April Beth Pitzer, a 34-year-old White female, was last seen alive in June 2004 in Newberry Springs, California, after telling people close to her that she wanted to leave the Mojave Desert and return home to Arkansas. She had once been a model and a mother trying to rebuild her life, but by the time she reached California, her situation had become unstable. She had reportedly told her mother she was working as a waitress and caring for an elderly person, but later admitted she had been homeless, staying in shelters, and struggling without needed medication. As the summer of 2004 approached, she began talking about going back to her family, her children, and the life she had left behind.
Before she vanished, April’s past as a drug informant appeared to weigh heavily on her. Years earlier, after a DUI arrest in Arkansas in which others in the car were found with methamphetamine, she reportedly cooperated with law enforcement and later testified in a federal drug case. That testimony helped send multiple people to prison. Online accounts of the case say April feared her identity as an informant had become known, and shortly before her disappearance she allegedly encountered the wife of one of the men connected to the drug case. After that, she seemed frightened and increasingly determined to leave California.
On June 28, 2004, April was reportedly preparing to take a bus back to Arkansas. A friend named Chuck Hollister said he dropped her off at a bus stop or station in Newberry Springs, near the 30000 block of Caspian Way. April never arrived in Arkansas, never contacted her mother again, and never used the bus ticket in any confirmed way. Her mother, Gloria Denton, became alarmed when the expected call never came and eventually reported her missing to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department on July 16, 2004.
The case soon took on a darker tone. In September 2004, an employee at a Love’s Truck Stop in Roseburg, Oregon, found a disturbing message written in a bathroom stall suggesting that a missing girl from Arkansas could be found near Interstate 15, east of Barstow. Around the same period, investigators received information that a woman had allegedly overheard talk that April had been killed and placed in a mine shaft in the desert. Those tips pushed the investigation toward the abandoned mines and isolated desert areas around Ludlow and Newberry Springs.
In late 2005, investigators and searchers found items believed to belong to April in remote mining areas roughly thirty miles from Newberry Springs. Her suitcase and clothing were reportedly scattered across a wide area near the Red Dog Mine and Indian Queen Mine. One of her nightgowns was found tied like a hangman’s noose in a mining shack, and pieces of duct tape were present. Other belongings, including boots, a swimsuit, undergarments, and clothing identified by her mother, were found in and around mine areas. A mattress and sheet stained with human blood and bodily fluids were also recovered, but the passage of time, heat, and exposure to the elements limited their forensic value.
Chuck Hollister drew attention because he was the person who claimed to have last seen April alive. He denied involvement and reportedly said he had dropped her off to leave for Arkansas, then traveled out of state to help someone move. Investigators also looked closely at Dan Dansbury, a close friend of Hollister’s who owned the Red Dog Mine. Dansbury was questioned and denied involvement. Years later, while on his deathbed, he reportedly told April’s mother that searchers had been looking in the right place but had not gone far enough. Both Hollister and Dansbury died without being charged.
Despite the suspicious circumstances, no arrests, charges, trials, or convictions have been reported in April Pitzer’s case. Authorities have described her as the victim of a homicide, but her body has never been recovered. She was legally declared dead on August 27, 2012. The case remains unsolved, suspended between the story April was told to be living when she first came to California and the grim evidence later found scattered across the Mojave Desert.
