The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali.
And I'm your co-host, Eli.
Welcome back everyone.
At the top, I just always like to say thank you.
This past week we saw a lot of follows on our Instagram page, a lot of sharing, a lot
of commenting, a lot of reading and reviewing.
So thank you to everyone who's just taken a little bit of time out of their day to show
some support for the podcast.
We appreciate you so much.
The kindness is overwhelming.
So thank you so much.
But with that, we are on a missing person case this week.
That's right.
We are on episode 122.
Would you like to get us started?
Yep.
Let's get into it.
So just as a bit of a content warning at the top, this case does involve a young person.
Today we are talking about the missing person case of Maurice Red Jefferson.
And this takes place in November of 1983 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
But first, a little bit about Maurice.
Maurice is 16 years old in 1983.
He also goes by the nickname Red, given to him because of his striking red hair against
his black skin.
His mother, Bettye Bridges, says, quote, his color changes with the sun.
On a hot day, it looks bright orange in tone.
It's really unique, end quote.
Maurice is a 10th grader at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale.
At school, he is known for being soft spoken and kind.
He was part of the ROTC.
He held strong religious convictions and had been in his church choir for a long time.
He ended up quitting the choir because the rehearsals conflicted with his basketball
practice.
He loved basketball and was part of the junior varsity team.
He had big plans for his life.
He wanted to go to medical school and become a doctor.
At this time in 1983, Maurice lived with his grandparents on the 200 block of Northwest
30th Terrace in Fort Lauderdale.
He lived with his grandparents to finish out high school.
Maurice's mother had recently remarried a man who was a pastor of a church in Alabama.
So Maurice spent a lot of time in both Florida and Alabama, but his school days were at his
grandparents' house.
In 1983, Maurice was around 5 foot 11 and 120 pounds.
He had his noticeable red hair, but also walked with a distinct bow-legged gait.
And now a timeline of events.
On Monday, November 28, 1983.
It started as a typical Monday for Red.
He went to school and came home.
He took a quick nap on the couch and when he woke up, he snacked on some popcorn and
called a friend from school.
He then started to get ready for basketball practice.
Maurice is wearing white shorts with a blue stripe, a white shirt, and white sneakers
with white tube socks.
At around 520 p.m., Maurice waves goodbye to his grandmother and starts walking to basketball
practice.
The walk to practice would have been around 30 minutes.
His grandmother did note that Red did leave a little early for practice on that Monday
night.
He wanted to stop by his girlfriend's house, who lived only a few blocks away from the
school.
All things considered, he was only leaving 30 minutes earlier than he needed to for practice.
So here is where there is some difference in the timeline over the years.
Today, when the story is reported, this is the last time that Red was ever seen, leaving
his grandmother's house.
Back in 1983, however, there were some different details that came out in the reporting that
will come out through the timeline.
So back to that Monday evening, it's unclear exactly when Maurice's family realized that
something was wrong.
What is reported is that when his family went to police that night, they were told that
police guidelines meant that they would not start investigating until he had been missing
for at least three days.
This would mean that the police started their investigation into Maurice's disappearance
on Thursday, December 1st, three days after he was last seen.
One of the first places they check is to see if Maurice is with his biological father who
lived in the area, but he's not there.
Police start to look into if Red could have been a runaway, but nothing points to that.
Everything that he owned was left in his room, including his wallet, which he had left sitting
on the TV after school.
Also, Maurice didn't have any history of running away and there was nothing going on in his
life that would cause him to run.
On Friday, December 2nd, so he has been missing for four days now, police start going door
to door to talk to neighbors to see if they saw anything on that Monday night.
It's during this canvassing that police find two teenage girls who tell them that they
saw Maurice at Franklin Park shooting baskets with some younger kids on Monday night.
They believe it was around 7 p.m.
They say they saw two men pull up in a blue and white Oldsmobile.
One of the men in the car offered Maurice a ride, but when he refused the offer, the
two men forced him into the car and sped away.
It's at this point that police start treating his case as an abduction.
Over the weekend, friends, family, and teammates spend the weekend hanging up missing person
posters for Red all over Fort Lauderdale.
His mother is lost for words.
But he says, quote, We can't understand what happened.
Maurice didn't have an enemy in the world.
It doesn't make any sense.
End quote.
His mother also can't believe that no one has seen him due to his distinct red hair.
Police asked the FBI to get involved in the case.
They quickly agree, but almost as quickly pull out of the investigation.
They say that they're able to find a witness who says that they saw Maurice a few hours
after he was reportedly seen being forced into the Oldsmobile.
Because of this, the FBI does not believe an abduction took place and therefore they
should not be involved in the case.
The days turn into weeks and 1983 rolls into 1984.
By the end of January 1984, so Maurice has been missing for two months at this point,
police have no leads in the case.
The family at this point has hired a private investigator to help them in their search,
but he also hasn't turned up any leads.
The PI says, quote, If I had to make a guess, I'd say foul play is the answer.
Maybe the world came crashing down on his shoulders and he just took off.
If it's not that, then yes, I would have to assume that he is dead.
End quote.
His family, however, stays optimistic that Red will come home.
They keep three Bibles open at their homes at all times, showing that they have not closed
the book on Maurice.
They do believe firmly, though, that if Maurice had the ability to call them, he would have
by now.
He would not go this long without talking to his family.
After this, the case truly seems to go cold.
The next update I could find is in August of 1985, so Maurice has been missing for almost
two years at this point.
On August 8th of 1985, the family celebrates Red's 18th birthday.
His mother says, quote, We haven't stopped looking for him and we want to hear him.
End quote.
Investigators assigned to his case say that they are no closer to finding him than they
were when he first went missing.
Throughout the rest of the 80s and the 90s, Maurice's missing person poster will appear
in newspapers from time to time.
When it is listed, he is shown as a non-family abduction.
But it's here that we start seeing his last known whereabouts as leaving for basketball
practice.
Slowly, over the years, the story of him being forced into a car will fall out of the narrative.
It's unclear if police have officially ruled this out, that it didn't happen, or if it's
just a detail that has kind of been lost in the reporting over the years.
In 2009, so it's been over 25 years since Red vanished, local media coverage is drummed
up when a small film company announces that they want to make a documentary about his
case.
To date, it doesn't appear that the film has been released or not anywhere that I could
find.
Red's grandmother is still alive at this time and she still hopes to know what happened
to Maurice.
She says, quote, I've always said it's like the earth opened up and swallowed him.
What happened to him?
We don't know, end quote.
She says that she has lived in the same house with the same phone number since 1983, so
that if Maurice ever needed to reach out or could reach out, he would know exactly how
to get a hold of his family.
But that is truly all we know about the disappearance of Maurice Red Jefferson.
If you know anything about the disappearance of Maurice Red Jefferson in November of 1983
or his whereabouts today, please call the Bower County Sheriff's Office at 954-321-4735.
So that is the case of Maurice Red Jefferson.
I just want to start off my response with commenting on what a dedicated, steadfast
young man he sounded like.
It sounded like he had goals that he wanted to reach and was really trying to move his
life forward.
Him having Red hair and having the nickname Red is something that's very familiar to me
because I also have Red hair and that was a nickname, continues to be a nickname of
mine.
And when you do have Red hair, it is something that's consistently notable about you and
that's very clear here too.
And I did see the pictures of him now and I'm excited for our listeners to see them
in the graphics.
But I love that in all areas of his life he was very committed to everything that he did.
Even having to choose between singing in basketball and landing in basketball.
I just enjoyed hearing how motivated he was.
Yeah, he was a young man who just had really big dreams and goals and I feel this way about
every missing person case.
But especially here this feels like an instance where it's like what a remarkable person that
vanished and it's like we all have lost out because he did not get to reach these goals
or wherever his life was going to take him.
It seems like we all missed out on his impact because of something that happened in 1983.
Yeah, the way he went missing, it stands out because it really does seem like he vanished
or was plucked from the earth's surface.
I have so many more questions that I know can't be answered within this moment about
this case but I do think it's very important to continue to ask those questions when people
who are related to this person are still alive in this case.
I think that there are answers out there so I'm eager to ask you these questions.
My first one being how was that the law back in 1983 where it needed to be three days for
a minor?
I just want to hear more about that on your end.
Maybe you know more but that was shocking.
It's shocking.
I couldn't believe.
I've never heard of three days waiting period.
I've heard of a 24 hour waiting period but never have I heard of three days especially
for a 16 year old.
So that was shocking and I feel like we would be remiss to not think that there could be
racism playing into this with a black family coming to the police looking for a teenager
and them kind of brushing it off for three days.
I don't know if that really was the guidelines.
I tried to research and try to find other instances of it but I couldn't pull anything
up.
That doesn't mean it's not there.
I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for without access to old records and things
that just aren't online.
So I don't know but that is what the family says that they were told and that is bonkers
to me.
Yeah and to continue on the narrative that I also think is true that he is not a runaway.
To give that some more validity people don't leave their things behind when they're trying
to run away.
I think it's different if they are fleeing an environment but that means you're usually
fleeing an emergency situation and that simply was not the case here.
To call this a runaway when all of his things were left behind when he was waving goodbye
as he was leaving is wrong.
I don't know.
It didn't make sense to me how that narrative even came up when it so clearly was not the
case.
Yeah, you know it almost felt like to me that investigators at the time were kind of scrambling.
They knew they had really messed up waiting three days.
They find these witnesses that say they saw an abduction which I know brings up its own
questions but you know he didn't show up again.
Runaways usually would have surfaced anyway by three days.
He's not at his dad's house.
He's not anywhere that he should be.
No relatives house, no friends houses and then they hear these two teenage girls stories
so it's like I think they really kind of scrambled quickly to try to reverse time, try to get
a lead but like the trail really seemed like it had already gone cold by the time they
had started investigating.
Yeah and what that scrambling led to was the FBI coming in and then backing out and that
right there was really really unfortunate because they were accessing resources that
could have really been helpful in this case but the FBI had nothing to work on but still
them choosing to not advocate for this missing person or lean in a little bit more is confusing
to me.
Granted this was so many years ago and I don't know what was going on at the time but it
also seemed like an odd choice to me for them to back out of continuing to investigate.
Yeah and that kind of brings us around to the witnesses these two teenage girls that
say they saw a blue and white Oldsmobile pull up, offer Maurice a ride and when he refused
they forced him into the car.
So the FBI says they found a witness who says that a few hours after that event was supposed
to have happened they did see Maurice.
We never get any details of where he was seen, what his condition was like, what any circumstance
was around that we just hear that that's what they found so they don't believe that an
abduction took place from that.
So that's the FBI.
But then it gets us back to the two teenage girls.
So what happened there?
Did police rule that story out?
Has it ever been able to be ruled out officially?
It brings up a ton of questions and kind of feels like you know a key piece like is this
part of the narrative or not and police to my knowledge have never come out and said
one way or the other.
Yeah I mean one of the last things I wrote down as I was listening to you discuss the
timeline was that it seems like to me details like this should not be muddled when there
are so few.
This was one area where there was a lot of detail about the possibility of what happened
to him and it was just dropped.
Yeah as I've mentioned over the years this possible abduction that detailed these witnesses
it gets dropped.
They don't talk about it you know in 2009, 2005 there were some articles and they don't
necessarily talk about this abduction.
So I don't know if it has been ruled out officially but his case is labeled as a non-family abduction.
So that is still how the police seem to be handling his case.
Hearing the last detail about his grandmother and that you know she lives in the same house,
has the same number it's such an echo of how the loved ones of a missing person their lives
stand still the moment they go missing and I could really feel that and just you reading
that simple statement of fact like she lives in the same house, has the same number.
Something about that while it can be very beautiful in this case it felt like she stood
still in time and it's just waiting for him to come home and with this case being in the
80s I don't think time has to stand still for these people anymore.
I think that this case is solvable.
Yeah I really hope for the family that they are able to bring Red home that they're able
to get answers in this.
You know I know his mom still advocates very fiercely for his case so I really hope that
we're able to get momentum on his case and get the answers that we're looking for because
I do feel like they're out there.
There's there's more here there's more details there's more to be uncovered in this case
so again if you know anything about the disappearance of Maurice Red Jefferson in November of 1983
or his whereabouts today please call the Bower County Sheriff's Office at 954-321-4735.
So we will have pictures of Maurice on our Instagram you'll see his striking red hair
and there's also a few age progressions of what he would look like into his 30s and 40s
so more of what he would look like today.
So if you want to see those please check them out please share them in your communities
get his name out there get his case out there get his picture out there so we can get some
more coverage for Red.
Again thank you so much to everyone who has rated and reviewed us these past few weeks
we appreciate it so much and now that I can see all the international reviews I am overwhelmed
by how many places are listening in how many countries getting these stories out there
so thank you so much for listening for sharing for telling people about this podcast it is
so appreciative and you know there's a lot going on in the world there's a lot going
on in everybody's lives at all times so just the fact that you're taking a minute to talk
about the podcast or to write something about it it means the world and it's very thoughtful
so thank you.
And we will also have up on our website www.coldandmissing.com we have all our old episodes on there you can
rate and review us there as well or if you want to reach out to us you can do that there
and we also have transcripts so if you or someone you love is hard of hearing you can
follow along with the podcast there as well but that is all I have for you this week thank
you so much for listening to cold and missing I'm your host Ali and I'm your co-host Eli
have a good week and stay safe y'all stay safe y'all.