Andrea Durham Still Missing 21 Years Later; Girl, 13, Stays Home To Do Homework & Vacuum Vanishes
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Vanished into thin air.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to kind her.</s>GRACE: So many cases --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re still looking.</s>GRACE: -- so few leads.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.</s>GRACE: Missing person.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness had seen the suspect on</s>NANCY GRACE.  GRACE: There is a God.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The NANCY GRACE show was out there for us.</s>GRACE: Found alive. Fifty people, 50 days, 50 nights. Let`s don`t give up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): It`s Thursday night. Andrea Durham`s mom and sister leave home for a meeting. Andrea stays behind to vacuum. Mom and sister return home to find the vacuum in the living room. Andrea is missing. There`s no sign someone broke into the apartment and no indication where Andrea may have gone. Police can`t say whether or not it`s foul play but wonder since all of Andrea`s belongings were left behind. Andrea would be 34 years old. To this day, her big sister still scans crowds for her face.</s>JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": Every day, 2,300 people go missing in America. They disappear. They vanish. Their families are left waiting and hoping, but never forgetting. And neither have we. Fifty people, 50 days. For 50 nights we go live, spotlighting America`s missing girls and boys, mothers and fathers, even grandparents. They are gone. But where? Tonight, to Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Thirteen-year-old Andrea Durham, she stays home to finish her homework and to vacuum the apartment. You see, it`s a school night. Her mother and 15- year-old sister, they head off to a meeting. But when they get back, a little less than two hours away, Andrea is gone. The vacuum cleaner is now standing upright in the living room. The front door is closed but unlocked. And Andrea, she isn`t there. Her purse, her clothes, her money, anything a 13-year-old would want to have with her is in her bedroom. It`s all there, undisturbed. No signs of foul play, struggle, or forced entry. Tonight, what happened to beautiful 13-year-old Andrea while she was vacuuming the living room floor? Let`s go straight out to Katie Tammen from the "Northwest Florida Daily News," joining us tonight from Fort Walton Beach. Katie, what happened?</s>KATIE TAMMEN, "NORTHWEST FLORIDA DAILY NEWS": According to our records, she was left home at about 7:45 on February 1, 1990, and when her mom and sister came back home that night at about 9:15 the door was unlocked, the vacuum was in the middle of the living room, and Andrea was gone.</s>CASAREZ: Andrea was gone. All right. What more can you tell me about that scene? Because she stayed home. Her mother and sister went to this relatively short meeting, an hour and a half about. Where was the vacuum?</s>TAMMEN: She said the vacuum was in the middle of the floor. Her sister said it was pretty surprising that she hadn`t put it away. All her clothes, her makeup, her purse, money, everything was still there. And the living room floor had actually been vacuumed.</s>CASAREZ: Marlaina Schiavo, NANCY GRACE producer, joining us tonight from New York. Tell us about this initial scene. What about the front door?</s>MARLAINA SCHIAVO, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, the front door was unlocked, and there was no sign of forced entry. And also, there`s one other little detail that`s in there that not a lot of people talk about. The mother had mentioned that it was a possibility that Andrea might have gone out to smoke a cigarette, like snuck out to do that. But that was never really investigated. And when the cops came after they called, according to the mother they came about four hours later and took a report.</s>CASAREZ: All right. Maybe took a report. Joining us tonight is the family of Andrea Durham. With us tonight, her mother and her sister, the last two people that ever saw her. I want to thank you so much for joining us. Ashyea Alford joining us, who is the sister of Andrea Durham. And Roseanne Sterling, who is the mother of Andrea Durham. First of all, Ashyea, you were 15 years old when your 13-year-old sister went missing?</s>ASHYEA ALFORD, ANDREA DURHAM`S SISTER: Yes, ma`am. That`s correct.</s>CASAREZ: You were very, very young yourself. When you and your mom left that night, what was it like? What did your sister say? What is your last vision of your sister?</s>ALFORD: Nothing out of the ordinary. There was no fights or no tension in the house. Just an ordinary day. We went on a regularly scheduled meeting. Not anything that stood out.</s>CASAREZ: So you said good-bye, and knowing that you were going to be back in a short while.</s>ALFORD: Yes. "See you later." I`m sure that she gave my mom a hug and a kiss. We always did.</s>CASAREZ: When you and your mom came back in the door after attending your meeting, just the vacuum cleaner was in the middle of the floor?</s>ALFORD: Yes. And when you first walk in the door, you know, we came in and we looked, of course, in the bedrooms. And we didn`t have a large apartment, but looked in the bedrooms and around the back. And we had just recently moved into an apartment complex of about -- I don`t know how many -- about 200 apartments. So there was a laundry facility. So we looked around those areas first. And then I believe the panic sunk in, because she`s not the type of person that would just leave the house without a note or letting someone know where she was going, or without taking her things.</s>CASAREZ: Here`s the thing I want to know. Where was the vacuum cleaner when you left for your meeting?</s>ALFORD: She had it. She was getting ready to vacuum.</s>CASAREZ: OK. Was it in the center of the floor?</s>ALFORD: It wasn`t disturbed -- it was kind of off to the side like she had finished and kind of pushed it to the side. But it wasn`t disturbed or knocked over or anything like that.</s>CASAREZ: What did your sister have in her bedroom, just as a little 13- year-old girl would have?</s>ALFORD: Stuffed animals. She was into tennis at that time. So she had some tennis posters on the wall. And basically, that was it.</s>CASAREZ: Roseanne Sterling, the mother of Andrea, I think we have you now. Ms. Sterling, thank you for joining us. After this length of time, your life, I`m sure, we know has been changed forever. But I want to go back to 1990, when this all happened. Your daughter didn`t take anything with her. I mean, nothing was gone out of her bedroom at all. What I want to ask you, though, when you left that night for your meeting, what did she have on and what did she have on her feet?</s>ROSEANNE STERLING, ANDREA DURHAM`S MOTHER: She had her regular tennis shoes on and she had a pair of black blue jeans and a white T-shirt.</s>CASAREZ: OK. So she did have shoes on when you left, because, you know, if you`re around the house and you`re vacuuming, maybe you wouldn`t wear your shoes. And I was just curious about that, if shoes were gone.</s>STERLING: It was February. It was a little chilly.</s>CASAREZ: OK. Were jackets gone out of the home when you came back and did a thorough search?</s>STERLING: Sorry. Say again?</s>CASAREZ: Jackets or coats, were any of them missing of Andrea`s?</s>STERLING: No. Nothing was missing.</s>CASAREZ: Nothing was missing at all?</s>STERLING: Not that we could find.</s>CASAREZ: The front door, what was it like when you came up to it after your meeting?</s>STERLING: It was simply closed. It wasn`t locked.</s>CASAREZ: And how had you left it?</s>STERLING: I had left it locked. We had a deadbolt.</s>CASAREZ: OK. So how would one lock it if -- did you lock it from the front when you left?</s>STERLING: Yes.</s>CASAREZ: Outside?</s>STERLING: Yes.</s>CASAREZ: So it had to have been opened up from the inside and that`s how someone would leave. You didn`t need a key to open it up to go out?</s>STERLING: Right. That`s correct. That`s why the police said they could find no signs of forced entry.</s>CASAREZ: All right. Now, when I found this out, I was really, really shocked, but you called the police that night because your daughter`s gone and you can`t find her, and you see the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the floor where she was vacuuming. What did the police do in the coming days?</s>STERLING: We called them a little after 9:00 when we got home. It wasn`t long before we called them. They came out at midnight. They took a report. They checked around to make sure there was no forced entry. They asked us some questions. And then they left. And then I went to the sheriff`s department in the morning and every day for 30 days after that.</s>CASAREZ: You went there. And what did they do for you?</s>STERLING: After a couple of weeks, I found out that it did not appear that they had asked any questions in the apartment complex. So we canvassed ourselves. But after 20 -- after two weeks, a lot of people couldn`t remember if they had heard anything or seen anything that night.</s>CASAREZ: So you`re telling me that you go to the police, your daughter, your 13-year-old daughter is gone, out of her own home, and police make subjective determinations that it`s not warranted to search and bring the scent dogs out, and to do forensic investigations at all?</s>STERLING: No. They had made the assumption already -- what I was told by the lieutenant that was working there is that all 13-year-olds run away and that she would come home when she was hungry. So that`s the reason I was down there every single day, was to make sure they were doing something. I wanted her picture in every single police car, sheriff`s office car, so they would know. And I was told that she looks like every other blonde-haired, green-eyed 13-year-old. It was very difficult to really -- I had to walk on eggshells because they were the only source of help that I really had to do any investigation.</s>CASAREZ: So, 21 years later, here we are. And your little girl hasn`t come home yet. All 13-year-olds run away, they come home when they`re hungry. She`s not home yet. What message do you have tonight for her if she is out there?</s>STERLING: Just that we love her and we will never stop looking for her, and that all we want is just to know that she`s OK. And if she would call us, call someone she knows that would call us, and let us know that she`s all right. And that she knows how much we love her and miss her.