99-year-old man beaten over parking spot
Saturday, Nov. 7 2009 @ 8:00AM
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| Joyce Crider disappeared seven years ago. Her family is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. |
It's been barely more than seven years since Joyce Crider disappeared, and investigators are still trying to determine what happened to the Lexington, Kentucky woman. So is her family.Crider was last seen at about 7:15 p.m. on October 27, 2002, when she told a friend that she was going to visit a relative who was staying at the Holiday Inn on Athens-Boonesboro Road. According to family members, no on has seen or heard from her since. The relative that she had purportedly gone to visit was her former husband, Bill Crider.
Although police have investigated her ex-husband, no arrest have been made despite the fact that police say he initially lied about when he last saw her. Bill Crider has steadfastly maintained that he had nothing to do with her disappearance...
Bill Crider apparently told a reporter for the Herald-Leader newspaper in 2006 that his ex-wife is still alive, and that he had proof in the form of a phone recording from Joyce, reportedly made after her disappearance. He said that he had also obtained a national credit report that shows she has applied for credit after disappearing.
"The woman's not dead," Crider told the reporter. "All the police are doing is wasting the taxpayers' money."
Married on November 20, 1999, Bill and Joyce broke up shortly before their two-year wedding anniversary. According to Joyce's brother, Mike Gaines, Joyce was scheduled on the day she disappeared to provide a deposition in their divorce case that was to have implicated Bill Crider in insurance fraud, according to sworn police statements. Their divorce was finalized in 2003, nearly a year after she disappeared.
In November 2008 investigators from the FBI and the Lexington Police Department spent roughly two days searching property owned by Bill Crider, according to Lexington police Sgt. Paul Williams. A house once sat on the property, but was destroyed by fire a little more than a month before the search. An underground cistern system was drained, and cadaver dogs were used in the search, but police would not specifically say what they were looking for or whether they had found anything. According to Williams, they were "searching for evidence that might propel" their case forward.
"We believe that she's passed on," Gaines said. "She's dead."
Gaines said that family members were planning to move forward with proceedings to get his sister legally declared dead.
Joyce Crider's family would like to find some closure to her disappearance and are offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to her whereabouts. Anyone with information can call the Lexington Police Department at 859-263-2020.
"Every little piece of information makes a big difference," Gaines said.
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