It was unusual for Geneva Verneal Adams, 53, to hang out in a bar, but she loved to dance, so that’s what she did the night of July 24, 1976, the night she disappeared.
Geneva was a religious woman, a devoted member of the Pentecostal church, who worked tirelessly all her life raising 10 children in the working-class area of Festus, Missouri, working in factories and nursing homes.
Her first husband, the father of their children, died of cancer in 1969. A brief second marriage ended in divorce.
Geneva didn’t drink, but because she liked to dance, she asked her daughter, Sheila, who was 20 at the time, to take her to the Artesian Ballroom in Herculaneum, Missouri, that Saturday night for a dance night.
Her son Steve Crump, who was 17 at the time, was preparing to go to work at a local restaurant. Steve and his 12-year-old brother Billy were the only children who still lived at home. The others had grown up and started their own families.
Steve still remembers his mother’s mood when she went to the bar that night.
“I haven’t seen my mother that happy in a long time,” Steve told Dateline. “She didn’t drink, but she loved to dance and was excited to go out.”
Steve told Dateline that he felt his mother had been alone since the death of her first husband and after their divorce.
“She really deserved a good night,” said Steve. “It was really nice to see her so happy.”
But the next morning, Steve woke up in a quiet house. He knew something was wrong.
“I thought it was weird because our mother was always there to make us breakfast and there was always coffee brewed when we woke up in the morning,” said Steve. “But that morning, nothing.”
After discovering that his mother had not slept in his bed that night, Steve called his sister, Sheila, who had gone dancing with her.
Sheila told Steve that sometime during the night, she decided she wanted to go home. Her mother wanted to stay and continue dancing with a man she had met earlier in the evening. The man offered to take her home and Sheila left.
Steve said at the time that they started to panic and, along with some of his brothers, tried to locate the man who had been with his mother.
Steve told Dateline that the waiters at the Artesian Lounge told him that his mother had been with a regular named Jimmie Lee Mills and that they left around 1 a.m. Steve said he later found out that Mills was the driver of his little brother Billy’s school bus in Festus.
“As soon as we found out who he was, we found out where he lived, we went to his motor home and demanded to know where our mother was,” said Steve.
Steve said Mills told them that he and Geneva left the Artesian lounge and headed to another bar that was open late in East St. Louis, near Illinois. He said he then dropped off Geneva at a donut shop around 4 a.m. in Crystal City, Missouri.
Why would I drop her off at a donut shop in the middle of the night? It doesn’t make sense, ”said Steve.
The family filed a missing persons report with the Herculaneum Police Department and, according to Chief Mark Tulgetske, Mills told the police at the time the same story.
Chief Tulgetske, who took over the case 15 years ago, told Dateline that Mills was repeatedly questioned, but insisted that he knew nothing.
Jimmie Mills quickly became a person of interest in the Geneva disappearance, the chief confirmed.
“Jimmie Mills has always been and continues to be our primary person of interest in this case,” Chief Tulgetske said. “But without a body, we have not been able to charge him.”
Chief Tulgetske told Dateline Mills that he has an extensive criminal history that includes rape and robbery charges. The chief said he also believes Mills is responsible for the deaths of several women.
According to reports confirmed by Chief Tulgetske, Mills was charged with the rape of a hitchhiker in Jefferson County five weeks before Geneva disappeared. He was on bail when he met Geneva at the bar.
Nine years later, in July 1985, another woman related to Mills went missing, Chief Tulgetske told Dateline.
Cynthia Horan, 21, lived in an apartment building in St. Louis and shared a kitchen and bathroom with Mills. Investigators turned their attention to Mills, but after being questioned, Chief Tulgetske said there was insufficient evidence to charge her with anything.
On July 30, 1988, a hiker in Jefferson County stumbled upon a shallow grave containing the skeleton of a young woman, according to Chief Tulgetske. A forensic anthropologist built a clay model of the woman’s face and determined that it was a woman named Julie Adams, who had been missing from St. Louis since March 1988.
But her family was not convinced it was her. Neither did the police.
In 2009, Chief Tulgetske, who was a force captain at the time, along with St. Louis homicide detective Randy Sasenger and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Eugene “Doc” Coombs, decided to test his theory that the remains actually belonged to Cynthia Horan, comparing the DNA from the remains with a saliva sample from Cynthia’s brother. It was a match and her remains were returned to her family for a proper funeral. Julie Adams is still missing, Chief Tulgetske said.
Geneva’s son Steve, now 61, has been doing his own investigation into the case and retains all the information that relates to his mother’s case. He told Dateline that Cynthia Horan’s story gives her hope that her mother’s case will one day be resolved.
“It was a roller coaster ride,” said Steve. “Only 44 years of ups and downs. Something happens and you have hope, but then you get disappointed again. It’s hard.”
In 2018, police received information on what they say has been the biggest breakup in the case so far.
According to Chief Tulgetske, the body of an unidentified “Jane Doe” had been found in September 1976, in a wooded area of Washington Park, Illinois.
“That area is close to where Jimmie Mills said they would go that night that Geneva disappeared,” Chief Tulgetske said. “The bars stayed open much later there.”
The body was examined at the time, but was too decomposed to identify a cause of death, the chief told Dateline.
Chief Tulgetske said Jane Doe was buried in a private cemetery on a residential street in Fairview Heights and forgotten until 2014 when an Illinois State Police sergeant who works to identify cold case cases ran Jane Doe’s information to through the database of the National System of Missing and Unidentified Persons, and came through the case of Geneva.
Steve told Dateline that he is stumped on how the connection was not made earlier. Chief Tulgetske explained to Dateline that missing person cases were handled differently back then and that there was less communication between the agencies.
Investigators were able to obtain photos from the crime scene and limited records of where Jane Doe might have been buried, but the chief said all other evidence about her case had disappeared.
According to records, Jane Doe had dentures, reddish brown hair, and a small frame.
“She’s a mom,” said Steve, who told Dateline he could see photos from the massive archive containing his mother’s case. “I just know. I think it’s her.
So in December 2018, authorities obtained an order to exhume the body from where records indicated that Jane Doe had been buried in Greenwood Cemetery.
But nothing occurred to them.
Steve was crushed again by disappointment.
“It is very frustrating,” said Steve. “It is as if you are reading a book and the last chapter is missing.”
Chief Tulgetske said he believes the answers to the Geneva case are in that cemetery, but said the records are clearly wrong about where the body is and authorities are not planning to dig at this time.
“I am 99 percent sure that Geneva is buried in that cemetery,” said Chief Tulgetske. “But without a better clue as to where her body is, we simply can’t dig up the entire area.”
He added that if Jane Doe’s body is found and identified as Geneva, it would give her a family closure.
“We have been working on this for a long time and I want nothing more than to give this family closure and peace,” Tulgetske said.
But he said that would not necessarily lead to prosecution.
“We suspected foul play, but by the time the body was found, it was too decomposed to determine the cause of death,” Tulgetske said. “At this point, the best we can hope for is a confession or someone to present information about what happened that night.”
The person of interest in the Geneva disappearance, Jimmie Mills, who is now in his 70s, was sent to prison on weapons charges in 2010. Chief Tulgetske told Dateline Mills that he was interviewed multiple times while incarcerated, but He refused to speak about that night in 1976. Mills was released in August 2019 and Chief Tulgetske said they don’t know where he now resides.
“We continue to hit dead ends,” Chief Tulgetske said. “But we want to solve this case. Our hope now is that someone will show up. Someone with information on that night. Or where this body could be buried. “
Geneva’s son Steve continues to advance his search for answers in his mother’s case and is writing a book that he hopes will tell his story.
“I want to keep his story alive,” said Steve. “For her and her family. Of us 10 children, only 6 of us remain. But we don’t want our mother’s story to be forgotten. We make sure to tell our children and grandchildren. It doesn’t end until we discover the last chapter in its history.
At the time of her disappearance, Geneva was described as being approximately 5’0 “to 5’2” tall, weighing between 110 to 120 pounds, with reddish brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a blue tank top with a design on the front and blue pants made of a thin material.
Anyone with information about the Geneva case should call the Herculaneum Police Department at 636-479-4791.
