Four-year-old Marlena Childress was last seen playing in front of her Union City, Tennessee, home, one-hundred-fifteen miles northeast of Memphis, on April 16, 1987. What happened to her is still unknown after nearly forty years, but investigators believe they do know who is responsible for her disappearance.

 

Marlena Childress

Marlena’s parents, Kevin and Pam Childress, had divorced in December 1985; Pam married Johnny Bailey several weeks thereafter. They, along with Marlena and Johnny’s seven-year-old son from a prior marriage, had lived with Marlena’s parents, LaWade and Catherine Strickland, in Mayfield, Kentucky, until moving to Union City, thirty-five miles to the southwest, in August 1986. In February 1987, two months before Marlena’s disappearance, Johnny and Pam had a son, Damon.

The twenty-two-year-old Pam had custody of Marlena; she and Kevin were amicable and his visitation rights were not an issue. Kevin also lived in Union City and worked as a welder at to a tool and die company in Martin, fifteen miles to the southeast.

Kevin Childress and Pam Bailey

Marlena’s Parents

A panicked Pam phoned the Union City police at 4:15 p.m. on April 16, 1987, saying she had last seen her daughter playing in the front yard of their home at about 3:30. Shortly thereafter, she said she heard break squeals and a car speeding away.

Pam told police she initially thought the driver, of whom she did get a good look, may have hit Marlena but then feared she had been kidnapped after not finding her.

Pam’s Contentions

From her kitchen window, Pam said she had observed a faded-red older model two-door car stopped at the intersection. Neighbors saw the run-down car too. Some thought its license plates read McCracken County, Kentucky, seventy miles to the north of Obion County, Tennessee, where Union City is located.

The Bailey Home

Marlena and her stepbrother had purchased candy at a local grocery store two blocks from their home earlier that day. The owners, Alan and Carolyn Pearce, had seen Marlena speaking to a man outside the store shortly before she and her stepbrother began walking home.

Police searched for a transient who fit the man’s description and who drove a car similar to the one seen in front of the Bailey home. He was from Clinton, across the state in eastern Tennessee, but he had recently been working in Union City. After only a few days on the job, he had not returned after lunch on April 16, the afternoon of Marlena’s disappearance.

The transient was located a few days later in Chicago, and he was questioned and cleared of involvement. It is unclear if he was confirmed to have or have not been the man speaking to Marlena outside the grocery store.

No Marlena

On May 22, five weeks after her daughter’s disappearance, Pam Bailey was admitted for a one-week stay at Union City’s Baptist Hospital, suffering from stress and exhaustion. When questioned again on June 8, nine days after her release, she did an about-face in multiple versions.

At one point Pam stated she had sold Marlena to pay off a drug debt, while later saying her daughter had been abducted by a man who had abused her (Pam) when she was a child. Ultimately, she admitted to accidentally killing Marlena while disciplining her, saying she had slapped her, causing her to fall and become unconscious after striking her head on a table. While rushing Marlena to the hospital, Pam said she panicked and, believing her to be dead, had called a friend who had helped her dispose of Marlena’s body.

Pam Confesses

Pam claimed sixty-six-year-old P.L. Summers of Martin, fifteen miles southeast of Union City, had instructed her to dump her dead daughter into the North Fork of the nearby Obion River.

Summers denied receiving a phone call from Pam and said it had been two years since he had seen either mother or child. He had an alibi for the day Marlena disappeared and was cleared of involvement.

P.L. Summers

Even though Marlena’s body had not been found during a five-day search of the North Fork section of the Obion River, Pam Bailey was charged with second-degree murder.

On June 23, while being held and evaluated at a state mental institution, Pam recanted her statements of killing her daughter, saying they were made while she was emotionally distressed and heavily medicated, and that the latter confession had been falsely extracted by a detective whom she had specifically requested be assigned to look for her missing daughter.

Pam Recants

Pam professed that Union City Private Investigator Stan Cavness had advised her to say she had accidentally killed Marlena because physical evidence placed her at the Obion River and because she was seen throwing something into the water. Pam claimed he had “psychologically coerced” her into a bogus confession.

At a press conference, Cavness played a five-minute excerpt of Pam saying, without any sign of being pressured or led, that she had lost her temper and struck Marlena and had disposed of her daughter in the river.

Stan Cavness

Investigator, Dyersburg Police Department

The second-degree murder charge against Pam Bailey was reduced to voluntary manslaughter and then dismissed for lack of evidence, chiefly that there was no body. In addition, a possible sighting of her missing daughter was reported.

The Charges Against Pam Are Dropped

Marlena was believed seen in a Memphis mall on April 22, six days after her disappearance. Two women, one appearing to be in her twenties and the other in her sixties, along with a young boy and a younger girl, entered Jean’s Hair Styles. Stylists Gail Reich (some sources says “Gail Rich”) and Janice Wells did not recognize any of them, nor did any of the customers. The younger woman asked for the girl’s hair to be cut; she did have an appointment, but the salon accepted walk-ins.

As Gail was cutting her hair, the girl began crying and repeatedly saying, “I want my mommy! I wanna go home!” Gail glanced several times at the younger woman, believing her to be the girl’s mother, but she did nothing to comfort her. As the girl continued sobbing, the older woman somewhat placated her by saying they would take her to the movies if she behaved. Both Gail and Janice believe the woman had addressed the child as “Marlena.”

The group had left the salon in a car bearing Maryland license plates. They had said they were in the process of moving to Memphis.

When Gail stopped at a convenience store later that morning, she saw a newspaper with the missing Marlena Childress’ picture. She was certain she was the girl whose hair she had cut, and Janice concurred.

A Possible Sighting Of Marlena

Shortly thereafter, Gail and Janice saw a local waitress who they believed was the younger woman from the salon. Upon seeing a picture of the woman’s young son, the stylists also thought he was the boy who had been with her.

The waitress had gone out of town the morning after Marlena’s disappearance and had not returned for several days. She had no connection to Maryland, she denied ever being in the Memphis salon, and she passed a polygraph test given by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The Maryland vehicle was pulled over by police in Mississippi shortly thereafter. Inside were a young and older woman, along with a young boy and girl. The girl’s name was “Marlene” and she was about Marlena Childress’ age, but she was not the missing Tennessean.

Authorities confirmed the family was relocating to Memphis.

Marlena Was Not The Girl In The Salon

For several weeks afterwards, several threatening phone calls were made to Jean’s Hair Styles, most of which were from a woman who claimed to know where Gail, Janice, and several of each of their family members lived. The caller was never identified; no harm against Gail, Jean, or any family member occurred.

Gail Reich and Janice Wells

In April 1988, just over one year after Marlena’s abduction, P.L. Summers pled guilty to two counts of sexual battery in the fondling a nine-year-old Martin, Tennessee, boy.  He was ordered to perform two-hundred hours of community service and seek psychiatric counseling.

Pam soon claimed Summers, after she had rebuffed his sexual advances, had taken her daughter. Summers was again questioned; no evidence was found to support Pam’s latest claims, and he was again cleared of involvement in Marlena’s disappearance.

Summers Is Again Questioned And Cleared

Nine months later, in January 1989, a man named Oliver Childress was arrested on sex abuse charges in Panama City, Florida. He was not related to Marlena, but authorities came to believe he may have had a connection to her disappearance.

 

A nomadic truck driver living off governmental-assistance, Childress was found to have previously harbored other people’s children. He, along with two women, a fourteen-year-old girl, and nine young children, had been in Anniston, Alabama, three-hundred-sixty miles southeast of Union City, Tennessee, in September 1988. Two social workers had visited the purported family after receiving reports that some of the children were being abused. By the time search warrants were obtained two days later, the gypsy-like group was gone.

Upon seeing pictures of the missing Marlena Childress, the social workers and several neighbors believed she was “Crystal,” one of the children in the group who had largely been kept from socializing with the others. Multiple people recalled the girl’s bottom two front teeth were noticeably silver-capped, as were Marlena’s.

Oliver Childress and his professed family are believed to have ping-ponged between Alabama and Florida, with his primary base of operation near Panama City, where he was located four months later. Several of the children were still with him, but the girl called Crystal was not among them. Childress claimed he had “acquired” her in Lubbock, Texas, in 1987, the same year Marlena had vanished, and he produced a note he said was from Crystal’s mother reading, “I’m giving her (Crystal) to Oliver Childress.” He refused to reveal her current whereabouts.

Charged with raping his wife and molesting two of his ten purported children, Oliver Childress denied knowing Marlena Childress, but he flunked three lie detector tests in May 1989. Investigators, however, could not confirm she had been one of the children with him in Alabama.

I could not find a picture of Oliver Childress or determine if he was convicted of the charges and what punishment he received. I also was unable to find any source stating how many of the children with him in Alabama were actually his.

Was Marlena In Alabama?

In September, eight months later, Amy Spoon believes she saw Marlena Childress, nearly three-and-half years after her disappearance, in a department store in Lenore City, part of metropolitan Knoxville in eastern Tennessee, three-hundred-forty miles from Union City. While Amy was shopping and as her young son was playing with a girl in the store, a young woman Amy presumed was the girl’s mother scolded the child for wandering off. The woman promptly grabbed the girls’ hand and took her to another part of the store. Amy said the girl appeared as if she did not want to go with the woman.

Ten days later, Amy saw a flyer of Marlena Childress. She and her son were both certain she was the girl they had seen in the department store.

Several more reported sightings of Marlena were reported into the summer of 1990, including a girl in Nevada who strongly resembled but was confirmed not she.

Computer Progression Of Marlena To Age Seven

Following Marlena’s disappearance, Pam and Johnny Bailey returned to Mayfield, Kentucky, and to living with Pam’s parents. The Baileys’ son Casey was born in April 1989, two years after Marlena’s disappearance. The couple separated several times and ultimately divorced, but they remarried in 1995.

On April 22, 2002, while Johnny and Pam were again in the process of divorcing, Pam told the then twelve-year-old Casey that she had a “surprise” for him and blindfolded him in her car. She drove to Arnett Cemetery, five miles east of Mayfield, in rural Graves County. Once there, after telling him to sit next to a marker inscribed “son,” Pam began stabbing him in his neck and shoulder. Casey broke free and ran to the nearest house. He recovered from his wounds.

Pam’s motive for stabbing her son may have been that she blamed him for her pending divorce. She pled no contest to attempted murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison. The divorce was finalized while she was behind bars, and Johnny Bailey raised Casey.

Pam’s “Stabbing Surprise”

The investigation into Marlena’s disappearance was reopened following Pam’s release. Authorities believe she is responsible, although it remains officially classified as a non-family abduction. Marlena’s father, Kevin Childress, and stepfather, Johnny Bailey, are not suspected of involvement.

Pam’s parents, both now deceased, believed Oliver Childress was involved in their granddaughter’s abduction and that she was sold in a black market adoption ring. Nothing has been found to support the theory.

Pam Is The Prime Suspect

Marlena Danyelle Childress has been missing since April 16, 1987. At the time of her disappearance, she was four-years-old, stood four feet tall and weighed thirty-eight pounds. She had light brown hair, blue/hazel eyes, pierced ears, and silver or stainless steel caps on her two top and bottom front teeth. She was last seen wearing a purple and white checked shirt with lace trim, light purple pants, and pink jelly-style shoes.

Marlena Is Still Missing

Advanced DNA samples of Marlena Childress have been entered into a DNA national database. She would today be forty-two-years-years-old.

If you have information relating to Marlena’s disappearance, please contact and of the following agencies:

• Obion, Tennessee, County, Sheriff’s Department at 731-885-5832
• Union City, Tennessee Police Department at 731 885-1515
• Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND
• Crime Stoppers at 731-885-TIPS

                      

Computer-Aged Images Of Marlena Childress  

Ages Eighteen, Twenty-Three, And Twenty-Nine

In the months following Marlena’s disappearance, her grandfathers each took turns publicly suggesting respective members of the others’ families were involved.

In September 1987, Marvin Childress, Kevin’s father, held a press conference saying Kevin and his brother Joe would undergo truth serum testing if Johnny and Pam Bailey also agreed to do so. The “Childress Challenge” was dropped after it was learned that testimony given under Sodium Pentothal, the proposed truth serum to be used, was inadmissible in Tennessee courts.

 

Marvin Childress v. LaWade Strickland

The Grandpa’s Grapple

        Sources:

• Action 5 News (NBC Affiliate Memphis, Tennessee)
• Advocate-Messenger (Danville, Kentucky)
• Charley Project
• Daily News (Bowling Green, Kentucky)
• Doe Network
• Jackson (Mississippi) Sun
• Mayfield (Kentucky) Messenger
• Kentucky New Era
• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• Paducah (Kentucky) Sun
• The Tennesseean
• Unsolved Mysteries
• WBBJ News (Jackson, Tennessee)