Crime Junkie - MISSING: Diane Francis

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

To help Sherri fund the search for her mother you can donate HERE.If you know anything about the disappearance of Diane Francis, please contact the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office at 561-688-3000. A woman goes missing, leaving behind little evidence to help figure out when, how, where or why she disappeared. But her determined daughter has spent years piecing together every clue she can find. National Domestic Violence Hotline: [phone]-SAFE (7233); for TTY: 1-800-787-3224Text “START” to 88788Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-diane-francis/ 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And we already brought you one full-length episode this week. But when a fan reached out and asked us to help her tell her own story, I had to put out an extra episode just for this. Because for years, one of our own Crime Junkies, Sherri Snyder, has been doing everything she can to find out what happened to her missing mother.

It hasn't been easy for her because she has almost nothing to go off of. No one knows exactly when her mom went missing, and she's been trying to piece together this story, one interview and police report at a time from a decade away. What she needs now is your help to get the word out. This is the story of Diane Francis. By the time Sherri Snyder realizes that her mom, Diane Francis, is missing, she's already at a severe disadvantage,

because it's been years since anyone has heard from Diane, and even longer since Sherri herself has seen her. You see, Diane struggled with substance use disorder, which led to her losing custody of her children multiple times. By the time Sherri was 10 in 2003, she and her sister were permanently removed from Diane's care, and they spent the next five or six years bouncing around between foster homes and shelters.

Some were good and some were bad. Their only saving grace was the fact that they managed to stay together. I was that kid that was like, if you tried to separate me from my sister, good luck having peace in your life ever again, because I was the kid that was holding on to poles outside my school screaming. I would just cry and cry and cry. I mean, I would cry until I got sick.

During that time, they weren't given any information about their mom, and they didn't have any kind of visitation with her either. But in 2008, when the girls are teenagers and close to aging out of the system, Sherri decided to try and make contact with someone from her family. Now, she couldn't just like ask for help. I mean, at the time, they were staying in a shelter that actually had strict rules against contacting biological families. So Sherri had to sneak a phone book out of one of the offices,

and she spent the night looking for names of her relatives. She found her step-grandmother, Diane's father's wife. And when she was able to actually speak with her, the whole family was shocked to learn that the shelter the girls were staying in was just right around the corner from their grandparents' house. So not long after that late night phone call, they were actually able to go live with their family, one of their aunts,

and they got to be around a ton of their relatives, though obviously the person that they wanted to see the most was their mom, Diane. So is that even possible in this case? Like, I've worked in the foster care and adoption system, and sometimes every case can be different. Sometimes they are allowed to have contact with biological family members, sometimes they aren't, and it sounds like the rights were terminated,

which can complicate things even more. Well, honestly, it's kind of a moot point, because as badly as Sherri wanted to see her mom, Diane was actually nowhere to be found. Sherri and her sister hadn't seen Diane since they were permanently removed in 2003. But what was really concerning was that when Sherri started talking to her family and extended family

about her mom around 2010, she learned that the rest of them had no idea where Diane could be. So at that point, how long had Diane been MIA? Well, Sherri's grandfather told her that he remembered getting a call from Diane in 2006, although I think just based on the research material that's out there, it's possible it might have actually been 2005. So by the time Sherri finds out, it's been a while,

I mean literally a year since anyone has laid eyes or ears on Diane. And had anyone reported Diane missing? Well, relatives told Sherri that they had tried to have Diane declared missing, but no police agency would take a report. And Sherri ran into that issue as she tried doing the same thing, calling around to police departments in the areas in Florida that her mother might have last been in, specifically Melbourne, Palm Bay, and Jacksonville.

Mostly she said all she got was laughed at, which truly is just a genuinely horrible way to treat someone in her situation. Yeah, that's awful. She was told basically, listen, your mom's a grown woman, she hasn't been in the area as far as we know for years, nothing we can do about it. So like we often see when someone goes missing and police won't take it seriously,

Sherri had to start her own investigation. She did this by trying to retrace her mother's steps. And to do that, she had to go all the way back to her own childhood, trying to remember everything about her mom, their life, and the people in it before Sherri and her sister were placed into the system. In 1994, Sherri's father Charles and Diane moved from New Jersey to Melbourne, Florida, with Sherri and Sherri's older sister. Diane wanted to be in Florida so that she could live closer to her own father.

But not long after the family relocated, Diane and Charles' relationship fell apart. Here is Sherri, who spoke with one of our reporters, Nina. My father claims like within a year, they moved into this trailer park and within a year, she was kind of mingling with the man from across the trailer park. After that, Charles moved back to New Jersey. Diane actually stayed in Melbourne,

which is about an hour southeast of Orlando. And she started dating that other man. But in 1996, Sherri and her sister were removed from Diane's care. A report from the Florida Department of Children and Families says that Diane and her boyfriend were abusing crack cocaine at the time. There's this one instance where he and Diane dropped the girls and his son off at a friend's house for the night and just didn't get in touch with them until well into the next day.

At the time, Sherri's sister had cut her knees so bad that it required stitches and basically Diane and her boyfriend were nowhere to be found. And unfortunately, this was a pattern of parenting that would repeat for years and get the attention of authorities. Sherri says it was always a cycle of ups and downs. There was always spurts of her getting better. So off the drug, she went through the classes, she did the 12-step program or whatever it was she had to do to get us back

because there was requirements through the courts in order for her to regain custody. She would get on track, she'd be doing well, she'd be gaining weight, and then she'd lose us again. Or like the drugs would take over her again. And so we'd just be right back in foster care or with family. There was three times legally, like on paper, that she went through the steps to get us back.

There was voluntary times where she had given us to her parents or her brother prior to us ever being taken away as well. So this was a common thing. She just kept returning to that lifestyle. Diane and her boyfriend ultimately split up and in 1997, she meets another man. We're going to use his nickname JT. Sherri says JT had just gotten out of prison

and Diane had actually been dating a friend of his who managed some apartments that JT's family owned. That's how they knew each other. So she gets with him and things are okay. They have a safe place to live, obviously, because the courts let us go back into her care. Things weren't okay for long. He was completely and utterly abusive to my mother.

Like he would choke her out right in front of my sister and I and we would jump on him and try to punch him and you know, just like yanking on his hair and screaming. I remember him throwing my mom across the house. My sister and I ran over to her and like dragged her off into the bedroom and closed the door and locked it. And he was still outside the door screaming and yelling

and he punched his fist through the door. Diane denied the abuse to police for a bunch of reasons including the fact that she wanted to keep a roof over her and her daughter's heads. But one night in 1999, Diane and JT got into a fight so she left their place. She was walking down the road in Melbourne after the argument crying

when a man named Roger pulled over to ask if she was okay. Diane told him about the fight and the fact that she had nowhere to go. And where were Sherri and her sister at this point? So at the time of this, they were actually living with relatives. But that changes after Diane and Roger, this again guy who just picks her up on the side of the road, started dating.

Roger had actually fought to get custody of his own son so he helped Diane navigate the family court system. And before Sherri knew it, she and her sister were sent back to live with their mom. Sherri says that she has some happy memories from her childhood including when she and her sister lived with her mom, Roger and his son. Because here's the thing, when her mom was sober,

she was wonderful. She was super funny with this like quirky sense of humor and she liked to keep everyone laughing. She said she was just so vivacious and fun to be around. But again, those good times never lasted very long. In 2003, Diane relapsed again. And this is when Sherri and her sister were removed from Diane's care for good.

So that was the last thing Sherri knew for sure. Now she had to try to piece together the last seven years of her mom's life and movements to try and find out where she could be now. When she started asking around to try and figure out the last time anyone had actually heard from her mom, Sherri's grandfather, remember he said he talked to her in what he thought was 2006?

Well, he said that Diane had called their house the Thanksgiving of 2006 from Jacksonville, Florida, specifically at a Ramada Inn. But that surprised Sherri. We never knew her to be in Jacksonville. That's why I was surprised when I heard about that. So was she just calling because of the holiday, like to check in, did she seem okay?

Actually, she was calling because apparently she wanted her birth certificate and social security card. Sherri's grandfather says that he sent the documents, but at some point when he called the hotel back, it was closed and then at some point it's reopened under like a completely different brand. And it was some time after this

that that's when her family really tried to report her missing. But again, no one would take the reports because you see in police's minds, not only was she a grown adult who could walk away from her life if she wanted to, but they knew she lived a high risk lifestyle. At some point, she had been engaging in sex work

to support herself and her addiction. Sherri actually tried to use this to her advantage, hoping that there would be some kind of paper trail for her mother if she had run-ins with the law. But it got complicated because Diane had a couple of aliases that she used, including Diane Teresa Foreman and Kimberly Teresa Foreman. Foreman was actually one of her ex-boyfriend's last name,

but Sherri says that as far as she knows, that man and her mother never actually got married. She just apparently used his last name sometimes. But even though it was complicated, it doesn't mean all of her efforts were in vain. Sherri was able to track down a few reports and one gives her proof of her mom's last contact with police. But it actually adds more questions

to the family's last recollection of their contact with Diane. Based on what she found, the last time her mom was arrested, under any name that we know of, was on Sunday, November 27th, 2005, Diane was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest at that Ramada Inn. Which is why you said that even though Sherri's grandfather

said that he talked to her in 2006, it's more than likely it was actually 2005, right? Right, like we have this report from 2005 at this Ramada Inn, which he knows she was at. So again, kind of again, the paper trail says that was the last time, unless she just so happened to be in the same place a year later. According to the police report for that incident, a security guard heard a loud argument coming from one of the rooms

and when he went to go check it out, he recognized Diane. She had been in trouble for trespassing there before. Now that report mentions that there is a man who's also there with Diane, who she refers to as her husband, but we're not sure who this guy is. On the report, there's no address listed for Diane, just as transient. And she's ultimately taken to jail

and released the next day on November 28th, 2005. And that was it. That is the last known again physical paper trail contact that she has with police. It ends all right there in Jacksonville in 2005. Now to go kind of back to your point about this, you know, was she last heard from in 2005 or 2006? Again, we have Sherri's grandfather saying 2006.

We have this report from 2005. And when we talk to Sherri herself, she says that her mother would never go that long without some sort of contact with police, like based on the reports that she has. So again, not only would she have not had made contact with her family for a year, but she would have also managed to stay out of trouble

for a full year too if that, you know, talk in 2006 is correct. So Sherri keeps trying to fill in the pieces. She submitted a public records request in all of the cities she knew that her mom had gone to. She hunted down mugshots and traffic citations and police reports. She got copies of the child protective services and foster care records that she was allowed to have.

And once she found out about the arrests in Jacksonville, she even contacted the security guard at the Ramada Inn who called the cops on her mother. She reached out to everyone she could think of, every ex-boyfriend, every relative, every friend she could find who knew her mother. She even spoke with Roger who claimed that he last saw Diane possibly in 2005

when he dropped her off at a house not far from where they used to live with a guy named JP who is not to be confused with JT. Roger says that JP was basically a pimp. And the only description of him Sherri was able to get is that he's Hispanic, which is, again, very vague and no way to track him down just based on that. But here's what's strange.

Roger also told Sherri that he didn't know Diane was ever in Jacksonville, which like is so hard to wrap my head around because she was in Jacksonville around the time Roger is saying that he dropped her off at JP's place. Like we know that from reports. So if they were together around that time,

why doesn't he know about Jacksonville? Sherri asked him specifically about that because it was weird to her too. And he's like, listen, look, your mom was all over the place. I don't know. So it's kind of like a non-answer. Time and time again, Sherri's efforts

led to dead ends and frustration. That is until Sherri called the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office in 2018. After the usual run around, she heard back from a woman who works there, who quite literally gave her the shock of her life. She's like, so the reason why they had me call you back is because I have this report from 2015.

And I'm like, what? You know, the last I've known about my mom is possibly 2006. Sherri is stunned, even more so when she gets a look at the incident report, which is not about Diane getting arrested or anything like that. On May 11th, 2015,

JT, Diane's ex-boyfriend, called the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to try and report her missing. What? Yeah, he told police that he was the stepfather of Diane's children. He said that her last known residence was in Jacksonville, and that he hasn't seen her in 12 years,

which means, by his account, that he last saw her in 2003, which is just a few years after they broke up. There's also information in the report about Diane's last arrest in 2005 and her aliases, but I don't know if police found that stuff out on their own or if JT gave it to them. Ashley, I have so many questions.

So does Sherri, starting with the fact that police could have actually looked at JT's criminal history when he called in, which included multiple domestic violence arrests? So why wouldn't police be, like, a little more concerned about him reporting a woman missing? A woman missing that he hasn't seen in 12 years. I never got that,

that they literally let her abuser call in to try to report her missing and didn't tell anyone, didn't say anything, didn't, nothing. Our reporter, Nina, tried to contact JT, but none of the phone numbers listed for him worked, and he never responded to our attempt to reach him through Facebook. But Sherri actually did talk to him a while back

and asked him why he tried to make this report in 2015. And he said he just missed Diane. So his first move is to call the cops? I guess so. What's interesting is that a guy named George Contos, who lived right near JT in Flagler County, Florida, was reported missing in May that year by his family. Apparently he was last seen just one or two days

before JT called the police about Diane. And Sherri mentioned that to JT when they spoke. She was like, oh, that's so weird that your neighbor also goes missing. And JT told her that drug dealers fed George to the alligators. Okay, then. Now, police did name two suspects in George's case, neither of whom are JT. But again, Sherri just thought that the coincidence

or the timing of this all was just super weird. Like maybe JT was fishing for information from law enforcement. Like that's why he's calling to report someone missing to see if there's anything else going. I don't know. Can we back up just for a second? Why was JT able to report her missing, but her own family wasn't?

Well, actually, he wasn't able to report her missing. That call that he made in 2015 was the end of it. It's just an incident report that has Diane's name on it, not like an official missing persons report. So it's just like someone saying like, hey, there's this guy looking for this woman and stop. Right. Because Diane Francis is not officially reported missing

until 2019. That's when Sherri finds a sympathetic detective in the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office who is actually willing to take the report. Even though we don't think her to have ever been in West Palm Beach, it was just a way to get my DNA into the NCIC system and make sure that it's on record in case she is ever found. Having her mother officially reported missing

was a huge victory to Sherri, but it hasn't slowed down her investigation. So to have her go 17 years almost without contacting a friend, a boyfriend, a relative, her kids, anybody, it's not just me, it's anyone. She hasn't spoken to anyone. I couldn't see her just disappearing off the face of the planet completely. I couldn't see her doing better or changing her life around

and not making my sister and I a part of that. Because whenever she was doing better, that's when we were a part of her life. There's two theories that Sherri can't get out of her head. One is that JT was involved in her mom's disappearance. In my mind, I always had a thought that he could have gone back and hurt her somehow because I saw the abuse what I witnessed as a little child.

And another theory involves a man named Russell Tillis. Just last year in 2021, Tillis was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a woman named Joni Gunter. According to Action News Jacks, Joni's dismembered body was found buried in his yard in 2016. He lived in Jacksonville and actually his home, which his neighbors dubbed the House of Horrors,

was just a few minutes drive from that Ramada in where Diane was spending time at. After Russell was arrested, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office had a news conference and the assistant chief told the media, quote, we believe it's highly likely that other females were victimized by Tillis, including potentially other murders, end quote.

Police say that Russell targeted vulnerable young women with a history of sex work and drug use. And get this, according to the Daily Beast, Russell's neighbors described witnessing sex workers running naked from Russell's house, banging on doors and screaming for help. Oh my God. I mean, this gives me such like list flashbacks too.

The neighbors even claimed to see a woman chained to his fence one night and they called the cops, but the Daily Beast couldn't find a police report on that incident. I mean, either way, it's just wild and it's haunting to Sherry. So to think that my mom was prostituting right in that area when he killed that girl is just like, I cannot get that off my mind now. Sherry has been in touch with law enforcement working that case,

who sent her a picture of a Polaroid that they found in Russell's house and the person in the photo looks a lot like her mom. But I mean, we know police did search the house and it's actually been leveled at this point. They didn't find any other bodies on the property. All Sherry wants is to find the mother she remembers. I knew my mom and they'll all say, you know,

like you didn't know the bad part of her. And like you didn't like, no, I did. I remember it still doesn't make her worth any less finding. Like it really doesn't and it never will. This will always be my fight. I remember, you know, in the midst of all the like drug induced passing out and just having to care for ourselves. I do remember the love my mom had for my sister and I.

And so I think that's what keeps me going with all this. When Diane was last heard from, she was 37 to 38 years old. She was white with blonde or brown hair and brown hazel eyes. She stood about five foot three and was 100 to 120 pounds. She does have a distinctive tattoo of a heart on her left calf, a tattoo of the letters JT on her right arm, and scars on both her arms and her face. She may go by her middle name Teresa or use the alias names

Diane Teresa Foreman or even Kimberly Teresa Foreman. So crime junkies, Sherry is asking for all of our help. This investigation is still pretty much resting on her shoulders alone. And she wants to actually make a trip to Florida where her mom was last known to be to actually look for her. So she has a go fund me that we're going to put the link to in our show notes and on our blog. I mean, a few bucks from each of you would go a long way.

And anyone with information about Diane can call the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office at 561-688-3000. And if you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, help is available. The number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline is right in our show notes, 1-800-799-SAFE. You can find all of the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkiepodcast.com. And as always, check us out on Instagram at crime junkie podcast. See you back next week with another episode.

Crime junkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?