Few clues in 2009 disappearance of Downingtown woman
The disappearance of Toni Lee Sharpless, a year ago Monday, truly fits the name of TV's Without a Trace. A private investigator says she believes the Downingtown mother and nurse is still alive, but concedes the evidence is far from solid. Police have had no productive leads.
The disappearance of Toni Lee Sharpless, a year ago Monday, truly fits the name of TV's Without a Trace.
A private investigator says she believes the Downingtown mother and nurse is still alive, but concedes the evidence is far from solid. Police have had no productive leads.
"None at all," said Lower Merion Police Lt. Frank Higgins. "It's an unusual case in that respect. We never had any suspects. Nobody had any reason to wish her any harm."
The trail quickly went cold in the early-morning hours of Aug. 23, 2009, after Sharpless, then 29, left a get-together at the Penn Valley home of 76ers guard Willie Green. After parting with a friend about 5 a.m., Sharpless drove off in her black 2002 four-door Pontiac Grand Prix. Her last message, a text sent hours earlier, wished her restless 12-year-old daughter a good night's sleep.
No family member or friend has heard from Sharpless since, and her bank and credit-card accounts have shown no activity. Donna Knebel, Sharpless' mother, has a "gut feeling" that her daughter is alive.
"For her to take off and not call, that's highly unusual," said Knebel, who with her husband, Peter, is raising Sharpless' daughter. Sharpless was living with them in Downingtown at the time she disappeared. Donna Knebel thinks about the disappearance daily. "You do what you have to do, because life goes on. I talk to her spiritually every day. 'Come home, let us find you,' I tell her. Some days I cry my eyes out. Some days I'm very angry."
In September, police divers and a Texas firm using side-scanning sonar checked several cars submerged in the Schuylkill in Gladwyne, on the theory that she might have driven in. Sharpless' car wasn't there.
The license plate - Pennsylvania tag DND-7772 - did show up during an electronic scanning of parked vehicles in Camden last year, Higgins said. Camden police followed up, but never found the Grand Prix or Sharpless.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Sharpless or her car is asked to call Lower Merion detectives at 610-649-1000 or Law at 610-388-1776.
