SOUTHPORT — March 15 was Emily Paul’s golden birthday. Her family had a party; Emily wasn’t there.
In the year since April 13, 2013, when Paul packed a bag and disappeared from her mother’s home, investigators with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office have exhausted all leads and tips on where she might be.
Investigator Albert Willis received numerous tips. Some seemed promising, but none led to her location.
“I hate to say it, but it’s just a mystery right now,” Willis said. “Is she still out there or did something bad happen to her?”
Pam Massimiani said she’s never going to give up hope of her daughter’s safe return. The birthday cake will be long gone, but there will be presents and Valentine’s Day gifts waiting for her in her bedroom, which has hardly changed since she left.
“When she comes home she’ll know that she’s been missed,” Massimiani said.
Paul is considered a runaway. She left a note stating her intentions. Investigators confirmed through handwriting experts that she wrote it, Willis said.
She’s not just a runaway, either; she’s a runaway who knows what she’s doing, Willis said.
Investigators believe Paul, who was 14 when she left, learned from websites that teach young people how to be successful runaways, and she’s followed the advice. She took the items that she had used for online communications, such as her Xbox. She’s never been back on her Facebook account.
Her cellphone powered on three times in the week after she left home, Willis said. He knows because he had hoped to track her movements by her phone, but all he got was three brief pings — maybe long enough to check voice mails? — before the phone powered down again. One was in Callaway, one was near the port and the third was not far from Southport Road where Massimiani lives.
“It was never on long enough for us to track her and find her,” he said.
Willis interviewed and reinterviewed Paul’s friends. He asked them to take polygraph tests. Maybe someone had heard from her and was covering for their friend. Everybody he asked took the polygraph, and everyone who took it passed, Willis said. Investigators and her family are not aware of Paul having any contact with anyone since she left home.
The investigation started with a red herring that cost precious time, Willis said. Paul had communicated with an adult in Madison, Wis., who immediately became a suspect. After working with investigators in Wisconsin, Willis said, “We feel real confident we cleared him.”
But that took time away from investigating a possible sighting at Econfina Creek that Willis is pretty confident was legit.
“That’s really the crucial time to find a runaway,” he said.
Other leads have poured in but have not turned up anything. Willis said he worked with Canadian authorities to debunk a claim by a psychic, and authorities in Spain have convinced him that a tip she was in Madrid was unfounded.
“We have literally followed leads around the world,” he said.
Willis said he doesn’t tell Paul’s family about every lead. Unless there’s some reason to believe the information might be valuable, he keeps it to himself.
“You know you’re just killing them every time they look at the caller ID and see the sheriff’s office calling,” Willis said. “Every time the family sees I’m calling, their immediate thought is ‘they found her’ or ‘she’s dead.’ ”
Massimiani has circulated Paul’s photo and missing person fliers all over Facebook. She accepts any friend request she gets, just in case someone has seen her or knows something. She’s grateful for the assistance she has received from the sheriff’s office, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Center for Search and Investigations.
CrimeStoppers is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to Paul. The family also is offering an undisclosed amount for information that leads to her.
Massimiani has heard from people who have seen fliers with Paul’s picture as far away as Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Willis has seen them himself on trips to Ohio and Kentucky.
Even though there are times when Massimiani wants the world to stop, life goes on because it has to. Paul’s “Nana,” Edna Rowan, said she takes hope from the story of the woman in Cleveland who, about a month after Paul disappeared, escaped captivity after 10 years.
Massimiani and Rowan want Paul to know that “we love her and we’re never going to give up,” Massimiani said.
“And not one day passes that we don’t think about her,” Rowan added.