Text Version:
(Introduction to show begins)
ERIC MEADOWS (Co-Host WCAN Radio): Good evening everyone. You’ve joined us for yet another episode of Missing Pieces hosted by Todd Matthews and myself, Eric Meadows. Todd, how are you?
TODD MATTHEWS (Missing Pieces Host): Doing really good, Eric. How are you?
ERIC: Really great. I’m doing excellent, excellent, and it’s good to have us back on the air and actually up because it’s been a while. We’re back up and we’re broadcasting and I hear that you brought a guest with you tonight.
TODD: Yes, I do. I have Elizabeth Bruce, and her mother is missing. Welcome Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH BRUCE (Guest): Hello.
ERIC: Good evening, Elizabeth. How are you?
ELIZABETH: I’m fine. How are you?
ERIC: I’m doing really well.
TODD: I’ve known Elizabeth for a while; I call her Liz. She’s…I’ve heard from her quite a bit over the years. Her mother is Brenda Joan Allen-Szabo.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: And, you know, her case file says that she went missing March 1st, 1983; just didn’t show up one day, right?
ELIZABETH: Correct.
TODD: Okay, you’ve been through a lot with this. I know that. I know you’ve been through some recent things but we’ll go back to the past, just a little bit, to see how this all started. You remember your mother, don’t you?
ELIZABETH: Um, yes, when I was 3, about 3 years old is the last time I saw her, but because I was taken away and adopted out. And then, in my looking for her, I could never find her, and I found 2 sisters in the process, and then started finding family and all of that.
TODD: So your mom would have been 58 this year because she was born in November 1949, so she disappeared at 33 years old; 5’4”, 120 lbs. She’s a beautiful lady and you feel like she’s alive today.
ELIZABETH: Um…yeah…I do. You know, I’m not sure. I’ve done everything to find her. I don’t know if she is or not, I mean, but there’s a very good possibility that she is.
TODD: Now, when did you first become aware ‘my mother is missing’?
ELIZABETH: When I started…when I found all my grandmother’s family…
TODD: uh hum
ELIZABETH: …and they had told me that she hadn’t contacted anyone, you know, that she said that she would be home and she never showed up.
TODD: Okay, now where was she traveling to and from?
ELIZABETH: She was traveling from the San Diego area to the Dallas, Texas area.
TODD: Okay so that was home for you?
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: You were born there?
ELIZABETH: Oh no, I was born in Venice Beach, California.
TODD: Okay. And after you found your mother’s family?
ELIZABETH: Yes, and my brother.
TODD: You found quite a few of these just recently you found some of them, right?
ELIZABETH: Well, yes, and I found some of my mother’s old boyfriends that haven’t talked to her, I mean, nobody has talked to her. Kind of…you know, no one knows.
TODD: Now she…I’m seeing a lot of information on her…she has a Harley tattoo; you’ve actually looked in some of the biker world…
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: …for some kind of connection to her? It says that she has a medical condition.
ELIZABETH: Yes. In 1981 she had a problem with her lungs, something with her lung, it was a growth on her lung and she had to have that removed.
TODD: So we are talking about a scar for that situation and she has ‘also known as’ (a.k.a). How did this come into effect? Karen Blaha and Brenda Miller?
ELIZABETH: Right, and there’s a few others. In my looking for her, I ran her name…I had a police officer friend run her name and all these aliases had come up.
TODD: uh huh
ELIZABETH: Yeah, so that’s how I was able to find a sister because the Szabo name was in there.
TODD: And that’s a very unusual name, it’s S-Z-A-B-O, you know it’s not a very common name.
ELIZABETH: Right. And I’ve contacted…I’ve ran every Brenda that was born on her birthday, and I send them all letters every year and have them write me back to see if maybe one of them will pop up, but nothing yet.
TODD: How do these people receive you when you write these letters to them?
ELIZABETH: They’re good. They’ll…they always write back and say, “No, it’s not me” and if I’ve contacted them before, I mark them off the list, but I haven’t had any issues with that at all.
TODD: Well, that’s quite an undertaking there, you know writing a letter, “Are you my mother?”
ELIZABETH: Right. So there’s kind of a letter I write, you know, “I’m looking for her and this is her daughter” and they usually will write back and say, “No, I am not” because I ask them to write back because I do know her handwriting.
TODD: uh huh
ELIZABETH: So, you know?
TODD: Now how helpful was your family, your mother’s family with helping you gather this information to get something to go on?
ELIZABETH: They didn’t…they really haven’t helped that much because they don’t…I probably know more than they do.
TODD: Yeah, you found quite a bit. Now your mother obviously, she had a very troubled past.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: And do you think that she possibly could have been involved in some type of crime that might have made her decide she doesn’t want to be found or possible some type of witness protection program?
ELIZABETH: I have written to the Witness Protection Program and they sent me a letter saying, “They could not confirm nor deny.”
TODD: I’ve seen that classic letter before in a few other cases and it’s hard to get that letter because it’s such a brick wall.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: And I know you’ve backed up and hit it again and again in this case.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Okay now, you said you remembered her at 3 years old?
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Okay, do you remember your siblings at that time?
ELIZABETH: Um, no. I had no idea that I even had siblings at that time. I only knew that I had siblings when I started looking for her. When I had found the Szabo name, I put in Brenda Joan Allen, well the last name Allen and the last name Szabo, into the California birth index just looking around…
TODD: uh huh
ELIZABETH: … and the 2 girls popped up, being born in San Diego, and I knew she had been in San Diego at the time, so I started looking for them and I couldn’t find them so I knew that they had probably been adopted. So, I paid my source $75, and got their changed names and found them in Michigan and called them up and said, “I think I might be your older sister.”
TODD: Now, did you get to tell them the story of your mother, because we have a missing person's case file that I am looking at right now for her. How was this news for them?
ELIZABETH: It wasn’t surprising to them. I think that it was probably more surprising that I had found them. At that time they were more concerned with finding the brother, which is totally understandable.
TODD: So have all the siblings been accounted for now?
ELIZABETH: We have all been accounted for, all four of us.
TODD: What about a meeting, have you had this yet, a family reunion?
ELIZABETH: Well, 3 of us have met, the other one couldn’t come because she was pregnant at the time and couldn’t fly, but 3 of us have met.
TODD: Now how was that?
ELIZABETH: It was great. It was good, very good.
TODD: Do you stay in contact with them now? Have they actually tried to help you in this search?
ELIZABETH: Yes, my brother has taken missing posters to methadone clinics and, you know, my sisters, not really, but my brother has and he’s more of a support than anything.
TODD: I think this is pretty much something that you’re the lead in this. Now this is a real case now. It’s got an NCIC number, this is a legitimate missing persons case, it’s not really a lost contact case; this woman has literally vanished, apparently.
ELIZABETH: Right. Well, for her to have the criminal history that she had and to just disappear and not have any arrests or anything is what’s, you know, kind of amazing.
TODD: And we’ve talked about the ‘Witness Protection’ before because that’s one of the first thoughts that pop into mind, you know she might have had some insight into another crime and you know they found her a way out.
ELIZABETH: Right. Right.
TODD: But that’s something that’s very hard to get around.
ELIZABETH: Exactly. But, I’ve tried everything.
TODD: Well I’m looking at…there’s a possibility, now we’ve talked about this before, doing an age progression of her.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: You know, trying to get something a little close, and we look through some pictures probably photographs of you and possibly your sisters and what about her mother, the grandmother?
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Now what kind of communication did you have with her?
ELIZABETH: With the grandmother, I had found her…when I had found her family she had already died.
TODD: Okay. What about any older relatives that remember her?
ELIZABETH: Yes, my great-aunt and she was the one who had told me that she had called her in 1983 and said that she’d be on her way home.
TODD: Okay.
ELIZABETH: And then they heard nothing.
TODD: Did she have any idea of what she thought might have happened to her?
ELIZABETH: No, they all just assumed she had died and that was it. They never really looked or, you know, they just left it.
TODD: So if anybody out there has any on Brenda, you can call the San Diego Police Department at 619-531-2277 or you can contact the show, obviously, and we’ll be able to connect you to somebody that help you out with this. We’re looking for just anything that could possibly help Liz in this case because she’s worked really, really hard in this and definitely looking for some type of closure. Now, you found a few interesting things, you’ve run into some interesting situations in your search.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Now, you recently got, I’m not sure if you can talk about it or not, but you recently got a call from California, right?
ELIZABETH: Oh, yes the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department…?
TODD: Because there was a serial killer case that, you know, that’s been in the news, maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.
ELIZABETH: Well, I’m not sure what his name is but he has these pictures of 50 different women and I met with them and the one that they thought was her, actually turned out to not be her.
TODD: But at least they flew out to meet you from California.
ELIZABETH: Right. Exactly.
TODD: Now, what did they present to you when they got there?
ELIZABETH: They showed me a picture of a girl that they thought was her and it wasn’t because of the tattoo on the wrist.
TODD: Do you know…did they take any type of DNA sample?
ELIZABETH: No, but I’ve done DNA for Texas and also San Diego.
TODD: So your DNA now is in the missing persons DNA database.
ELIZABETH: Right. Exactly.
TODD: Okay, now that’s not very easy to do sometimes. I’ve had some people that encountered a little bit of trouble locally trying to get that done, where you always have to try to find a different number and sometimes you have to contact Texas, you know for that type of thing.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, Texas sent the DNA here to the Las Vegas Police Department and they did it here locally for Texas and also San Diego.
TODD: Well that’s a big step in the right direction, you know to actually get some stuff going on that but I do want to see an age progression in this case. I think we really need to try to do that because she is so young here and she would be…it’s been a long time.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: We definitely need to get something done with that. Eric, do you have any questions for Liz?
ERIC: Yes, I do. Hi, Liz, you are how?
ELIZABETH: Hi. I’m fine, how are you?
ERIC: We’re really glad to have you on the show tonight. I have 3 questions actually. What is it that prompted you do begin your search? You said that you were 3 years old when you were adopted out?
ELIZABETH: Right.
ERIC: When and what prompted you to begin to search?
ELIZABETH: Um, I’ve always…because I remember her, I’ve always wondered and wanted to know what happened, and so of course I love my adoptive mother, but it’s still not the same.
ERIC: Okay, did they talk to you about being adopted?
ELIZABETH: Um, yes, I knew from the time that I was adopted.
ERIC: Okay.
ELIZABETH: So, and they’ve always been very open with me and told me that it would be okay if I wanted to look that they would help me with it.
ERIC: Well, my last question is, are you prepared that if you were to find your mother and she didn’t want to be found, are you prepared that?
ELIZABETH: Yes. Yes, and I totally understand but I don’t…I just have a feeling that that wouldn’t be the case. I mean, if she’s not wanting to be found, it would be probably out of her own guilt, I mean, 4 kids to lose is a lot, you know and to have to answer to that, that’s a lot. But she doesn’t have to answer to that, you know, none of us are angry with her, we’re not…you know, she’s our mother.
ERIC: Right. Well, you talked about your sisters, you know, that they haven’t really lent a hand in trying to pursue this.
ELIZABETH: Right.
ERIC: What are their feelings?
ELIZABETH: Their feelings, I think are mixed.
ERIC: uh huh
ELIZABETH: We really haven’t talked about it a lot with them.
ERIC: Okay
ELIZABETH: But I’m sure that it would be nice to know for them.
ERIC: It would be nice.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Well, obviously you had a better lifestyle, you know that she made the choice to go ahead and give you up and let you guys be adopted out. The only sad thing is that you guys didn’t grow up together.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: But you were able to find each other. Did you have any step-siblings or adoptive siblings?
ELIZABETH: Um yes, I did.
TODD: And you’re still…of course your parents are still your parents, right?
ELIZABETH: Right. Exactly, and my adopted sister, I talk to her all the time, you know.
TODD: So she still managed to have a life out of this?
ELIZABETH: Yes.
TODD: But she still has this missing piece in her life though?
ELIZABETH: Right and it’s very frustrating because I would like to know what happened to her, you know, and if she isn’t here any more, we’d at least like to know where she is and what happened.
TODD: Well, you know when you were talking about the possibility of the Witness Protection Program, there’s a possibility that efforts to try to locate or find somebody that’s missing, could potentially endanger them.
ELIZABETH: Correct.
TODD: And I’ve always thought about that and you know I wonder about these cases when we’re working on unidentified bodies and missing persons, are we actually opening up something that’s going to put somebody in danger. You know that’s always the thought, you’d never want to do anything like that but you know you can’t just not look because of that type of thing.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: But, you drive a taxicab now?
ELIZABETH: Correct.
TODD: Do you ever wonder when somebody gets into that taxicab, have you ever seen somebody ride that cab, that you thought, “Could that person be my mother?”
ELIZABETH: No. No, I haven’t, and I think that…I don’t know, I just think that I would know, but yeah, the thought has crossed my mind, you know, “Maybe one day she’ll just get into the cab” but…
TODD: We talked about that once before because a lot of people go to Las Vegas.
ELIZABETH: Right. Exactly.
TODD: So it would be a thought on my mind, you know, maybe, what if…you know. Have you ever thought about putting a poster in your cab?
ELIZABETH: Um, no, I haven’t, but maybe I should.
TODD: Well, that’s what we’re trying to do… a work in progress here too, trying to brainstorm a little bit. Do you ever talk to your passengers about this?
ELIZABETH: Um, yes, a lot of times I do.
TODD: Because we see on HBO, the taxicab stories and you know people, they actually talk to their passengers and they say that they talk about all the places that they’re from and, you know when they tell you, “Well, I’m from San Diego.”
ELIZABETH: Right. Oh no I always…I bring it up.
TODD: You always have to mention it. How do people react to that?
ELIZABETH: Um, their reactions are okay.
TODD: (chuckles) They don’t think you’re crazy or weird or…?
ELIZABETH: No. No. Not at all. Not at all, and if they’re from Dallas, I’ll bring it up and usually they’ve read…like if they’re from Dallas they remember reading the story in the Dallas paper, so…
TODD: And she’s managed to get this story in a lot of different newspapers.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: So you’ve done really well. I believe I would maybe tape those up in my cab and maybe somebody would see it and you never know, you never know how these pieces connect together.
ELIZABETH: Right. Exactly.
TODD: Now, let’s talk about, and I don’t know, I’ve not really talked to you about this a lot…you father, your natural father. Do you know who this person is?
ELIZABETH: Um, no, well there were 3 different men that were named and I found 2 of the men but they’re not, and the third man, we still don’t know his name.
TODD: Well, do you have the same desire to find your father as you do your mother? Of course you found a potential crime connected to your mother and I know that sort of put a whole different perspective on that particular side but you know your father’s still out there probably.
ELIZABETH: I do but I can’t…I do but the file is not open, as of yet, so I can’t find his name so I can’t find him but I think that my mother, it’s more important to me, I think, to find her.
TODD: Well, I always thought of the possibility that your father could probably, hopefully shed some light on what might have happened to your mother or where she might have been.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: And anybody else that might have been involved with her at some point in time. Were you ever able to get any information out of those guys?
ELIZABETH: No, I haven’t been able to find anything on him, you know because it’s in the file of course and it’s sealed so.
TODD: Now you’ve had some interesting communications with the adoption folks?
ELIZABETH: uh hum
TODD: Can you talk to us about that a little bit?
ELIZABETH: I…I can’t.
TODD: Okay, you can’t talk, but you’ve hit a brick wall with it, basically.
ELIZABETH: Yes. Yes…we’re filing.
TODD: Well, you know with the Tate family, Eric, that we interviewed before (Episode 17), the family that was actually taken away from the abusive father here in Tennessee, you know the efforts to protect them as children, you know even when they’re into adults, those laws are still in place and sometimes it’s very difficult. We had a very hard time you know helping those guys find each other even though they were adults.
ELIZABETH: Yes, because of the sealed records, correct?
TODD: Yes, but for me I’m thinking, you’ve already found your siblings.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: You’re all adults?
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: It looks like that would possibly make this a little easier to get through.
ELIZABETH: Help unseal those records? It doesn’t. I wish it did but it doesn’t.
TODD: What all have you tried?
ELIZABETH: Well, they say that they are protecting her right to privacy.
TODD: uh hum
ELIZABETH: And so that is why they won’t unseal those records that have his name because they are trying to protect her right to privacy.
TODD: And that’s so hard because you know that’s a piece of your own past.
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: You know and I feel like we should know that. You know when it’s about your own self, how can somebody hold this back from you?
ELIZABETH: I fully agree.
TODD: But you’re not getting anywhere with that though, right?
ELIZABETH: No, it’s not right and there are a lot of agencies out there to help adopted people like me, like ALMA Society and Bastard Nation. We’re working on it but it’s just not that easy.
TODD: What hope have some of these agencies given you?
ELIZABETH: Well, Alma Society really helped me in finding out who I was and who she was and her name and there are support issues with Bastard Nation and Alma Society both. They have both really helped in the support, which is good.
TODD: But that stops at some point. Were these guys helpful in helping you find your siblings?
ELIZABETH: Yes, very much so. They all have ideas and there’s a whole network of people.
TODD: uh huh
ELIZABETH: Which is good.
TODD: But now you stay in contact with these people. This is something that is ongoing for you.
ELIZABETH: Yes, I do.
TODD: Okay. I’m going to ask you a little bit about her tattoos, now how many tattoos did she have?
ELIZABETH: I know of the one, on the wrist.
TODD: And that’s the Harley?
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Okay, do we have any type of photograph of that tattoo or anything close to it?
TODD: Okay.
ELIZABETH: And you can see her wrist in that photo.
TODD: Okay and we’ll definitely put that on the archive page so that we’ll be able to rotate that around and take a good look at it and let our listeners look at it. How close do you think that you look like your mother?
ELIZABETH: Um…not…I don’t look exactly like her but you can tell that we’re related. You can tell she’s my mother. We all have certain traits that she had.
TODD: So all your brothers and sisters have a little bit of a resemblance.
ELIZABETH: Right. Oh yes.
TODD: I wanted to ask you about now I know your mom, we talked about her troubled past, and maybe this might help with somebody that might have remembered her, now she’d been in jail quite a bit, could you talk to us a little bit about some of that? And I’m not meaning to hurt or embarrass you with this, we’re just trying to, you know…it’s on the website so…
ELIZABETH: Oh no. Right. She was a heroin addict, or course, and she had problems with that. So, of course she had been jailed for theft and forgery and counterfeiting, I think were the last 2 charges that she had been put in and had.
TODD: And that was in California?
ELIZABETH: uh hmm
TODD: But now she’s crisscrossed the country, I’m looking, originally from Dallas, Texas; she ran away from home in 1966 then crisscrossed the country from New York to California. And how did you come upon that information about her running away from home?
ELIZABETH: From my uncles, which would be my grandfather’s sons.
TODD: uh huh
ELIZABETH: They were the ones that were able to give me that information about New York. Of course, she had left my brother in New York; that’s where my brother was born.
TODD: So you guys were quite scattered out?
ELIZABETH: Right. So, just the 3 of us girls were born in California.
TODD: Okay, and she actually worked as a waitress, danced in nightclubs, you know she definitely has a good work record out there. There’s information that’s available there as far as that…even as a dog groomer?
ELIZABETH: Yeah, and I think she learned to do that in prison.
TODD: Okay, now, where are you in the case right now as far as contact with law enforcement? Not with the adoption people but with law enforcement?
ELIZABETH: I really haven’t…well I talk to them probably once every 3 months and still we haven’t found any new leads or anything.
TODD: How does that phone call go, you know? Who do you call, who’s the officer that works on this case?
ELIZABETH: I call San Diego.
TODD: Okay.
ELIZABETH: Detective Tieszen, and we haven’t found anything new so…
TODD: Do you really think anything is actually being done or do you feel like they’re just…?
ELIZABETH: Um…
TODD: Checking it off at certain points in time, “Yup, she’s still missing.”
ELIZABETH: Yeah, that’s what…yeah, because I don’t really see what, I mean, she’s been gone for so long that I don’t see where that they know where to start looking, I mean, you know she kind of was everywhere. We just don’t know where to start.
TODD: Wow, but you’ve been…what are some of the interesting leads that you’ve had? Now I know that you’ve kind of run down a couple of things and I know that every time you had found one of your siblings, you had hoped that they had had contact with her.
ELIZABETH: Right. Right and they hadn’t. In fact, they always knew less than I did, so…
TODD: You were the informer in the family.
ELIZABETH: Yes, exactly.
TODD: So, you have had a couple of interesting leads and I was hoping that when they actually came from California and they were involved in the serial killer type situation there, I’d hoped that, even though she might not have been connected with this, it was going to give you enough of an opening to try to pursue it and push it a little harder.
ELIZABETH: Yes, I agree.
TODD: But it didn’t.
ELIZABETH: No, it didn’t, but the detective on that case has been, you know I call him too and if I have things to look at, you know he’ll do them for me, which is a really big help to have anybody that can look things up for you, which is good.
TODD: Now, what made them think that she was actually involved in that particular case?
ELIZABETH: People from, I think Crime and Justice…?
TODD: uh hum
ELIZABETH: …online, were calling in and saying that that girl looked like her.
TODD: So, it was just, basically, a visual?
ELIZABETH: Right.
TODD: Now, even though this girl that they thought looked like her, and you realized that’s not her, do we know all of the victims of this particular serial killer?
ELIZABETH: No, we don’t. Well, I’m not sure if they do or not.
TODD: Was there anything that put her I the proximity of this person that it’s still a possibility?
ELIZABETH: Well, yes, she was in L.A. at the time, well I mean in the California area.
TODD: uh huh
ELIZABETH: And she did go to Texas.
TODD: And we’ll have information, we’ll put a link on the website about the serial killing so that you guys can actually look into in a little bit deeper when you check back into the archives.
ELIZABETH: Okay.
TODD: Well, Eric, have you got any other questions to ask her? This is just such a crazy case.
ERIC: You know I’m listening to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth you know I commend your efforts in trying to find mother, but you know there are other avenues for added closure; ones that I don’t think that you and your brother and sisters have explored, is you said that you really don’t talk about it. It might be good to get everybody’s opinions on this, you know, what reasons wouldn’t you want to talk about it with your brother and sisters?
ELIZABETH: Right. Well, I speak to my brother about it but I don’t really, we don’t really speak to the sisters about it.
ERIC: Why is that?
ELIZABETH: I...I don’t think they really want to talk about it.
TODD: Do you think it’s painful for them?
ELIZABETH: Right, I think that’s what we get from it so we just kind of leave it alone.
ERIC: Okay, well, I have to ask this question, and please, you know I’m not trying…
