WE NEED OUR COMMUNITIES HELP!

My name is Sarah Anfeldt and I reside in Thurston County, Washington State. On February 28, 2019, my son, Matthew Anfeldt, went missing under extremely bizarre circumstances. 2 ½ years later, we still have zero solid answers.

My sons’ case is one of several from our area, that remain unsolved. These cases include, Logan Schiendelman-missing since 2016, Steven Billman-missing since 2014, Nancy Moyer-missing since 2009, to name a few. Again, this is just from our small area alone. We have so many more across our entire state!

This year, we have had 3 sets of remains found near us in a 2-month span. When the first set of remains were found in early March of 2021, I was told that they had put a STAT on processing them, due to the amount of missing person cases that remain unsolved in this area. The remains had been sent to a Seattle Anthropologist to assist in identification. It was anticipated that they would have an identification within 1-2 weeks. When the status was requested again, in May, I was told that essentially, they had to completely identify the remains in order to release any information to the families patiently waiting to hear if this was their missing loved one. My response to this update was, why can they not provide information to our families as they are ruled out. This was looked into further and I was then told that there were 35 people on the list to be compared to these remains found in Winlock and that of these 35 people, 26 had been ruled out, but that Logan and my son had not yet been ruled out. As of the most recent update, I was informed that Matthew and Logan were never placed on the list as initially thought. My detective stated he was trying to figure out how to get them added. This is just a small piece of what we go through daily with these cases.

In the meantime, of waiting on the identification of the remains found early March, in Winlock, more remains were found in the Chehalis River, in Centralia, Washington. And yesterday, June 18th, I found out a second set of remains were found in Winlock.

On June 18th 2021, I took it upon myself to call the Seattle Coroner’s office directly and was able to speak with the Forensic Anthropologist. It was confirmed that they did in fact have Logan and Matthews DNA and Dental records. I was then informed that NO DNA testing is being completed at this time due to the Federal Funding for DNA testing being inactive since October 2020 and that they did not anticipate having it active until at least September 2021, at the soonest. Why have we been told this was occurring all this time!

For families and friends of missing loved ones, this is a slap in the face. We deal with delay after delay and, more often than not, left feeling as though our loved one is not important enough to resolve their case. All while we sit and wonder what happened, what is being done or can be done. This is constant torture and a pure nightmare for all our families. Our lives are completely turned upside down! This is unlike anything I have personally been through. A perfect analogy I heard once; is it is like Groundhog Day. The nightmare just repeats over and over and over, every day you wake up. I know I can speak on behalf of these families and say without a doubt, the worse thing to live with is the “not knowing”. OUR NUMBER ONE GOAL IS TO FIND OUR MISSING!

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO GET THIS FUNDING BACK IN PLACE IMMEDIATELY! 3 SETS OF REMAINS FOUND IN CLOSE PROXIMATY OF EACH OTHER AND NEAR WHERE OUR LOVED ONES WENT MISSING! WE DON’T JUST WANT ANSWERS, WE NEED ANSWERS!

HOW MANY OTHER REMAINS HAVE BEEN FOUND WITH OUT AN IDENTIFICATION MADE? HOW MANY OTHER FAMILIES ARE WAITING FOR ANSWERS?

ON BEHALF OF OUR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITY, WE ASK THAT YOU MAKE THIS A PRIORITY AND GET THE FEDERAL FUNDING REACTIVATED IMMEDIATELY!