Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 49

section SEPTEMBER 22, 1980 0 The disappearance of five young women tip vZtj UY A. i -v niL Sharon "Share" Harrer, 20, disappeared early Monday morning, Nov. 26, 1979 from the parking lot of D. Pioneer Club. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., she lived with her parents at 1005 Warwick Drive in St.

Petersburg. Sharon is 5-4, 98 pounds, with blue eyes and blond hair. She had just finished her fifth night as a waitress for the Fantasm Club and was last seen getting into a Cadillac driven by a man who identified himself as Robert Crawford. She was wearing a blouse and tight black satin pants. 'It's just awful.

She never hurt or bothered anybody. Some creepo came into our lives and destroyed everything. Nancy Clamantt. mother of Cindy. 7 believe all of these are connected, I believe the girls are not even in this state.

They are in some sort of white slavery ring, some cult somewhere. Joan Walla, mothar of Malinda. By PETER B. GALLAGHER St. Plrburg Timl Sf WrHf Right now, there are five young Tampa Bay women missing under "highly suspicious" circumstances.

In other words, law enforcement experts do not consider them runaways or routine drop-outs. Although there are technically no crimes involved here, foul play is certainly suspected. Everyone parents, police, friends, the public is waiting for a body alive or dead. "I don't know why they are still calling Liz a mysterious missing person. She's no goddam missing person," says distraught Gary Muchmore, whose girlfriend of four years Liz Graham disappeared Sept.

9. "She's been nabbed. And it was premeditated. Any fool can see that." Five young women. Three from St Petersburg, one from Pinellas Park, one from Tampa.

Gone. The St. Petersburg police, Pinellas County Sheriffs Department, Tampa police and Hillsborough Sheriffs Department have all compared notes on these five women. In a meeting just last week, law enforcement officers examined strong similarities and strange coincidences, but "there was one fact which stood out there is no significant relationship to connect any of them," says Tampa police detective Mark Blazo. IT WOULD BE incredible if all were connected.

Is there another Robert Carr or Ted Bundy loose around here? It would be incredible if none of them are related. Such a situation doesn't arise every week in this part of the country. In fact, never before have area police investigated so many suspicious disappearances at the same time. That's because most missing person cases are not sus 'L fh Cynthia Clements, 19, disappeared Sept. 1, 1980 from a Little General Store at 6 185 54th Ave, N.

She had just moved to Pinellas Park from her hometown, Cincinnati, Ohio. She is 5-2, 160 pounds with hazel eyes and light brown hair. Cindy vanished on her third night as a convenience store clerk. She was wearing a white pullover blouse trimmed in red, dark blue knit pants and flat-heel brown sandals. Elizabeth Margaret Graham, 19, disappeared Tuesday afternoon Sept.

9. 1 980 from a Pampered Poodle van, found abandoned at a vacant house at 2 1 72 Bradford a few blocks from the Stage Stop Lounge in Largo. A Canadian citizen born in Ontario, she is 5-6, 1 20 pounds with hazel eyes and auburn hair. It was her second day as a Pampered Poodle groomer. She was last seen wearing a red T-shirt, jeans and track shoes.

a mm miairi'f mi mnu CUD 1 picious, uenerally speaking, you immediately determine a pattern," says Sgt. John Mulry of the Pinellas County Sheriffs Department. "You figure it out in an hour, sometimes. It rarely takes more than a few days. But these women aren't your normal missing persons." Most missing persons leave a trail, a motive, a reason for their disappearance.

Most leave a thread unraveled from the cloak they throw over "the reason why." Debts. Drugs. Divorce. Boyfriend in Arkansas. Death in the family.

Trauma. Psychological problem. Fired from work. Jumping bail. Something to justify leaving town without saying goodbye.

But these particular five women have vanished without a trace. Five since last November. Three since the end of July. They left little but their memories. AND THEY LEFT mystery.

Sandy Graham who was nearly blind left her eyeglasses, cigarettes and car keys on the bar counter at a Tampa tavern. Cindy Clements left an unfinished crossword puzzle on the counter of a Little General 24-hour convenience store. Sharon Harrer left her overnight bag and her friend's car in the parking lot of a Seminole bottle club. Liz Graham left a dog grooming company van in the driveway of a vacant house in Largo. And Melinda Harder Sandra Jean Graham, 21, disappeared just after midnight, Sunday April 27, 1 980 from Pam's Liquor Lounge on Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa.

A Tampa native, Sandy is 5-2, 106 pounds, with blue eyes and dark blond hair. She had worked for more than a year for Hillsborough Community College. No one remembers what she was wearing the night she walked outside to talk with a "biker." bars parked in front of Pam's Lounge. It's not what you might call a class or choice place to visit," says Blazo. "She walked outside with an individual who looked, acted and smelled like he came from that part of society which calls itself SANDY GRAHAM WAS only going outside for "a minute." She has not been Been since.

From detective Blazo's description of her lifestyle, one might surmise that she was asking for trouble. The same could be said of Sharon Harrer. A former model who used the nickname "Shara," she was a regular at various live music lounges across the Suncoast. Her boyfriend of many months was a guitar player for the rock 'n' roll band Linx, which has played all over the Southeast, primarily in the Tampa Bay area. When Fantasm (a rock and roll club on St.

Petersburg's Central Avenue) opened, Sharon was hired as a cocktail waitress. She worked there five days. When the club closed at 2 a.m., Monday Nov. 26, 1979, Sharon and other employees went to an after-hours club D.J.'s Pioneer Club on the Madeira Beach Causeway. An hour later she walked outside with friends and was approached by a man who called himself Robert Crawford driving a Cadillac.

No one had ever seen hira before. She got in the car, saying she planned to get breakfast. AND THAT WAS IT. No more Sharon Harrer. No Robert Crawford.

Nothing. Her father died eight months later. Her mother packed up her daughter's clothes and put them away. Joan Harrer spends her time waiting. And reading news accounts of unidentified bodies.

"They say there are a bunch of them in the morgue at Fort Lauderdale. Maybe I should go down there," she says. "I want to know. "We had a rule in this house. If Sharon wanted to stay out all night she had to call me so I wouldn't worry," says Mrs.

Harrer. "And she always did. She always called me when she wasn't coming home. I can still hear her saying to me, 'Mom, I can take care of myself. Don't Sharon Harrer got in a car with someone her friends say she barely knew.

Asking for trouble? One can hardly doubt that Melinda Harder was inviting danger by walking the streets at 3:30 a.m. on July 27. Her friends say she had six beers at the Stage Stop Lounge and a few swigs from a Seagrams 7 bottle at home. She had bumped her head inside a van while she was being driven home by a friend. MELINDA, KNOWN as a strong girl who knew See MISSING, 3-D Malinda Harder, 2 1 disappeared early Sunday morning, July 27, 1 980 in the vicinity of a Little General store at 2000 1 6th St.

N. A Canadian citizen born on Micsou Island, she is 5-5, 1 30 pounds with brown eyes and black hair. Unemployed, Malinda lived with her three children (pictured above) and a boarder at 2 136 23rd Ave. N. After returning home from a night at the Stage Stop Lounge, she left on foot to visit a boyfriend, wearing a low-cut maroon cotton blouse, wraparound jeans skirt and flip-flop sandals.

justice." But there ARE suspects. "Until I find Sandy Graham, everyone's a suspect. Let me put it that way," says Tampa police detective Blazo. "She was not choosy about the people she hung out with. Many of them were of questionable character.

There is a suspicion of narcotics involvement, also." Blazo's hands are full. Cheerful Sandy Graham, daughter of a prominent Tampa family, apparently led two lives. By day she had a respectable job and apartment, clean junior executive-type friends. At night she caroused the low-life bars, satisfying a craving to play pool in taverns. She had a network of friends all through Tampa's underbelly.

The night (April 27) she disappeared, detective Blazo feels certain, she found her Mr. Good bar. "There is a strong possibility she was abducted by a biker. There was a big of black Harley with long handle- left her own house, three young children, and a Polish sausage jug with $50 in bills and change. Police have done a tremendous amount of investigation on the five cases.

At least seven officers are working fulltime, right now, looking for these women. Hundreds of persons have already been interviewed. Nothing. Nothing, but a vague police sketch of a man seen in Dunedin on Sept. 6.

And he is not a suspect. "We believe that person has information which would benefit our investigation in the (Liz) Graham case," says Sgt. Mulry, who will not say any more about the white male, in his 30s, with curly blond hair, green eyes, a heavy build, black-rim glasses and acne scars under his chin. "HE'S NOT A suspect. You can't force pieces into a puzzle.

If you do, you are doing your investigation an in- Disturbed vet wants help so he can handle his life By KELLY SCOTT Pi yburg Timw Staff Wrrtw -y I- ti v- a 'But if they let me out without treating me for my problems, it's not going to do anybody any good, me or society. Trevor Cochran the home of a 31-year-old woman, held a gun to her head, alternately raged about "gooks and slants" or talked calmly, demanded sexual favors and tried to choke her. Cochran's defense was a novel one that drew nationwide attention: that as a veteran of the Vietnam war, he is haunted by visions and memories of his seven months as a combat Marine. Those memories stayed bottled up too long, doctors told the jury. One evening he saw the movie Apocalypse Now, a gripping film that cleverly makes death, blood and destruction in Southeast Asia a thing of hypnotic visual beauty.

Cochran lost touch with the real world for four hours because he saw the movie, according to two psychologists and a psychiatrist. They recommended that he should not be held legally responsible for his action, and Cochran was found not guilty by reason of insanity. "DELAYED STRESS" from combat is bubbling to the surface of many Vietnam veterans who cannot understand why they can't sleep through the night uninterrupted, why their tempers get so short, what makes them drink heavily or take mind -deadening drugs, why they feel so isolated and so bitter. Returning from Vietnam was dif ferent from what soldiers experienced returning from other wars, psychiatrists have found, because Vietnam veterans weren't rewarded by society for their deadly work. Because of the war's unpopularity, they weren't made to feel their work was patriotic or worthwhile.

They wouldn't talk about it. Feelings of fear, horror, shame and hurt stayed locked inside. And sometimes, as in Cochran's case, those feelings have been released violently. "Delayed stress" is now a recognized psychological affliction. Finally last year the federal government decided it owed its Vietnam veterans a little help with their problems, and set up special Vietnam veterans counseling centers across the country.

WHEN A DEFENDANT like Cochran is declared not guilty by insanity, he is sentenced to the Florida State Hospital instead of the Florida State Prison. Cochran apparently is suffering from the misconception that if you go to a state mental hospital you get some treatment. Even the director of Cochran's ward will tell you that's not necessarily so. Tha first three months he was at1 Chattahoochee, Cochran had three hour-long group therapy sessions. He Sea VET.

CHATTAHOOCHEE Trevor Cochran lived in the squalid Pinellas County Jail for more than seven months. He ate, slept and waited for trial in a crowded cell where fights and sexual attacks were a way of life. Here at the Florida State Hospital, Cochran has his own corner of a six-man room not a cell on a ward floor with a television set and lounge. He can lift weights and go outdoors. There is a spot in his one-sixth of a room to pin up photographs of his 7-month-old twins Billy and Crystal Spring he has never seen.

During his trial, Cochran had a prison pallor and a blank, sedated look. Since he was sentenced to Chattahoochee, Cochran has put on weight and has a touch of color. A close-cropped beard frames his face. He has stopped taking tranquilizers and his eyea are brighter, more alert Yet Cochran says, "Personally, I'd rather be back in the county jaiL I was getting therapy there. I felt I was making progress.

Basically, all I do here is lie around and read books and left weights in the yard." COCHRAN CAME TO Chattahoochee in June. On May 1, a Pinellas jury decided Cochran was temporarily insane the night he broke into 7 V'- A A tt. artourf TimM KELLY SCOTT ft1 i (4i "il Ifii i i iM'm Am..