Ann Ellenwood

Girl Disappears On March of Dimes Walk a Thon


The girl in the photo has a freckled face, a smile to match her outgoing nature and her mother's eyes. Her chin-length hair looks brown in the black-and-white image, but it was auburn in real life.

Ann Ellinwood was a popular student and beloved daughter. On April 15, 1978, the 12-year-old joined some friends for the annual March of Dimes walk-a-thon in and around Corvallis.

The course took walkers along a bike path by the Marys River. At about 1 p.m., Ann, complaining that her foot hurt, told her two friends to go on without her; she would head to a checkpoint at Gill Coliseum. She was last seen on the path near the Pioneer Park ball field, just across Highway 34 from the coliseum.

At 5:15 p.m., Ann's parents reported her missing after she failed to return home. She delivered The Gazette-Times (then an evening newspaper) in the afternoon. She never neglected her job. Something was very wrong.

Searchers immediately scoured the area where Ann last was seen; they found nothing.

In the days that followed, an intensive water, land and air search was launched. Dive teams searched the Marys River. Law enforcement agencies and Benton County Search and Rescue members walked the area with tracking dogs. Pilots scanned from the air. Nothing.

"She's just gone," said then-assistant Corvallis police chief Kenneth Burright.

Less than a week after Ann disappeared, Corvallis police began searching for the driver of a red pickup pulling a tear-drop-shaped trailer. It was seen April 15, near where Ann disappeared. Soon, authorities in Salem and Corvallis released information on suspects: In Salem, a boy said he saw a stocky white man in his late 20s with shaggy, light brown hair. The Corvallis suspect was described as a white man with a medium- to stocky build, reddish brown or sandy hair, with a gruff voice and possibly a mustache.

Unconfirmed reports circulated that the man in Corvallis was overheard telling children that he was a police officer.

The Benton County District Attorney, Pete Sandrock, was tight-lipped about the case at the time. But looking back more than 30 years later, he revealed that investigators talked to witnesses who reported hearing a man claim to be either the police chief or a police officer.

A week after Ann's disappearance, search efforts expanded to include western Linn County. More than 700 volunteers turned out on a rainy Saturday to look along country roads and paths. They found nothing.

The Ellinwoods had held a private memorial service for Ann on July 2. On July 31, 1978, authorities announced they had officially ended the search for Ann.

"There simply isn't any place left to look," Sandrock said at the time.

It's now a "cold" case, considered inactive, but open.

I was emailed this case by one of my readers. I realize it is another very cold case but I just couldn't resist taking a look. The information above was emailed to me along with the general case information. When I checked on the internet I could find NOTHING about this case so I am dependant upon my readers for the details. According to them, this information is correct.




This is a beautiful, concise chart. I am going to show you how Astrology often just shouts out the truth. The first chart, as shown, is for the time she was last seen, 1 pm. Notice that Leo is rising and the Sun, which represents Ann, is in the ninth house. This means she is outdoors doing something. We know she was in a walk a thon and was walking outdoors by a river. Notice Mercury right near the Sun. This shows the other kids who were walking with her. And then notice how the Sun is disposed of by Mars in Leo in the twelfth house. At 1 pm, the time of this chart, Ann was complaining that her foot hurt! The twelfth house rules the feet and there is Mars, hovering near the Moon. The Moon in this configuration would indicate that the injury wouldn't be overtly obvious and may have been settled in deep like a thorn or other sharp object (Mars and the Moon). It would also be very painful.

Anyways, the person she came upon after this departure would be represented by the seventh house. This is Aquarius with Uranus in the fourth. This is a person in the neighborhood, in fact, someone who had a home nearby or along the walk a thon route. Uranus is in Scorpio and, interestingly, is disposed of by Mars in Leo in the twelfth house. This implies a connection between Ann's foot problem and this person coming along later. It is possible that he or she saw Ann limping and offered her some help, perhaps a ride or a moment's rest on a chair. Uranus disposed of by Mars in the twelfth also implies that this person was behaving secretly on this day and may even have had ulterior motives from the start.

The Moon co rules Ann in this chart and it is also placed in the twelfth in the last few degrees of Cancer. This is the Moon in her baliwick, she is powerful in Cancer but her position is void of course (meaning she makes no aspect to another planet before leaving the sign Cancer) which strips her of a great deal of that power. The first aspect the Moon makes is on leaving the sign Cancer and entering Leo. It is a conjunction to Mars in Leo, which disposes the rulers of both Ann's and her abductors rulers. I know this seems a little like ring around the rosy but the interactions between these planets are important. In this configuration you are seeing the combining of both rulers through their dispositors. This means, to me, that these two people ended up together by mutual assent. I am of a mind to believe that perhaps Ann went up and knocked on the door of this house, looking for something to lean on. She was perhaps having way too much trouble with her foot to make it back to the checkpoint. Uranus indicates that this was a crime of opportunity. The chart conspires to show that her foot injury provided that opportunity.




One more factor I have to point out is the secondary disposition of Mars by Pluto in the third. Pluto opposes Mercury in the ninth. This person is somehow connected to schools or the school system. He or she dislikes children but keeps this a secret. Notice how Uranus opposes Venus, which is right at the midheaven. He or she may be a teacher. And he or she dislikes little girls the most.

At just around 2 pm, Virgo moves onto the Ascendant. At that same hour, Mercury moves into the eighth house. Saturn has crossed the Ascendant and moved into the twelfth house. Mercury is exactly trine Neptune in the fourth house and part of a larger grand trine including the twelfth house Saturn. This is a death pattern. Neptune now rules the seventh cusp. Uranus is inconjunct to Mercury in the eighth, Uranus opposes Venus which now rules the tenth and Pluto is inconjunct to Venus as well. This child was killed inside this persons house by accident. There was a physical situation which I am not sure about, whether the child was outright attacked, manhandled or reprimanded, but whatever it was it went too far. I do not see sexual implications. The chart does not show her being molested or raped. Mercury, the first house ruler, is trine Neptune, the seventh house ruler, in fire signs. She may have been drugged but I think it looks like she was suffocated or strangled. For sure, damage was done to the head. In all of the charts for this instance Mercury is under the Sun's beams showing clearly that Ann came into harms way and was in grave danger from the start.

Some things stand out for me. Neptune is in Sagittarius so this person was a hunter or a sportsman. He or she may have sporting type items in the home. Whether is it actual participation, shown by trophies, animal skins, fishing or archery gear or the like or whether is armchair participation and the house is full of baseball cards or football jerseys it is just hard to say. There is a chance he or she was a runner or walker. He or she may have had an interest in the walk a thon because of their own involvement in walking or running. Hiking mountains comes to mind. Competitive hunting is another possibility. Entering hunting or fishing contests is yet another. But again, I have to assert that this chart is showing a person involved in the school system, either as a teacher, professor, a member of the school board or the school janitor, et al.. He or she has a job in a school with children. So this is the profile thus far, somebody who works in a school in any capacity who also loves sports and sporting activities.




I beleive, looking at these charts, is the reason they never found Ann is because her body was burned. I am not only saying this because of the grand trine in fire signs but also because both Mercury and the Sun are in Aries in the eighth and disposed of by Mars in Leo. Mars and the Sun are in mutual reception, to boot. Because Saturn is in the twelfth I tend to think that after the body was burned the remains were buried. And I would guess it was buried in a place just outside the back door of this house. And remember, this house is in the same neighborhood as the area where the walk a thon occurred and this person who did this lived in this house.

Another small crumb of information I can garner here is that this person is unusual looking. No doubt dark haired and perhaps even dark skinned (for their race). Uranus in Scorpio in the third makes me think he or she has a "unibrow". That is where the eyebrows run together over the nose. Uranus also opposes Venus so this person would not be considered good looking, he or she would not be "easy on the eyes". There would be a hardness to the features that people find unpleasant. Neptune as the secondary ruler in Sagittarius describes someone thin and even frail looking, although also athletic. I do not get a clear definition of sex; this person could be male or female. At the time, they lived alone and no one else was involved or has information regarding what happened. And here is the thing. Saturn is retrograde in the twelfth so the body will never be found.

Along with this case I was sent the details of a second case that occurred within a short while after Ann disappeared. Many people believed that the two cases were related but some of the police did not. This is the case of Stephanie Newsom. This girls body was found, contrary to the mystery surrounding Ann Ellenwood, so there is a little more data on that one to examine. I am going to post it next. I am going to compare the two cases and see if, in fact, the charts corroborate a tie between the two or if two different people did these awful things. You will see this next chart on the blog within a week or so. Thanks for reading!

Technorati Tags: abducted, missing person, child, girl, teen, Corvallis, OR, Oregon, detective, investigate, astrology, forensics, predict, analysis, cold case, unsolved mystery