It had been a normal day for nurse’s aide Janice Owen. At 2:15 p.m. on February 12, 2002, the forty-three-year-old was seen leaving the Riverdell Care Center in Boonville, Missouri, one-hundred miles east of Kansas City, after completing her shift.

Approximately an hour later, Janice’s eight-year-old daughter, Alyssa, exited the school bus and was seen walking into her home.

An hour-and-a-half later, Janice’s mother arrived at her daughter’s house, only to find it empty. Something horrific, however, had apparently happened at the Owen home as neither Janice nor Alyssa were seen alive again.

Janice and Alyssa Owen

Janice, as she generally did, had walked to work that day. Her home was only a half-block from the Riverdell Care Center.  Assuming she was not heading elsewhere first, she probably arrived home within a few minutes.

The Owen Home

At approximately 3:10 p.m., the school bus dropped Alyssa at her home. Bus driver Larry Jones observed her entering her house.

Alyssa Is Seen Entering Her Home

Nearly two hours later, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Janice’s mother, Francis Friedrich, arrived at her daughter’s residence. After her knocks on the unlocked door went unanswered, she let herself in. Alyssa’s coat and school backpack lay on the couch. Nothing in the home appeared out of order.

Frances left a note asking Janice to phone her when she returned.

Frances Friedrich

Janice’s Mother

Forty-five minutes later, neighbor Amy Pulliam observed two cars parked in front of the Owen home and a woman and a younger man standing on the porch. Amy did not recognize the cars or the people, both of whom glared at her without saying a word. She recalled the man was wearing a red baseball cap and smoking a cigarette. She was pretty sure, but not completely certain as she did not know her neighbor well, that the woman was not Janice.

About fifteen minutes later, Amy saw a white four-door car parked near the Owen home with a different man standing next to it. This man also stared at her.

Police later found a motorist who recalled seeing a woman talking to this man at approximately 5:30 p.m. He thought the woman was Janice, but he was not certain.

Amy Pulliam

Janice’s Neighbor

The following morning, sawmill workers near Fayette, twelve miles north of Booneville, made a grizzly discovery. On the side of a rural road lay the lifeless body of young girl. No child had been reported missing in the area, but after contacting the Boonville School, police learned that Alyssa had been absent without explanation that day.

The girl’s body was confirmed to be that of Alyssa Owen. An autopsy found she had been sexually assaulted and had died of suffocation approximately six to eight hours before she was found.

Alyssa Is Raped and Suffocated To Death

Police dread telling family members when a loved one has been murdered, particularly having to tell a mother that her young child has been killed in such a horrible manner. The Boonville Police’s dread, however, soon became suspicion when they found Janice had not arrived for work that day and was not at her home.

All of Janice’s family and friends told investigators she adored her daughter and would never have harmed her. Nevertheless, as she could not found following the discovery of Alyssa’s body, Janice became a suspect in her murder.

Where Is Janice?

 

After questioning other neighbors and area residents, however, it appeared an unknown third party had instead committed the crime. A passerby had seen an older-model dark-green pickup near the Owen home on the afternoon of February 12. In addition, local waste disposal company employee Jeff Stacy recalled seeing a similar truck the following morning in a creek bed on a gravel road approximately ten miles from where Alyssa was found a few minutes later. He is certain the girl was not lying on the side of the road when he drove by twenty minutes earlier.

Most tellingly, Jeff said the driver of the truck was wearing a red baseball cap, similar to the one Amy Pulliam had seen on the man loitering around the Owen home.

Jeff Stacy

Six weeks later, another deadly discovery confirmed that Janice Owen was not her daughter’s killer. On March 27, her body was found in a creek bed. An autopsy determined she had also been suffocated around the same time Alyssa was killed. Unlike her daughter, Janice had not been raped.

Janice’s Body Is Found

Janice’s body was found hidden in a creek bed  twelve miles west from where Alyssa’s was discovered along a well-traveled road.

Map of Where Mother and Daughter’s Bodies Were Found 

In addition to Alyssa, Janice had a ten-year-old son, Austin, and an older daughter, Tammy Beeler, with her first husband, John Owen, from whom she had divorced before his death in 1996.  Austin had earlier been dropped at a babysitter’s house on the day his mother and sister were last seen. I could not find any source stating why Alyssa was not also left with the babysitter.

Janice was engaged to be married for the second time. Her fiancée, Michael Wilson, a trucker, was cleared of any involvement in the murders after he was confirmed to have been in Texas on February 12, the day Janice and Alyssa were last seen.

Before becoming engaged, Janice had conversed with several single men online. All were checked but authorities could find nothing suggesting any of them had committed the murders.

Police believed that the killer(s) of Janice and Alyssa Owen were locals familiar with the area backroads and dumping sites. Those assumptions proved correct.

Their Killers Were Believed Local

In June, one month after Janice’s body was found, investigators received a tip that twenty-five-year-old Angela Mize and her eighteen-year-old husband Eric had hinted about their involvement in the murders. The couple lived in Glasgow, twenty miles northwest of Boonville. Angela was also a nurse’s aide who worked with Janice at the Riverdell Care Center.

When questioned by police, Angela claimed that Eric had killed Janice and Alyssa and that she only witnessed the murders; under more questioning, however, she broke and confessed her involvement.

Following Angela’s confession, police attempted to pull Eric over as he was driving, but he instead led them on a high-speed chase ending with his abandoning his car and taking refuge in a relative’s house. Barricading himself inside the home, he threatened to kill himself. After several hours, he was coaxed from the house.

In searching the Mize home, authorities found a button from Alyssa’s dress and the buckles from her shoes. The couple said they molested Alyssa for “sexual gratification” before murdering her and Janice.

In order to avoid likely death sentences, Angela and Eric Mize each pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The decision to offer them the deal to spare their lives was done at the request of Owen family members, as they did not wish to endure the trauma of a trial and wanted the ordeal over as quickly as possible. If the Mize’s were sentenced to death, the appeals process would drag on for years.

Angela And Eric Mize

Angela Mize, now forty-five-years-old, is imprisoned at the Chillicothe Correction Center in Chillicothe, Missouri.

Imprisoned Angela

Eric Mize, now thirty-nine-years-old, is incarcerated at the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Imprisoned Eric

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13037473/janice-marie-owen#

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13037563/alyssa-michelle-owen

SOURCES:

• Associated Press
• Boonville Daily News
• Fayette Advertiser
• Kansas City Star
• Nevada (Missouri) Daily Mail
• Sedalia Democrat
• Unsolved Mysteries