It was almost two years ago that the parents of Jennifer Marcum posted a billboard by Shotgun Willie's, offering a $20,000 reward for anyone who could tell them the whereabouts of their daughter, who'd been working as a stripper at Shotgun Willie's before she disappeared.
The last her parents knew, in February 2003 Jennifer was living at the Lakewood apartment of Scott Kimball, who'd recently been released from jail. But Jennifer, who'd dropped out of high school in Illinois back in 1996, gotten married, moved to Colorado, gotten divorced and had a kid, didn't stay in close touch with her parents, and they weren't surprised when she didn't return their calls. "She changed her phone before when she didn't want to talk to somebody, but she'd call you eventually," Bob Marcum, Jennifer's father, told Westword. "One time she had two phones at the same time. She'd decide which one she was going to answer and when."
A year after she quit answering their calls, an FBI agent contacted the Marcums, and told them that Jennifer's car had been located at Denver International Airport a year before. They also learned that she'd visited her boyfriend in jail on February 17, 2003, and he hadn't heard from her since. The FBI set up an interview between the Marcums and Kimball; he said that he'd last seen Jennifer about the same time, and that she was headed to the airport.
That's when the Marcums turned to Families of Homicide Victims & Missing Persons, a Colorado-based nonprofit started by Howard Morton, whose eldest child went missing in 1975. The group helped the Marcums set up the billboard.
A break in the case finally came yesterday, May 15, when it was revealed that the feds are investigating Kimball not just in connection with Jennifer Marcum's disappearance, but the disappearance of three other people, including Terry Kimball, Scott's uncle. And he may be linked to four more missing people.
Kimball is in jail on unrelated charges in Jefferson County. -- Patricia Calhoun
