Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 13

www.TVIJAIl SMK.rora Ali Gilmore Tallahassee Democrat Sunday. July 23, 2006 13A MISSING MANY MISSING mm IN 1 CnilTHFAQT From Page 1A "'lr-: t. 'u rt i i FDLE reports 2,306 missing adults as of July 7, 1,089 of whom are female i Georgia Bureau of Investigation reports 1,029 missing adults as of April 3, 552 of whom are female. i Alabama Bureau of Investigation reports 571 missing adults as of July 1, 275 of whom are female. i South Carolina Law Enforcement Division reports 1,539 missing adults as of June 30.

far between, thank goodness," said Erin Bruno, director of case management for the National Center for Missing Adults, a Phoenix-based adult-missing-persons clearinghouse and support organization. For example, Margaret Bain, a 74-year-old homeless woman who walked away from a Tallahassee emergency room May 16, was found safe almost two months later. Most missing adults are walk-offs, some investigators say, people who purposely flee their lives or those who wander away, often because of mental illness. Law-enforcement officials have to walk a fine line when it comes to handling missing adult cases. "There is nothing that keeps a person from disappearing; it's not against the law," said Sgt.

Greg Adams with the Tallahassee Police Department's Special Victims Unit. "We have to go with our experience as we assess it." Still, missing-adult advocates say, every case should be taken seriously. "It's not fair to treat one case any differently than another," said Bruno, who emphasized the importance of media attention. "One person could have a small piece of the puzzle. They just don't know it." Jan Baldwin, a cold-case investigator with the Gadsden County Sheriffs Office, says she avoids preconceived notions 'i Police tight-lipped about investigation I CHASE AGNELLO-DEAN Democrat overlooks Lake Ella.

Pictures of her and James are everywhere, like the snapshot of her smiling with James, which was slightly folded on her desk. a pamphlet about pregnancy after four months. A CD cover for baby music is also there. Then there are the names. Baby names, scribbled in Ali handwriting.

Jaiza. Jalon Ali. Jamaica. James Arthur. Co-workers said she wanted the baby to have the same initials as her husband.

On another desk is a small, brown baby doll the size of a hand. The baby is wrapped in white in a basket. Freeman said the doll represented Ali's unborn baby. "It was helping to encourage her since she was separated," Freeman said. Friends and family members say they see Ali in dreams and crowds.

Her sister, Attalah, thought she saw Ali at a festival earlier this year. "I was shaking," Attalah said. "I went to the lady, waiting for Ali to say something." It wasn't Ali. Her friend since high school, Newbold, dreamed she saw Ali going up on an escalator with an older man while she was going down. "I said, Dut she didn't respond.

She just looked at me." Ali's family has made numerous trips to Tallahassee searching for her, pass- ing out fliers with Ali's picture. Attalah said. the family won't give up until her sister is found. "We're just going to keep on pressing until we bring Ali home." Contact Democrat senior writer Stephen D. Price at (850) 671-6548 or spricetallahassee.com.

about a missing person's fate. "I don't try to make an opinion one way or another," said Baldwin, who -is investigating the Tew Jackson case. "I don't rule out anything." The Leon County Sheriffs Office and Tallahassee Police Department follow up on all missing person reports, even those which the person is not considered endangered. Adams said TPD gets more than 300 reports of missing kids and adults a year. Baxter said the county works anywhere from 10 to 30 missing person calls a month.

Nearly early all are resolved quickly. "I don't think we have a large abduction problem here," said Baxter, noting the area's relatively small population. "Here people are going to notice if you go missing most of the time." Contact reporter Jennifer Portman at (850) 599-2154 or jportmantallahassee.com. Saturday, but no one answered. Ali's next-door neighbor Dan McGee said he is "90-percent he saw James' car at Ali's house at 7:30 a.m.

that Friday, when McGee took his daughter to school. "I thought to myself, guess they're trying to work things McGee said. When he returned at 8:10 that morning, the car was gone. James Gilmore volunteered to do a computer voice-stress analysis, a truth-verification test. "I don't think there is any deception (on James' part)," Newland said of the test.

After Ali separated from her husband, she began dating a man named Dwight, but family and friends know little about him. Tracking Ali's whereabouts could've been made difficult by the thunderstorms Thursday night and Friday after Ali disappeared, and the days that elapsed before anyone looked for her. Heavy rains complicate tracking efforts, Newland said. Police and search parties have combed wooded areas and followed numerous tips, but they don't seem to know much more about what happened to Ali than they did at the beginning of the investigation. "We need some type of tip that will break open this case," Newland said.

Family members are frustrated by the lack of. progress. "I feel they can do more," said Ali's sister, Attalah McLawrence. "We have no idea what's going on with the investigation." Newland said there have been two investigators on the case since Ali disappeared. "If we get something that is a good lead, we'll contact them and let them know," he said.

Tallahassee Police Chief Walt McNeil said he offered the investigators additional resources if needed. None has been requested, McNeil said. Until police get more information, they're assuming the worst. "It could be a missing person's case," McNeil said. "But it's better for us to assume it's a murder and work it from that standpoint." Ali Gilmore, under a tree that Ali briefly at 8:45 p.m., while she was at Publix, and she reminded him about the 9 a.m.

counseling session they had the next day. Ali worked until closing, and left Publix sometime after 11 p.m. Last seen Neither Ali nor James attended the counseling session that Friday morning. James said he overslept and woke up at about 11 a.m. He left a message at Ali's day job, apologizing for missing the counseling session.

Ali didn't show up at the Department of Health that day, nor did she call in to say she wouldn't be there. Co-workers knew about the counseling session set for 9 a.m., and they figured she'd be in later. Freeman, her supervisor and confidante, was out sick and did not know Ali wasn't there. James called Ali's home Saturday morning. He went over there that afternoon, saw her car in the driveway and knocked on her door, but no one answered, he said.

"I'm thinking, she's really mad," James said. On Monday, Denson and Freeman went to Ali's house, knocked on her door and window, but got no answer. They said her bedroom light and the front floodlight were on. They called police. Numerous searches have been made for Ali, but nothing has turned up.

Her office at the DOH, at 2585 Merchants Row, has been left virtually the same since Ali left, disturbed only by investigators looking for clues. It still holds Ali's hopes. that was dedicated to her sister, moved out. "Somebody needed to take a big step, and I guess was going to be me, said James, a liquor store man- ager at Albertsons Supermarket. Two days later, according to co-workers, Ali learned she was pregnant again.

Ali was determined to be more careful during this pregnancy. When she went home to Palm Beach County for Thanksgiving, she had a co-worker, Liz Denson, drive her as a precaution. She didn't want to carry luggage or walk up stairs, Attalah said. Ali bought more baby clothes and diapers. Some time after the separation, Ali began dating a man she met at FAMU's homecoming, Attalah said.

Family members said his name was Dwight. Ali's neighbor Gary Merone, who described himself as being close to Ali, said the man Ali was dating was a truck driver, but the relationship wasn't serious. Friends described him as light-skinned and muscular, with curly hair. Neighbors said they would see him washing Ali's car. But Ali seemed to be determined to make her marriage work.

In January, Ali told her sister she wanted to reconcile with James. Attalah said Ali told her: "That's the father of my child. I love him." "Ali really loved James. She was protective of him," Attalah said. James said he told Ali, "We definitely have to work this thing out." At the beginning of the week Ali disappeared, coworkers said she was upbeat.

They said Ali believed she and James would get back together soon. "Things were looking up," James said. They often talked about the baby and were getting counseling. Denson, Ali's co-worker, said Ali was distraught on Thursday, Feb. 2, because she learned the taxes on her house had risen sharply.

"I was trying to get her to calm down," Denson said. There was a thunderstorm that day, with nickel-size hail and tornado watches. That evening, Ali went to work at Publix. She called her supervisor, Freeman, about the tax problem and told her she didn't know how she was going to pay it. James said he talked to Attalah Grimsley looks at a plaque GILMORE From Page 12A State University was playing the University of Miami Hurricanes her favorite team.

Directly after the ceremony, she rushed to the hotel's weight room in her wedding gown to watch the game along with her cousin, Michael Brown, mayor of Riviera Beach. James said the marriage was good in the beginning. They eventually bought a house at 231 Loraine Court, in the Wilson Green subdivision off of Crawfordville Road. Ali bought address numbers to match the blue house with white trim. Ali began planting flowers around the house before she and James moved in.

She would even stop by the house and water the lawn before going to work. "She said, 'When I move in, everything will be said Ali's sister, Attalah McLawrence. Planning kids Ali eventually attended Christian Heritage Church. She and James talked about having children, but there was no rush. "I always told her, 'I know I have children, but you James said.

"The decision was if we were going to have kids, we wouldn't have a lot." Last summer, Ali learned she was pregnant and called James from work with the news. She was excited, and being the planner she is, began buying baby clothes the same month she learned she was expecting. But before fall, Ali discovered she was bleeding. She and James went to her doctor, who told the couple she had miscarried. "She was heartbroken," James said.

"She said, 'How did this Not long after, Ali and James began having problems. James said they had a lack of communication and weren't spending enough time together. Co-workers said that Ali complained of financial problems and was tired of working 8 to 5 for the state and going to work again at 6 p.m. some days at the Publix bakery. "She was ready to have one job," said Karen Freeman, Ali's supervisor at the Department of Health.

In November, James it By Stephen D. Price CAPITOL BUREAU Ali Gilmore has been missing for six and Tallahassee police, aren't saying much about the investigation into her disappearance, though they have two investigators working on the case full time. Folice spokesman John Newland said investigators have put in at least 1,600 hours on Ali's case, but he would not provide paperwork to show how the time was spent. No one has been charged. What police will say, however, is that most of their evidence is circumstantial and that there are three or four "people of interest" who could be connected to Ali's disappearance.

They would not name any of them except Ali's estranged husband, James Gilmore, who police said has been "very cooperative." Posters around Tallahassee and in parts of Florida and Georgia describe Ali as 5-foot-6, 180 pounds, brown hair and eyes and a medium complexion. Ali was four months pregnant when she was last seen on the night of Feb. 2, a Thursday. She went to her job during the day at the Department of Health, and that evening went to her second job at the bakery at Publix on Apalachee Parkway Though police wouldn't confirm this, family members said they were told Ali received a call at home after midnight Thursday night. No one realized Ali was missing Friday or through that weekend.

Police were called to her home by worried co-workers Monday, Feb. 6. Ali's car was still in the driveway. A set of work keys was found in her purse in the car, but Ali's house and car keys were not found. The house was locked except for a side window in a spare She and her estranged husband were scheduled for a counseling session that Friday morning at 9.

Neither made the appointment. James Gilmore said he overslept and called Ali at 11 a.m. but received no answer. James told the Tallahassee Democrat he went to Ali's house that I IWi.t'in-Wi tiiAYi-'nT'iri'fuWi ii 1 i itirhtfl" i iM iU IWWWfi iiiiilWIln jj CHASE AGNELLO-DEAN Democrat Wonlque Newbold talks about growing up with her friend All Gilmore. Ali disappeared In February..