VERMONT: FIND BRIANNA MAITLAND, MISSING SINCE 2004, COLD CASE !!!

Brianna Maitland was just 17 and had started a new job when she vanished on the way home from work.

The back end of Brianna Maitland's car was found smashed into an abandoned shack. She was gone.

Vermont teen vanishes on way home from work
updated 6:05 p.m. EST, Tue December 9, 2008
By Rupa Mikkilineni / Nancy Grace Producer

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Brianna Maitland was just 17, with strong ambition and a fierce independent streak, said her mother, Kellie Maitland.

When Brianna insisted on taking a job, moving out of the family nest and living on her own with a roommate before starting college, it wasn't what her parents originally had in mind for her.

She'd just begun a job as a waitress at the Black Lantern Restaurant in Montgomery, Vermont, when she vanished into the night.

Maitland left work at 11:20 p.m. on March 19, 2004, intending to go straight home to her apartment, co-workers said. She got into her car and drove off, but has not been seen or heard from since.

Three days later, her roommate called Maitland's parents, asking if they'd seen her. Alarmed, the Maitlands called the police and discovered that the car she'd been driving had been found on Saturday, the day after she was last seen.

Watch how a young girl just disappeared »

The 1985 green Oldsmobile had been abandoned a mile from the restaurant where Maitland worked. The back end of the car was smashed into an abandoned shack.

(snip)

Maitland is described as 5 feet 4 inches tall, 110 pounds, with long, brown straight hair with hazel eyes. She wore a small nose ring in her left nostril and has a thin scar down her forehead to her left eyebrow.

Police and family are offering a $20,000 reward for any information leading to finding Maitland or leading to the arrest of the persons responsible for her disappearance. Please call the Vermont State Police with any tips at 802-524-5993.

CAN YOU HELP FIND BRIANNA MAITLAND?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/09/grace.coldcase.maitland/index.html

ALSO CONTACT NANCY GRACE WITH INFORMATION...
Crime Victims Hotline
If you are a crime victim or someone who knows about an injustice or case that needs a spotlight, call "Nancy Grace" at 1-888-GRACE-01 or send information via e-mail to "Nancy Grace."

LAURA GARZA MISSING: LEFT BAR WITH MICHAEL MELE, KNOWN PERVERT

Giancarli for News
Michael Mele, center, in white, is suspected in the disappearance of Laura Garza. The registered sex offender showed signs of violent tendencies as a teen, say those who knew him.

Harbus for News
Ivan Garza (l.), his wife, Laura, and brother Nicholas help search for their missing sister.

Making of a monster: Sex fiend Michael Mele, suspect in Laura Garza's disappearance, sick as teen
By Mike Jaccarino, Christina Boyle and Tracy Connor / Daily News Staff Writers
Saturday, December 13th 2008, 6:19 PM

It was supposed to be a fun outing to the mall, a harmless way for some high school buddies to kill time after classes.

Only Mike Mele had something else in mind, according to one of the teens who made the trip to Danbury Fair that day in 2003.

"First minute we were there, the kid went into Coach and steals a bag," the Newburgh Free Academy graduate told the Daily News.

(snip)

It was New Year's Eve 2006, and an 18-year-old girl told cops a young man had accosted her in the parking lot and masturbated.

DNA collected at the scene was a match for a pervert in another Danbury case - a 2005 complaint from a 36-year-old woman who had a similar run-in with a man she met at a bar.
Danbury cops suspected Mele was the culprit in both incidents, but they didn't have enough evidence to arrest him.

Even after he was arrested, in 2007, for attacking a woman in the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, Mele didn't get jail time.

So on Dec. 2 of this year, he was free to drive from his condo in Wallkill to Manhattan and violate his probation by partying at the Chelsea club Marquee.

That's where he picked up Texas-born aspiring dancer Laura Garza, 25, who hasn't been seen since and is feared murdered.

WAS MELE THE LAST PERSON TO SEE LAURA GARZA ALIVE...AND DEAD?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/12/13/2008-12-13_making_of_a_monster_sex_fiend_michael_me.html

NEWBURGH: LAURA GARZA MISSING, LEFT BAR WITH SEX OFFENDER

Where, exactly, is Newburgh?
The City of Newburgh is located on the Hudson River, 60 miles north of New York City.
The city lies at the intersection of Interstate 84 (running west to Pennsylvania and east to Connecticut) and the New York State Thruway (I-87), which runs from New York City north to Albany.

Keivom/News
The outside of the 10th Ave. club Marquee on Friday.

A massive hunt is underway in the disappearance of Laura Garza, 25.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS or text their tips to 274637, then enter TIP577.

Laura GarzaPolice have a surveillance video provided by the 10th Avenue club in which Garza is seen leaving with Mele. "She's literally walking out with him arm-in-arm," the source said.

Michael Mele, person of interest. Mele arrived at the Newburgh police station with an attorney and his father, William Mele, a retired MTA assistant deputy police chief, according to a police source. State Police found a machete and a woman's shoe Saturday as they scoured the upstate home of a registered sex offender suspected in the disappearance - and murder - of a naive New York newcomer.

Police Search for Woman Who Disappeared From Manhattan Nightclub
Sunday, December 07, 2008

NEW YORK — Authorities scoured a swath of upstate New York on Saturday in hopes of finding a woman last seen leaving a trendy Manhattan club with a registered sex offender.

State police said they had searched several locations in Orange County and collected forensic evidence in the suspicious disappearance of Laura Garza, 25, of Brooklyn.

While investigators were treating the case as a possible homicide, "we certainly haven't given up hope she is alive," state police Capt. Wayne Olson said Saturday evening.

Garza vanished after leaving the nightclub Marquee at about 4 a.m. Wednesday with two men. She was last seen around sunrise that day in the Orange County community of Newburgh, about 70 miles north of Manhattan, with one of the men, Michael Mele, 23, state police said.

Mele was added to the state sex offender registry in April after being convicted in Rockland County of forcible touching, according to the Newburgh Town police. He was sentenced to six years' probation.

Mele turned himself in to Newburgh Town police Friday on a warrant accusing him of a local law violation in New York City, Olson said; he did not know the details. Mele was apparently later transferred to the Rockland County Sheriff's Department to be booked on a probation violation charge, Olson said.

NEVER LEAVE WITH MEN YOU MEET IN A BAR!!! HELP FIND LAURA GARZA?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,463025,00.html