlie Project, both of which worked bring visibility to long term missing persons cases. Project Cold Case has featured Charlotte's story as part of their mission to support families of the missing and keep unresolved cases in the public eye, hoping that new information may still come forward. The Charlie Project a well known missing person. Since database provides a detailed account of Charlotte's case. It highlights her voluntary psychiatric admission as a protective measure not a result of mental illness, and documents her fear that someone might be waiting for her at her apartment the day she vanished. The site also points to systemic failures, including the month long delay before police accepted a missing persons report, which critically impacted the investigation. I again started the journey around March ninth, and I have tried to reach out to. Anyone that would listen to this story. So I have reached out to Rochester Police Department. I've reached out to many podcasts. I've reached out to Facebook groups, including over fifty Facebook groups for missing persons. I have made my. Own Facebook group called Charlotte Hinman Missing nineteen eighty one, and through that I've been trying to gather any information I can on Charlotte's case and actually gave information to as many people on Charlotte's case because I'm trying to spread awareness. The Cold Case project they did It's special on Charlotte for me, which I felt was great advocacy. I'm trying to reach out to as many public forums that I can to get her word out and to get her story out. I've reached out to news articles, including the Democrat and Chronicle, who did write an article on her in nineteen eighty two. They responded to me and stated that they were going to have a reporter get in contact with me in late spring their early summer to do a story on Charlotte. I also reached out to WXI. I believe it is in Rochester's a news outlet, and I talked to one of the writers there and he had told me that if at all possible, if I could set myself up with a trick to Rochester, you know, make some noise on her case in front of the police department or somewhere, that he would be willing to write a story to get her word out there, because those are the types of stories that he does. I believe Charlotte is one of the ones that have been forgotten to in forty four years now, and through my research, I don't see enough advocacy for her. When I'm talking about the aspect of law enforcement, Rochester Police Department has a complete website dedicated to unsolved homicide cases. However, they have not a single resource or website dedicated to the missing persons in Rochester. It makes me feel and families feel that missing persons in Rochester aren't taken seriously and that they're brushed off. I feel that there's not enough work being done towards DNA and identification of unidentified bodies and bones. I think that's a worldwide issue for identifying bones and bodies. But I truly believe that Charlotte is potentially on the shelf somewhere her body and her bones have been found, and that they have not tested. I do not know how it is. Possible, after forty four years for somebody's body to just still not be found. I just can't comprehend. It. Emailed a lot of people, including the author m DNA, people that I've been solving a lot of cold cases, anybody that will listen, I've been. Trying to advocate for Charlotte. On top of that, and on top of my busy life as a mom and a social worker. I am trying to write a book about Charlotte and about my journey and what is going on Charlotte growing up and how her life looked before she went in a saying, and what is going on now? For four years later, still with no answers. It has now been four decades since anyone saw Charlotte Hyman. Four decades of silence, four decades without answers, and still no arrests, no confessions, no closure. Despite this, though, Shila continues to fight to find answers about what happened to her grandmother. Although the case remains unsolved, the fight to uncover what really happened to bring Charlotte home continues not by detectives or officials, but by family, by Shilah, and that means the story isn't over yet. If you have any information, no matter how small it may seem, please contact Shila via the Charlotte Hyman Facebook page. I'll have the links available in the show notes below. Your tip could be the one that finally brings answers to her family. I want to personally thank Shilah for partnering with me to bring you this episode. Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode of Case Uncovered and for listening to Charlotte's story. Make sure to connect with me on Facebook and Instagram at Jen Rivera Investigates And until next time, stay curious, stay vigilant, and stay safe out there. Fire Eyes, media,