Missing metro-east woman’s family losing hope as some grow frustrated with sheriff’s office
The planning of a candlelight vigil for a 36-year-old woman who disappeared more than six months ago from Clarmin, an unincorporated community near Marissa, represents both hope and despair.
Family members still hope that Brittany Moeser will be found, so they want to keep her name in the public eye. But they’ve accepted the reality that the case may not have a “happy ending,” according to her mother, Debra Wilkerson.
“I guess I was living in a fairy-tale world because I always thought that there would be justice,” she said. “I always thought that there would be a conclusion. But there’s not going to be because they didn’t have enough people to properly investigate directly after she went missing.”
Wilkerson was referring to a staff shortage in the Washington County Sheriff’s Office that Sheriff Ross Schultze discussed at a County Board committee meeting in September, when he asked for two new deputies.
Schultze told committee members that his department had no detectives in April, when Moeser disappeared, so whatever deputy was on duty received tips and followed leads, the Centralia Morning Sentinel reported.
The Illinois State Police also provided assistance.
Roxzen Styninger, who became Washington County’s only detective in May, also spoke to the committee, warning that the staff shortage was affecting services for other residents as well.
“God forbid if something ever happened out in the community to one of your guy’s, house or a family member, and we have to say, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t get there,’ or ‘We’re going to call state (police), and it’ll be a two-hour response,’” the Sentinel quoted her as saying.
Stepfather’s handgun missing
Moeser had been living with her mother and stepfather, Ron Wilkerson, in Clarmin for about six months when she left a note on April 13 telling them she was going for a walk. She never returned.
Investigators later discovered that one of Ron Wilkerson’s handguns was missing, leading some to suspect suicide. Moeser had struggled with an eating disorder, alcoholism and depression, attempted suicide before and spent time in psychiatric hospitals, her mother said.
But family, friends, police and volunteers searched the area around the Wilkerson home by foot and plane, used cadaver-sniffing dogs, talked to neighbors and found no body.
That led to more searches and a roller-coaster of an investigation based on tips from the public, some of them suggesting foul play, said Debra Wilkerson, who’s now convinced that her daughter was murdered.
“Knowing that she was thrown away like a piece of trash somewhere and I’ll never find her is just excruciating,” she said.
“I was so caught up in, ‘We’re going to get ‘em, we’re going to get ‘em, we’re going to get ‘em,’ and ‘We’re going to find her, we’re going to find her, we’re going to find her,’ that I never looked past that to actually grieve for my daughter.”
The sheriff’s office and family members have been reluctant to discuss specific leads publicly for fear of damaging the investigation.
On Tuesday, Detective Styninger said the office continues to receive tips, and since taking over the Moeser case in June, she has devoted most of her time to following leads.
Styninger noted that the case is complicated by the fact that Clarmin is in Washington County but on the border of St. Clair and Randolph counties. Moeser also had ties to the Chicago area, where she lived for years.
“At this point, I don’t even suspect that anything happened to her in Washington County,” Styninger said.
Offer of outside help on hold
This summer, Moeser’s family offered a $2,500 reward for information on her disappearance, and a local business donated billboard space in Nashville, Illinois, to advertise it.
Family members also contacted Texas EquuSearch, a nonprofit organization that provides search-and-recovery services to law enforcement and families of missing persons. It has worked on several cases in the St. Louis area.
Dave Rader, who heads the organization’s Midwest region based in Cincinnati, met in July with Washington County sheriff’s deputies, who asked him to hold off on getting involved.
Sheriff Schultze told the BND at the time that investigators hadn’t yet been able to interview some people whose names had come up through leads, and they wanted to do that before launching another large-scale search.
“With that (organization), we would have had to get search warrants to go on private property, and we already had searched a pretty wide area,” Schultze said, arguing that it didn’t make sense to designate an expanded or alternative search area without evidence to support it.
Texas EquuSearch only conducts searches with the approval of local law enforcement, according to Rader.
After the Washington County meeting, Rader said he understood investigators’ reasoning for wanting to hold off, and he tried to assure Moeser’s family that her case wasn’t being ignored.
“(Investigators) didn’t want to waste the resource of me searching willy-nilly,” he said. “They want to do things the right way in case it turns out to be some sort of foul play or a homicide or what have you. They want to make sure all their T’s are crossed, and their I’s are dotted.”
Vigil planned for next month
Moeser has a large blended family that includes Debra Wilkerson’s four children and Ron Wilkerson’s three daughters and their families.
They’re inviting the public to participate in a candlelight vigil at 5 p.m. Nov. 13 at Marissa City Park. They plan to have some candles available, but people are welcome to bring their own.
One of the vigil’s organizers is Whitney Schoenbeck, Moeser’s stepsister. She said it wasn’t easy determining when the timing was right.
“You don’t want to completely give up hope,” Schoenbeck said. “I think everybody has a little bit of hope. But we’re realistic after this long. We just really would like answers, even if they’re not the answers we had hoped for. Just not knowing is the hardest part, honestly.”
A missing-person flyer was widely distributed after Moeser’s disappearance. It describes her as 36 years old, standing at 5-foot-7 and weighing 128 pounds with light red hair. Her mother believes she was wearing athletic pants, tennis shoes and an oversized T-shirt.
“Suffers from an unspecified medical condition,” the flyer reads.
Notices also have been posted on the Missing & Homeless Facebook page and other websites. Investigators ask that anyone with information about Moeser’s disappearance contact the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville at 618-327-8274, ext. 4.
Detective Styninger said she understands why the family is frustrated that the investigation hasn’t yielded definitive answers.
“I can’t imagine being in (Debra Wilkerson’s) shoes, not knowing where her daughter is,” Styninger said. “I can’t speak on that side of it. But I know I’m doing my job, and I know that our sheriff’s department has worked hours and hours and hours on this case. There’s just not enough of us.”
Editor’s note: This story was corrected to clarify that a local business donated billboard space to advertise the Moeser case and cash reward; the family didn’t rent it.
This story was originally published October 24, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
