Missing Since06/15/1988
Missing FromWallingford, Connecticut
ClassificationEndangered Missing
SexFemale
RaceWhite
Date of Birth09/30/1975 (46)
Age12 years old
Height and Weight5'4, 110 pounds
Distinguishing CharacteristicsCaucasian female. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Doreen has a small mole on her abdomen. Her ears are double-pierced.
Details of Disappearance
Doreen was last seen at her family's residence sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on June 5, 1988 on Whirlwind Hill Road in Wallingford, Connecticut. Her father said they had an argument and she took some money and extra clothing and left through the front door between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. She never returned home and has not been seen again.
Doreen moved in with her father and stepmother, Mark and Sharon Vincent, ten days before her disappearance. Mark stated he last saw Doreen in the kitchen at 8:00 p.m., before he went into his workshop. Sharon was at church at the time. At 9:00, Mark into Doreen's bedroom and she was gone. When Sharon arrived home at 11:30, Mark told her Doreen was missing.
She was due to begin the eighth grade at West Woods Christian Academy that fall. She didn't like the rural atmosphere of Wallingford and missed her friends in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she'd lived previously.
Authorities initially believed Doreen had run away from home. She had run away once before and hitchhiked to her mother's home.
Mark was known for his violent temper and his account of the day Doreen went missing was inconsistent. He admitted he pushed her into a window, breaking it. Sharon said she didn't believe her husband's story about her disappearance, because their front door had a deadbolt and had to be opened from the inside with a key.
Mark visited his mother, Lorraine Vincent, a few days after Doreen vanished and didn't tell her Doreen was missing. He also didn't tell Doreen's mother, Donna Lee. She didn't find out Doreen was missing until June 18, when she visited her ex-husband's home.
Lee had planned to pick Doreen up on June 17, but when she called Mark's house, no one answered; he had removed the phone from the wall.
When Lee came to the house the next day, she asked him where Doreen was and he said Lee had sent her to her maternal grandparents' house. He seemed unconcerned by her disappearance and didn't want to report her missing, but Lee insisted.
Sharon and Mark separated later that summer, and Mark moved out of the Wallingford home without leaving a forwarding address with the police; the police were unable to locate him for some time.
About a year after Doreen's disappearance, law enforcement searched Lorraine's home in Bethel, Connecticut for evidence in her case. They found some items Mark claimed she'd taken with her when she left.
They also found a gun, legally registered to Sharon, and charged Mark with being a felon in possession in a firearm. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
Investigators suspect that Hadden Clark may have been involved in Doreen's disappearance. He was convicted of murdering a young woman and a six-year-old girl and claims to have killed nine other women and children along the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Based on Clark's claims, police investigated him for involvement in several child disappearances and murders, Doreen's among them. He has not been charged in connection with any other cases, however, and police are unsure if he had anything to do with Doreen's case.
Another suspect in her disappearance is a family member with a history of pedophilia. The individual has never been charged, however.
Sharon died after Doreen's disappearance. Her father is remarried and maintains his innocence in her case. Authorities no longer believe she ran away from home, but the circumstances of her disappearance remain unclear.
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