Shaina Kirkpatrick, who was born on April 22, 1999, and her younger sister, Shausha Henson, who was born on January 25, 2001, left their home in Portland, Oregon on April 4, 2001, with their mother, Kimyala Henson, who was 21 at the time. Kimyala told people that the three of them were going to visit Kimyala’s friend Christina Mayer in British Columbia, Canada. They were also going to meet a man Mayer said was her husband, Curtis. Steven Kirkpatrick, the father of Shaina and Shausha, said that he and Kimyala had never met this Curtis guy before.

But Christina Mayer’s husband was really named Frank Oehring, and he was trying to kill a former wife in Missouri. He was on the run from the law in Missouri. It looks like Oehring was a Satanist, too, and Mayer was in his group.

Kimyala and her daughters, who were 1 and 3 months old at the time, spent the night at the Shasta Lodge in Redding, California. So they did cross into another state. They also stopped in Sacramento, about two and a half hours south of Redding (one source says they were going to Alameda), so Kimyala could get her birth certificate. Mayer and Oehring may have persuaded Kimyala that she needed her birth certificate to get into Canada. This was a few months before the attacks on September 11, so leaving the country was easier.

But Shaina and Shausha haven’t been seen since this stop in Sacramento. On April 20, 2001, Mayer and Oehring showed up in Florida. They were found at a rest stop. Mayer had been shot in the head and was already dead. Oehring had also been shot in the head and would die soon after at the hospital. It turned out that Mayer and Oehring killed themselves and each other. Oehring left letters saying that he and Mayer wanted to steal Kimyala’s birth certificate. In fact, Mayer had used Kimyala’s name in Las Vegas soon after the three of them left their home in Oregon.

On April 28, 2001, Kimyala’s bones were found three hours from Sacramento, near Nixon, Nevada. Kimyala had been hit and shot, and the police think that Oehring and Mayer killed her. But no matter how hard they looked, they couldn’t find Shaina and Shausha.

There were traces of Kimyala’s blood on a hatchet in the car that Oehring and Mayer were driving, but none of the girl’s blood. There was also no proof that the girls went to Florida with the couple, and neither of the girls’ birth certificates could be found. It’s not clear if Oehring and Mayer hurt the girls or just sold them to someone else.

Shaina and Shausha’s dad, Steven Kirkpatrick, still hopes that girls are out there somewhere. Shaina Ashley (sometimes spelled Ashly) Kirkpatrick was one year old when her parents went missing. She was about three feet tall and weighed twenty-four pounds. On the back of Shaina’s head, she was born with a triangle-shaped mark. Shausha Henson is 3 months old and weighs about 16 pounds. She was born with a broken collarbone.

The girls lived in Portland, Oregon, so the police there are looking into it. The FBI is also looking into it because the girls crossed state lines. In this case, there isn’t much information out there, which is sad. I hope that somewhere, the girls are still alive.