At 18-years-old, Bonnie Lee Dages had her entire life ahead of her. Instead, she and her son, Jeremy, mysteriously went missing after a trip to a Brandon, Florida shopping center in 1993. To this day, family and friends have not seen or heard from her. The investigation into her disappearance has since gone cold. It's been almost three decades since Bonnie Lee and her son went missing. We take a look back at the case, in hopes that you can help us solve this "Unfinished Business."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
At 18-years-old, Bonnie Lee Dages had her entire life ahead of her. Instead, she and her son, Jeremy, mysteriously went missing after a trip to a Brandon, Florida shopping center in 1993. To this day, family and friends have not seen or heard from her.
Linda Hersberger, Mother:
"I would say that we have missed her dreadfully and we would always have the hope that someday that she and Jeremy would come home and we'd find out where they were."
The investigation into her disappearance has since gone cold.
Detective Hobelmann:
"The case is obviously, in our books, still active. It doesn't have a resolution for it, so it remains active."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
It's been almost three decades since Bonnie Lee and her son went missing. We take a look back at the case, in hopes that you can help us solve this "Unfinished Business."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
Linda Hershberger remembers her daughter, Bonnie Lee Dages, as an outgoing teenager, who could pretty much get along with anyone.
Linda Hersberger, Mother:
"She was the oldest of five kids and pretty much the bossiest of five kids... She enjoyed poetry. She didn't like school. She was smart. She just didn't like school, but she did very well in certain subjects and she enjoyed the writing and anything to do with, I guess you could say using your imagination. And she liked going out where the kids all go out and mud bog with their trucks and their four wheelers and stuff. She and her friends used to go out and watch that a lot. So she was just an active... Enjoyed her friends and enjoy talking to people in general. And I guess she was something like her father. She never met somebody she didn't talk to."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
Bonnie Lee was also a young mother. Four months before she disappeared in April of 1993, she gave birth to her son, Jeremy.
Linda Hersberger, Mother:
"She was very attentive. She wasn't afraid of being a mom. I think I would have been more nervous at that age, but she did well. She took good care of him."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
On the day of her disappearance, Bonnie Lee and her son spent time at their family residence. They left later that day to go to the home where she served as a nanny. Detective Cley Hobelmann, of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division, is the lead investigator on this case.
Detective Hobelmann:
"She had talked to a couple of friends. She came into an inheritance, which I know has come up with this investigation. She had a sum of money that she was inheriting from a great-grandfather that had set it aside for her. She, the day that she goes missing, ends up going to make a transaction of this total fund of the inheritance and withdraws a reasonably large amount for that day. She's told multiple people through interviews, at least that we're reading, a couple of variations of where the money is to be going, but it appears to be used towards some sort of investment that she was going to do with another individual."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Later on in that day, she's letting the family know that she nannies with that she's going to complete that transaction of transferring the money that she has in cash collected from the bank to an individual. We don't have specific evidence that this transaction has ever completed, but we have a couple interviews surrounding that give some good information or direction toward that transaction transpiring. It's shortly thereafter later in that evening on the night that she goes missing that ultimately she goes out and then is not seeing from or heard from again."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"That was April 28th, 1993."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Correct."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"She left the home where she was nannying at. She headed toward old Kash 'N Karry that was once at the intersection of Lithia Pinecrest and Lumsden Roads in Brandon."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Ultimately, again we're working off of interviews, she's relatively vague about exactly what she's doing that night. Yes, she's told at least some people that she was going to go towards the Kash 'N Karry to meet, others she's been less specific about where she's specifically going. The Kash 'N Karry obviously comes into play because that's where her vehicles found roughly two nights after she goes missing. Her van that was registered to her is found in the parking lot of the Kash 'N Karry. Some presumptions have been drawn that she obviously drove to that location and that's where the van was all along. There's not evidence that we have for this case that explicitly says that she drove to that Kash 'N Karry, and that the van was there for the full two days before it was found."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"That's because at this time, we don't have surveillance video."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Right. Right. There's no surveillance that was available at the Kash 'N Karry at the time. You're relying on people that are coming and going that are not necessarily there for any permanent reason, obviously with shoppers, with shift working employees that are there for some days, but not there for others. You're relying on them to try to place where this van was, when it showed up, if there was any other vehicles around there. We ended up with, as you might expect, a wide range of possibilities for that vehicle, for when it was there, who was around that vehicle. Obviously, those fell into our leads department, which have been constantly, even through 27 years, worked on."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"Going back to her van that was found abandoned. The van was locked. Her purse and the diaper bag were left inside. The baby seat was gone. She was gone. Jeremy was gone. What can you tell us about that?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"You've captured most of it. She's still got baby bags in the seat of the vehicle. There is a carrier for a child, but there is no car seat in the child. So, there's kind of the little handled carrier that you might carry the infant around in, but there's no actual vehicle child seat. The family had assured us that yes, she typically had a child seat in the car. A couple of the diaper bags, obviously the amount of money that we are aware that she transacted from the bank earlier in the day is no longer there. She has a small amount that appears to be part of that money that she still has in the purse, but that's minimal compared to the amount that she had withdrawn. So, that amount of money is gone. But yes, no presence of Jeremy, no indication of obvious foul play right there at the scene. So, obviously we have to work with the very little amount of information we have there between fingerprints, between fibers, between vacuumings of the vehicle for any sort of evidence that we may still be able to work from today."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"When does HCSO get notified that Bonnie and her son are gone?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"HCSO was notified... They were notified the day after her going missing that she never came home overnight. Her father actually calls concerned and wanting kind of a welfare check. Again, keeping in mind, this is back in 1993. Deputy deputies did go out. There was a call for service dispatched. Deputies did go out and try to do their best due diligence in that initial response, trying to verify was she there, was she at another residence where the family she was nannying said she might be. They're checking a couple of different addresses. They're checking with friends, they're checking with last known boyfriends, trying to locate her. Keep in mind to the vehicle was not recovered until day two. So, she's missing with her infant, but so is her vehicle. The presumption was she could be out driving somewhere or could have driven herself somewhere."
Detective Hobelmann:
"It doesn't really kick up until her vehicle is found, obviously abandoned, locked up without her anywhere around it. That's not until the second day. During that second day with that amount of information and with continuing following the trail of where she might be from the first day, once they find that vehicle and realize she's no longer around the mode of transportation she did have, to leave the day prior, is now no longer with her. She doesn't have access to by then. Then it becomes more of a suspicious missing person and where we would start considering her endangered."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"So, Dad calls the 29th. The vehicle is found on the 30th. What originally led you guys to that vehicle in the first place?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"That was routine patrol searching around in the area. I think, based on what I'm reading in the report, the patrol deputy notices that there is a vehicle there that appears to match the description of her vehicle. There were alerts put out for her. Again, we're dealing in a different time and era, even when we go back as little to most as what 1993 is, there's no quick send out of information for her being missing through computers. By then, we're barely working with computers accessible to patrol deputies at that time. So, there were some alerts given over the radio to deputies that work in that area to be on the lookout for either her or that vehicle. Ultimately, I think it's one of these alerts that lets the deputy that finds a vehicle recognize that that's the vehicle that's been mentioned as belonging to Bonnie Dages."
It's now been 27 years since Linda Hershberger has seen or heard from her eldest daughter.
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"What have those years been like for you and your family and all of her siblings?"
Linda Hershberger, Mother:
"Hard to say. It's hard to explain. You have to go on. We have other children you have to take care of and they grow up, but it leaves a hole in their lives. It leaves a hole in your life. You get resentful of everybody that has a normal life."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
And... life will never be the same for Bonnie Lee and Jeremy's family. The investigation into their disappearance has since gone cold but does remain active all these years later. The evidence in the case, though, is limited.
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"What stands out about this case compared to other ones that you've worked? I know you've worked several. What stands out to you about this one? What makes it so different?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"Obviously, the time. We're accustomed to working a majority of our cases as active cases that may have just transpired where you're collecting video evidence, seen evidence, essentially you're doing the investigation right in front of you. Working a cold case is obviously a little bit different because you're collecting something in this case upwards of 27 years ago. You're basically picking up where multiple detectives have already left off. There often no longer is any scene available. In this unique instance, you don't even have a crime scene per se, because we still have two missing persons, that we don't have a recovery of any person. We don't have a body in the event that it's a homicidal missing person. So, you're really having to try to pick up where others have left off. That's obviously unique and something different to have to address."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"Where do you start when you, when you get a case like this?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"Usually when we get these cases, obviously we're starting with the actual report from the time of. In this incident, there were... Now we have approximately four or five binders of material. That's another thing, we're dealing in an era where everything's digitized, everything's available on a computer. Now we're having to go into a closet to actually pull out a drawer that has folders and files. Right now I think we have... I think it's in the thousands of pages of documents, 4,000-5,000 pages worth of documents. It's four 4" binders, so it's a lot of material to have to read through just even get a grasp of what the investigation was and what it entailed."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Then from there, you're looking towards some of the evidence that still remains that we have within our stored evidence 27 years later. There's a lot of things that have changed when it comes to fingerprinting or when it comes to DNA evidence, when it comes to fiber evidence. So, we're reviewing a lot of that as well as researching new databases that are available."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"What evidence is there in this case?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"Evidence in terms of her disappearance is limited mostly to what we have there at the vehicle. We have responded to several different locations, possible scenes, and collected items of interest. Most of those have been tested. Not all of them have been tested to the standards of 2020. That's part of what working cold cases is taking different pieces of evidence that we've collected from different scenes or even collected from her vehicle and retesting them or finding new ways to test them."
Detective Hobelmann:
"We have, like I've even mentioned before, we have fibers, we have hairs, we have dirt samples. We have fabric samples from various locations to include her car. Even in 2020, just this year, we're getting new fingerprint hits that we haven't previously had available to us. So, really a couple of different places. It's not the amount of evidence that you would expect if you had an actual scene where, if it ultimately is a homicide as what the evidence appears to indicate, you might have blood evidence or you might have what you might expect at a homicide scene. So, we're working with a little bit smaller evidence pool, but it's still there and it's still giving up information even through 27 years later."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"Have there been, or are there persons of interest in this case at this point?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"There have been persons of interest, even from the very beginning of the investigation. There were people interviewed several times that were persons of interest and through the years we've developed other people that there may be connections. It's just a matter of working enough pieces of the puzzle together to get them to either align with being involved or no longer involved based on what we have. Each person we've come across, it's that kind of weed out process of assessing what we have, what interviews we have, time and place, and comparing that to what we've heard from those individual people that we might be interested in."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"I know in the past, detectives have considered this... It's a missing persons case, but it's been considered suspicious, even though we have no concrete evidence of there being foul play involved."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Right. The difficulty in this missing persons case is obviously, as we've said, we don't have a person. We don't have either of them. Even in the background while we're working this case as a crime or as a criminal case, we have still over several different gears, conducted full-fledged online searches of social security, numbers, height, weight, physical descriptors, trying to find if it were in the instance that she decided to just pack up and leave one day or jump on a Greyhound bus and leave. We're even investigating that simultaneously while we investigate it criminally."
Detective Hobelmann:
"We're trying to still see if she would have popped up somewhere or shown up some, tried to get some other license or filed for some other paperwork. Obviously what we have in front of us, 27 years later, doesn't lead us to believe that is the case, but even something as little as that is still not ignored. But through the investigation, we're processing what we have to date with her going missing with such a small child with her, with the fact that a large sum of money is missing on the same date that she goes missing, that we can confirm through bank transactions was actually withdrawn, but we don't have any concrete evidence of whose hand that money actually ended up in."
Detective Hobelmann:
"You start putting all these factors together. You have her vehicle that she was known to have left in, but now it's locked and abandoned. You put all these items together and it obviously puts enough suspicion on the case that you start getting that something sinister may have happened to her, her and the child, obviously."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
DNA profiles were constructed for both Bonnie Lee and Jeremy. In the instance that remains are ever found, they could be run through a database and cross-referenced in an attempt to identify the person. In a case with limited evidence, HCSO detectives have done everything they can possibly do at this point to bring justice to Bonnie Lee and Jeremy's family.
Linda Hershberger, Mother:
"It's hard to have somebody in your family just gone and you don't know what happened. And of course you can't possibly imagine just one thing. Your mind goes through the scenario of everything you could possibly imagine. Every story you hear of what happened to somebody else, could that have happened to them? So you live in it a lot. It's not something like when somebody passes away and then you have sorrow and grief for a certain amount of time, and then you bury it all. You can't do that."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"Obviously this is a cold case, but I guess where do things stand with the investigation now, all these years later?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"The case is obviously, in our books, still active. It doesn't have a resolution for it, so it remains active. We've still been in contact with family through the years, trying to collect information, try and get any new updates, providing the information that we collect as we've worked through the investigation. There Are still on occasion tips that are coming in, leads that are coming in now through internet, or now through the Facebook page for the Sheriff's office. We're still getting tips that come in on occasion and we're still working those or running those down."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Like I've mentioned with the physical evidence that we do have, there's always the ability to keep testing it or keep finding different tests to put these pieces of evidence through, to try to start connecting, connecting more dots that have been worked on through the years, but might not have had the appropriate means by which to test it or to get the information that that piece of evidence contains."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"Is there one piece of information out there that would really change the course of this investigation?"
Detective Hobelmann:
"The obvious one that jumps off the page is locating wherever Bonnie went. Obviously in the event that she were still alive, her whereabouts being known, or Jeremy's whereabouts being known, would resolve this in a heartbeat. In the instance that she befell foul play, finding wherever she was, wherever she might be, as well as Jeremy would at least give us a scene and you can start working again, more tangible evidence than what we have right now."
Detective Hobelmann:
"Our secondary hope from that is, we did countless interviews during the time of the investigation and through these 27 years, but we're never opposed to getting more information or getting more people to come forward and talk about what they may know. Even the smallest little detail that could have been left out during interviews 27 years ago, now in light of what we have and all of the interviews we've done in 27 years, might be one little puzzle piece that we still need. When you put that into what we know from 27 years of working on this case, it may fill a hole that we can now start doing something more active on that or on that angle."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"Well, that was one thing her mom said was, when this happened she was 18 years old. All of her friends were around that age as well. Now they're all... 27 years later..."
Detective Hobelmann:
"In their forties with several crime movies and crime series, and all of the NCI shows that we have nowadays. I'm sure somewhere along the line, somebody who knew Bonnie has thought to themselves. "Hmm. I knew this about her and now seeing this show, I wonder if that means anything." But, it might've been shrugged off and not seemed important at that time. That's the kind of person that we want to step forward to tell us, "Hey, I know this might not be important, but I saw this show this one time and I thought about what I know about Bonnie, or what I know about Jeremy, or what I know about what I've heard about Bonnie and Jeremy, and this might be important." Those are the kinds of tips that seem like they might not mean that much, but especially in our hands with all the information that we do have, they can sometimes go a long way."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
For years now, Linda Hershberger has pleaded with the public for any information they may have surrounding Bonnie Lee and Jeremy's disappearance. She has never stopped seeking answers to what happened to them on April 28, 1993.
Linda Hershberger, Mother:
"I say that the kids and I have talked about it, that the main thing is we want to know what happened, but I believe that if we do know what happened and we know who did it, if we find out someone did something and that they're still here, that after we know what happened, we would want justice. But at the moment, the big thing is just to know what happened just to know."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"I imagine as the siblings, her siblings grew up, all of the big accomplishments, the holidays, the birthdays, those have been difficult. Do you guys, as a family, get together to remember, to pray, to do anything to honor both Bonnie and Jeremy?"
Linda Hershberger, Mother:
"We do. And it's just, we take some time to talk about them and like you were asking about different things and what do you remember and things like that. We don't do it all the time but we do it whenever we can get together. It gets harder to get together as everybody gets a little more spread out, but we try to do it."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
"To a potential person out there who knows something that just maybe years ago was too scared to come forward, if there's anybody out there who has information that could bring you guys some resolution here, what would you say to that person?"
Linda Hershberger, Mother:
"That we would so appreciate any information from anyone. We do realize the fact that back in the time when everything happened, so many of the people involved were underage and there were things they didn't want to talk about in front of not only the police, but their parents, things like that. But now there's no reason. Well, I don't know about no reason, but it would be great if they could come forward and just any information because sometimes that information leads to something else that we didn't know. So whether it seems consequential or not, to tell us anything they remember."
Merissa Lynn, Host:
If you have any information on this case, or any others that are being investigated by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, please call 813-247-8200. Be sure to follow us on social media at @HCSOSheriff for any updates we have on this case in the future.