The Abduction of Billy and CJ Vosseler, Part 2

Apr 22

Written By Kristen Seavey

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Read Part One of the Abduction of Billy and CJ Vosseler here.

Charlie… criminal or hard-nosed negotiator?

It was not clear what Charlie’s ambitions were. It was true that he had disappeared with the boys, and it was clear that he had been planning it for a while. But what did he really want, Ruth wondered. Was this just a tactic as part of the looming divorce negotiations that were just getting underway? Was Charlie going to use access to the children as a bargaining chip? Was there some legal advantage that he was going to press by having physical control of the children?

Or was this something more sinister?

Ruth’s image of Charlie had begun to crack during their period of separation, but as the days, weeks, and months passed, Ruth would discover what Charlie’s true character really was.

Unraveling the lies

She felt isolated from her friends and family, and she wanted to reconnect. She called her parents, back home in Wisconsin, and started talking to them more regularly. She couldn’t understand how things had grown so distant, but as she spoke to them it became clear. Charlie had driven a wedge between them. They would call for her at the house or the office and Charlie would answer. They would give him a message to relay to Ruth, but he would never tell her. Her parents would figure that she was just busy, but over time, they would call less, and Ruth, too, would call less. She was 1,300 miles away in New England, living her life, and she assumed that they were doing the same.

It was one of the many deceptions that she uncovered—perhaps one of the worst.

She reconnected with her friend, Ann, from Lubec, Maine, and Ann showed her a stack of letters, 3-4” tall, that Charlie had returned to her. Those letters were all addressed to Ruth. Ann thought she was being snubbed, but Ruth never saw those letters—Charlie had hidden them from her.

It seemed that Charlie, like many abusers, was trying to isolate Ruth—trying to reduce her network of support.

Charlie had told Ruth that he was handling the taxes for the family, but Ruth learned that he had never filed her taxes, and she was in trouble with the IRS for unfiled returns. He had filed extensions, forging her name, and never followed up with the documents.

Ruth had stored many of her personal possessions along with many marital assets at an outbuilding at the Rochester, New Hampshire house—the house where they had last lived together. After Charlie left, she tried to get access to that storage building, but never could. His parents wouldn’t allow it. She later learned that Charlie and his family had auctioned off all of shed’s contents, including all of her personal possessions—including even an heirloom Bible that Ruth’s grandmother had given her for Confirmation.

Through deception, Charlie had amassed a little bit of money before his flight—about $200,000. He had drained and closed the shared checking account the they had used together, leaving Ruth destitute. He had stopped paying Ruth’s car payment. He had kept secret accounts that Ruth would later learn about that he also drained. He even embezzled money from his own real estate clients. When he shuttered the business, there were a number of real estate sales that were in the works. When a buyer enters into a contract to purchase a home, they have to put down an “earnest-money deposit,” which is often 1-3% of a home’s sales price. That money is held during the period of negotiation and then applied toward the purchase price. Well, Charlie just took all of the money from the business’s escrow accounts and kept it for himself, leaving his clients high and dry. Even his employees were owed commissions and wages, and he stiffed them too.

The real estate shenanigans reminded Ruth of a time that Charlie had coached her in deception. One time she was at the real estate office, and Charlie was trying to learn more information about a sales listing. He told her to call the listing agent and to use a fake name—use a different last name, he suggested, but always use your real first name. He gave her different angles she could try, adopting different characters, in an attempt to extract information that would not otherwise be public—the history of the property, information about the seller’s motivations, the number of times it had been shown to other prospective buyers, and the expected sale price. At the time, to Ruth, it seemed like a business strategy to get competitive intelligence—but in hindsight, it just seemed like another one Charlie’s shady dealings.

As the divorce proceedings went on, Ruth was beset at every turn by obstacles. The thorniest issue was that Charlie’s father claimed to own many of the properties that actually belonged to his son, and by extension, were part of the marital assets. Charlie’s father’s name is Charles Leon Vosseler. Charlie’s legal name is Charles Martin Vosseler. They were not “senior” and “junior.” They never used their middle initial on legal documents. There were real estate deeds in the name of “Charles Vosseler” — but which Charles Vosseler? It was difficult for the court to determine. Ruth, of course, knew the truth, but Charlie, and by extension, his father, was going to extract every penny he could out of the divorce. Charlie’s father successfully claimed that many of the marital assets actually belonged to him, undermining Ruth’s legitimate claim to half of their value.

Ruth learned that their sudden move from Lubec, Maine, was not because of Charlie’s disillusionment with the property, but rather because of the previous owner’s unhappiness with Charlie. There was some sort of a seller-financed arrangement, so the previous owner was still entangled with the property, and he had successfully taken Charlie to court and won the property back. Charlie, of course, told Ruth that it was his choice—but the reality is that he was forced out.

One time Ruth got a call from her friend in Lubec, Maine—she was contacted by Charlie’s mother asking if she could watch the kids for a couple of days over a weekend. She said that Ruth had suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed in a mental institution. Her friend, by this point, was aware of the abduction, and she played along. She contacted Rochester PD, and Rochester PD coordinated with Maine police to conduct a sting operation. She agreed to watch the boys. Beth and Charles were supposed to bring the kids, but they never showed up. She later told Ruth of strange menacing things that were happening in her life—she was being followed, there were prank calls to her home, even people trying to run her off the road.

Ruth, too, experienced a number of strange things. Somebody was trying to keep track of her.

But there was one incident, that even today, stands out in Ruth’s memory above all the rest. She went, one time, to Charlie’s parents’ home soon after Charlie’s disappearance. While she was there, she saw the family’s cat—a cat that had supposedly died—a cat named Muggins. Charlie had told her that the cat had died and that he had buried the cat with the boys. She thought the boys were a little too young to be told about death and that Muggins’ funeral could be a potentially traumatic event the boys’ childhood.

Now, here she was, face-to-face, with the cat. She knew, at that moment, that Charlie’s parents were not just being passively unhelpful to her, but were truly complicit in Charlie’s plotting against her.

She recalled the words that CJ had told her — “I can’t play with her anymore.” — he would just keep repeating it. It was as if Charlie had given him those words. She wondered what words Charlie had given CJ about her.

Ruth—fighting on all fronts

It did not take long for Ruth to discover the depths to which Charlie had gone to disappear completely, and how complicit his parents were in his schemes. Within days, she learned that Charles and Beth had assisted in winding down Charlie’s business by auctioning off all of the furniture from the realty office. Charlie’s parents listed the former family home for sale, with Charles Leon Vosseler claiming that he was the rightful owner. They were present at all of the court appearances, standing in for their son.

And then there were the things that they did to sabotage Ruth. Ruth had a college degree and a background in social work, and she was trying to get a full-time job in the area with the Department of Social Services. She submitted an application and was going through the process when she got a call from their office—someone had lodged a complaint about her—a child abuse complaint.

They told her to withdraw her application. She later found out that the caller had given an address that was later determined to be a hotel. The investigation into the complaint was deemed to be unfounded. But it was successful in thwarting her from getting that job. Though there is no direct evidence that it was Beth or Charles that filed that complaint, who else?

Even more menacing was an issue that arose during the divorce proceedings. There was an attorney appointed to represent the boys’ interests called a guardian ad litem. Beth told that attorney that Ruth had sexually abused her boys. The attorney investigated the claim and found it without merit. It was yet another underhanded tactic employed to win at all costs.

Ruth was barely afloat financially. She came from a rural farming family, and though they were a great support emotionally, they didn’t have the means to help her financially. She needed to make money. She was working as many hours as she could get at Wendy’s as a manager. When she discovered what had happened to her boys, she asked for a couple of days off. She told us, “I got a call from a coworker that my manager was talking to corporate and giving me a furlough. He was saying it wouldn’t be good for customers to have a manager crying. [I spoke to him] and I promised that I wouldn’t cry—to keep my job. Later, when I was working, coworkers would say, ‘Look, she’s not even sad that her kids were taken.’” What a gut punch.

Ruth kept searching for a job in her field, and later found one at a non-profit called Region 8 Development Services where she worked with the developmentally disabled and mentally ill.

Ruth was fighting on all fronts¬—trying to figure out where Charlie and the boys were holed up, involving law enforcement to force Charlie to return the boys, handling all of the divorce proceedings and paperwork, reconnecting with her friends and family, digging herself out of a financial hole, finding a higher-paying full-time job. It was overwhelming. She would later reflect, “I guess he thought if I was busy holding my own life together, I couldn’t do much to find them.”

She was a wreck, tirelessly fighting to get the police to take notice of the case. She would later tell Unsolved Mysteries, “When the kids were first taken, I can clearly say that I was a mess. Anytime I could sleep, which was rare, I had nightmares. I could hear my children calling for me, and I couldn't find them. Where is he? What are my kids doing? Who's taking care of them?”

Ruth went to her lawyer’s office on that Monday after she discovered that Charlie had shuttered the real estate office—it was October 13th, 1986. She filed a petition for emergency custody, and it was granted on Tuesday of that week. That order—dated October 14th, 1986, is the same order that is still in effect today. It is a temporary custody order that grants Ruth full physical custody of the boys. Charlie was, in effect, thumbing his nose at the court order by not returning the boys to Ruth. At first, police didn’t take the issue too seriously, but as time went on, the legal pressure on Charlie mounted.

The kids were missing, and Ruth needed the cops to help find them. One of the first things they asked her for were photographs of the boys, but Charlie had cleaned her out. There were hundreds of photos of the kids—but they were all gone. Ruth had only a couple of photos left—for Billy, an image from his baptism. But for CJ, she was striking out. When CJ disappeared, he was 3 years and 10 months old—a toddler who could be recognized—more distinct in appearance than his younger brother who was just 2 years and 6 months. She asked everyone in her life for photos of her boys, and the best thing that she could find was a video from a coworker that captured CJ in the background for 13 precious seconds. She managed to get a frame from that home video, and that was the image that was circulated by the police.

As the weeks and months passed without the children reappearing, the Rochester PD took the case more and more seriously. At some point, Ruth began speaking directly to the District Attorney of Strafford County, Lincoln Soldani. DA Soldani filed criminal charges against Charlie. Ruth told us that DA Soldani “was very nice and as involved as he could be.” Of Rochester PD, she didn’t have a bad word to say. They wanted to see her reunited with her children, too.

But their jurisdiction was restricted to the city limits of Rochester and the boundaries of Strafford County. Charlie could be anywhere. Ruth wanted the feds involved. Ruth was going to law libraries, scouring the statutes, trying to find a reason for the FBI to get involved. And she found what she was looking for—there was a statute that made it the FBI’s responsibility to investigate interstate child abductions. The only trouble was that she couldn’t prove that Charlie had left the state of New Hampshire.

And then the phone rang from American Express.

They asked her if she was Ruth Vosseler, and if she was married to Charlie Vosseler. They were trying to collect a debt. Evidently, he had stopped paying on an American Express credit card, and they wanted to see if Ruth was good for the money. She said that she might be interested in settling with them, but that she would need to see the itemized billing. They balked at first because she was not the account holder, but after some legal wrangling, she eventually got the documentation. There were charges from New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. And the charges were made after Charlie had vanished with the boys. She had a list of businesses that she could contact—maybe one of them might recognize Charlie or the boys. But it had been a long time since the charges were made... would they still remember? Would they still have records? He bought toys. He went to his optometrist. He went to a hotel—and it was in another state. She contacted the hotel and they were able to confirm that Charles Vosseler had checked in, and what’s more, he wasn’t alone. Charlie was with his father. There was both a Charles M. and a Charles L. Vosseler on the log. They remembered that the boys were with them. This is what she needed—proof that Charlie had taken the boys out of the state of New Hampshire.

Her attorney made a meal out of the discovery, confronting Charlie’s father with the deception. Charles L. admitted that he had seen his son in the first three weeks following the abduction. He said, quote, “he spent a week or two driving around aimlessly with his son through various parts of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, attempting to convince him to come home.” He described his son as “despondent.” He said, of his final parting with Charlie, that quote, “All of a sudden, a male friend of Charlie’s showed up with their own vehicle. Charlie and the boys got into that vehicle and left.” Charles L. then took the vehicle Charlie was using home to New Hampshire. Who that mystery man was? Charles L. had “no idea.”

The vehicle that Charles L. drove home was a green van, but Ruth knew nothing about a green van—last she had seen Charlie, he was driving a pickup truck. Ruth and Charlie typically shared two vehicles—Charlie had a pickup, and she had a car. When Charlie vanished, he left with the pickup, and she kept the car. Through a private investigator, she was able to get identifying information about the green van, and she located the dealership where it had been sold. Charlie, she learned, had traded in his truck for the green van. The title on the new vehicle, said, of course, “Charles Vosseler,” — no middle initial. The car salesman recalled that, in addition to Charlie, there was “a man and a woman with him,” who were, presumably, his parents, Charles L. and Beth.

Ruth couldn’t help but think back to the day she discovered Charlie’s real estate office had been closed. She had called his parents, telling them what Charlie had done, totally stunned. They said, “Oh really?? We knew nothing about that!” Ruth had believed them at the time. She felt like such a fool.

Charlie had used that green van for just a matter of a few weeks. His dad had returned with it. It was unknown what vehicle Charlie was now using.

But what was known, was that Charlie had left the state of New Hampshire with the boys after a court order had been issued in which Ruth was awarded full custody. In other words, Ruth had proof that he had left the state, which triggered a new set of criminal charges, and ultimately, the involvement of Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On Thursday, February 5, 1987, Charlie was charged with two felonies for intentional interference of custody—or, in common parlance, parental abduction. Two months after that, on April 3, a federal warrant was issued for Charlie’s arrest on the charge of “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.” At last, the FBI were able to become involved and pour their considerable resources into the search for CJ and Billy. Charlie’s parents would have to be very careful because they were now staring down the barrel of both state and federal charges, if they continued to blatantly assist their son.

That said, the local FBI office was not thrilled to be working on Ruth’s case. They were more interested in bank robberies than parental abductions.

On May 29, 1987, the very first newspaper article that we could locate on the case was published in Eau Claire, Wisconsin by the Leader-Telegram—7 months after the boys were taken.

Even with the law now in her corner, the damage was done. Charlie had been given an almost five-month head start to hide himself in the vast expanse of America. He had lived in many places throughout his life and had connections to friends and family in multiple states.

The authorities were left with a physical description and a collection of facts about the man who had stolen his own children. He was interested in finance, read the Wall Street Journal, and watched the Nightly Business Report. He dabbled in antiques, penny stocks, and racing harness horses. He was a proponent of living off the land, growing his own food, and healthy eating. He worried about his health, almost to the point of hypochondria. He loved Canada, especially Prince Edward Island, where he had once vacationed with Ruth, and might someday revisit. He was meticulous and unflappable when he set his mind to something.

Time was working against the searchers. Every day, CJ and Billy grew taller. They slimmed and thickened the way that children do. Their hair grew longer, was cut short, was perhaps even dyed to mask their identities. Five months represented a lot of potential change, and the descriptions of the boys were now well out of date.

How long, Ruth wondered, would it take before she would no longer recognize her own sons. And how long, she wondered, before they would not recognize her.

Ruth loses her father

In the summer of 1987, on a small farm in Colfax, WI, Gisle Gottliebson was dying. Ruth’s father, at 83 years old, had already survived two heart attacks. But when he was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors advised him to get his affairs in order.

Gisle had lived a good life—a difficult one, at times, but fulfilling—and the only looming concern he had was for his daughter, Ruth, and her sons, CJ and Billy. He had always liked his son-in-law, Charlie, had gotten along with him since the beginning. Ruth told an interviewer from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children,

“When my father first met my husband, he liked him so much. So now, he cannot understand how Charlie could have done this thing. My father spent his life as a farmer in a small town, doing his work, trusting people, treating them kindly and being treated kindly in return. He can’t believe that anyone—especially a father—could do such a thing.”

Ruth had come to believe it. She now knew the real Charlie.

Her father wasn’t there yet—he still believed that Charlie was a good man at heart who had been led astray by his mother, Beth. Both Gisle and Ruth believed that she had played an important role in prolonging the abduction by encouraging Charlie to stay on the run. Gisle told the Dunn County News, “Charlie is an ordinary guy, just like you and me. But there’s some devilment in his mother.”

Sitting on his farm with the wind rippling across the valley pastures, Gisle spoke to reporters. He lamented his physical condition, saying, “If I was in the shape I was two years ago, I’d take the bull by the horns and sure find him.” But he hoped that his words would reach Charlie directly. He thought Charlie would want to say goodbye to him.

Gisle and his wife, Ellen, had poured over $3,000—money that they didn’t have—into the search efforts. With a prognosis of just five months left to live, Gisle’s only desire was to see his grandsons again and to know that his daughter was reunited with her children.

Unfortunately, that wish was not fulfilled. On January 18, 1988, a year and a half after his grandsons disappeared, Gisle passed away in the Colfax Area Nursing Home. His funeral was held just three days later, at the Holden Lutheran Church in Colfax. His burial in the churchyard was attended by his wife, his daughter Ruth, his other children, and the many community members who had called him a friend over the years. But, glaringly absent, were the two small boys who should have been holding onto their mother’s hands as she they, too, said farewell to their grandfather.

Divorce finalized

Back in New Hampshire, Ruth, as required by the court, was publishing notices in area newspapers. She had to give Charlie every opportunity to show his face, before the court made its final determination about the divorce in his absence. But he never appeared, and on February 9th, 1988, the divorce was settled.

The outcome of the divorce, as Ruth explained to us, was that she got one property, an apartment house, in Rochester. But her attorney had been working for her on contingency for all this time, and as a result, took the property as payment for his services. Ruth, personally, ended up getting almost nothing from the settlement.

Charlie was ordered to pay child support to Ruth, but of course, that would never happen. She did, though, use this to her advantage, later looking into the possibility of hiring a firm that pursued deadbeat fathers for overdue child support.

Ruth’s 40th birthday present

In March of 1988, Ruth turned 40 years old—the last year-and-a-half of which had felt as long as all the rest of those years combined.

As a birthday present to herself, Ruth moved home to Colfax, Wisconsin.

She soon found a job as a social worker with Chippewa County Family Support Center. She would live in Colfax for several years—until 1991—occasionally traveling back to New Hampshire, as needed, for court hearings.

Monty Curtis joins the case

1988 was also the year that Monty Curtis joined the campaign to find the boys. A dark-haired man with a salt-and-pepper beard and glasses, Monty had begun his career as a law enforcement officer in NH and VT. Before long, he had moved into the private sector, investigating fraud, sabotage, and incidents of workplace violence. He had worked with various firms both in the U.S. and abroad, and had eventually founded his own private investigation business, Investigative Strategies Group, in New England.

Monty heard about the disappearance of the Vosseler boys from his then-wife, who had been a coworker of Ruth’s. He was moved by Ruth’s story, and perhaps also excited by the challenge that the case presented. He took it on pro bono, and began learning everything he could about Charlie Vosseler. He spoke to Charlie’s friends and family—those that would speak with him—and even surveilled his parents. Though he had never met him, he grew to know the man as well as anyone could. Of him, he said,

“Charles Vosseler is a unique individual that I would probably consider a malignant narcissist. I think he looks at everyone as a tool, rather than a fellow human being. I think he can come across as a very charming individual. He is, I would say, highly intelligent. He took a very premeditated approach to abducting Ruth's children. He had been planning this over the course of at least six months.”

Like Ruth, Monty did not believe that Charlie would physically harm the boys. After all, he hadn’t even harmed the family’s cat, Muggins, who he had given to his parents before fleeing. Ruth and Monty developed a theory that the funeral that Charlie had held for the cat the summer before he left had been “practice” to prepare the boys to believe that their mother was dead as well—a dry-run to get them accustomed to the concept of death.

Monty believed that Charlie was keeping CJ and Billy hidden from sight, most likely in a remote place where few questions would be asked. He began a campaign of spreading flyers across the country in areas where Charlie might settle. And he reached out to the numerous organizations devoted to finding missing children, making them aware of the Vosseler case. It was one of these connections that yielded a major lead in August of 1988.

1988, August - A critical lead in Oklahoma

Stilwell, Oklahoma, is a small town near the eastern border of the state—ten miles from Arkansas. It’s technically in the sovereign territory of Cherokee Nation and the final point along the Trail of Tears. The soil is acidic but rich, making it prime land for growing produce. Stilwell’s claim to fame is that it’s the “Strawberry Capital of the World.” It has a high poverty rate and a low life expectancy. In 1988, it had a population of about 3,000—about half of whom were Native American and the other half white. One of those inhabitants was a woman named Patricia, who worked as the local librarian.

Sometime in 1988, Patricia began seeing a new man in town who went by the name Charlie Wilson, or sometimes “Dr. Charlie Wilson.” Charlie was a single parent, raising two small boys, “Chuck” and “Will.” The boys were homeschooled and didn’t leave the house much. Later, several people in Stilwell acquainted with Charlie would say that they didn’t even know that he had children. Patricia did not know much about the family’s background, but Charlie had told her never to speak to his sons about their mother. She assumed that it was a painful topic—perhaps the woman had died or had left the family.

One day, Patricia was in the nearby town of Tahlequah with her mother for a doctor’s appointment, and there was a poster in there of two missing boys and their father. She took a closer look and immediately recognized them. She hadn’t been seeing Charlie long, but she would know that face anywhere—and there was no mistaking that strange condition that caused his eyes to flick rapidly from side to side. Patricia contacted the organization that had distributed the flyer, Child Find of America, who in turn contacted the FBI.

Child Find of America contacted Ruth’s PI, Monty. The FBI office that was handling Ruth’s case contacted the FBI office in Oklahoma, closest to Stilwell. Ruth got in touch with them, and they told her that they were tasked with vetting the tip, but that they’d never gotten pictures of Charlie. They wanted to know what he looked like before they went looking for him. Ruth called back to her case agent to try and close the loop. As this was unfolding, Patricia, the tipster, was getting very anxious—why was it taking so long? Wasn’t this the information they were looking for?

FBI Oklahoma contacted the local child protective services, and perhaps local law enforcement too. Eventually, they were satisfied that the tip was solid. On August 11, they told Ruth that they were prepared to move in on Charlie’s new location, and that she should be ready to fly to Oklahoma to retrieve her children. Ruth took off work, gathered documentation, and sat by the phone. This nightmare would soon be over.

But what the FBI found in Stilwell, however, was a pile of ashes. The house that Charlie and the boys had been living in was burned to the ground, as well as the vehicle he had been driving. Gone, too, were any clues as to where they were heading next.

Somehow, Charlie had gotten wind that the authorities were closing in on him. Later, a note was discovered in a PO box rented to Charle that read, “Uncle Sam is coming.” Someone had tipped him off, but who? Let’s take a quick inventory of people that knew: FBI New Hampshire, FBI Oklahoma, Child Find of America, private investigator Monty Curtis, Ruth Vosseler, CPS Oklahoma, Local PD in Oklahoma, and Patricia—that’s quite a few people, and any of them could’ve leaked the information. Ruth believes that it could’ve been local PD in Oklahoma. She later learned that Charlie was friendly with the local sheriff and was known to go to cattle auctions with him. Perhaps that was the leak.

Monty Curtis later said, “This case has been riddled with weird things like that. How would he know that [the feds were coming], unless he used eavesdropping or had [law-enforcement] connections?”

The FBI asked her if she knew anything about a white GMC Jimmy with possibly Nebraska plates—she was clueless. They never told her conclusively, but it seemed as though that was the car Charlie was driving. He had an Oklahoma driver’s license with the name Charlie Wilson on it—the kids were Chuck and Will Wilson. The license had an address in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on it. The property in Stilwell had been purchased in December of 1986 by a mystery woman named “Ann Wilson,” and the transaction had been done in cash. It had some acreage—maybe 20 or 30 acres.

Ruth was devastated by the failed raid—they had been so close to reuniting her with her sons. If the task force had moved more quickly, or if they had sent in a small team to detain him instead of making such a big production of the raid, she might have been holding her sons now. Her only solace was that the Stilwell episode showed that the boys were still alive.

It was the last confirmed sighting of CJ and Billy by anyone outside of the Vosseler family. In the years that followed, some theorized that Charlie may have retreated to Elohim City, an armed militia compound 12 miles southeast of Stilwell. An evangelical, white supremacist hub with ties to the Aryan Resistance Movement, Elohim City would have offered Charlie a place to hide from the authorities while planning his next move. Though Ruth didn’t believe he shared their ideologies, he may have found sympathy with the fundamentalists who detested government interference of any kind.

In the years that followed, other leads would place Charlie in Arkansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan. Monty believed it likely that he and the boys had gone abroad and were living in another country. Since Charlie spoke Spanish fluently, Mexico was a strong possibility in his mind. He believed that Charlie may have taken to going by his middle name, Martin, perhaps “mar TEEN”, and that the trio might be living under the last names Amidon, Foster, or Wilson.

It’s possible the boys grew accustomed to picking up new names, new variations of themselves, as casually as putting on a new shirt. It’s likely that Charlie continued to homeschool them, and to keep them out of the public eye. Perhaps they learned not to draw attention to themselves—not to ask questions about a past that changed shape with each retelling—not to wonder aloud why their father constantly checked the rearview mirror as he sped down craggy rural highways, a trail of dust in their wake.

Ruth Vosseler, a formidable adversary

The near miss in Oklahoma, though devastating, put a fire in the belly of law enforcement and of Ruth Vosseler. If they could get that close to Charlie once, then they could do it again.

At the two-year anniversary of the kids abduction, Ruth held a fundraiser in Wisconsin. She raised several thousand dollars to go toward private detectives, long-distance phone calls, posters, and other expenses. She told a reporter that in her social work, she would sometimes advise parents who were in a similar situation to her own, to “do something to find your kids every day, no matter how small.”

Ruth had started a philanthropic organization called “The Single Parent Center,” which she ran out of a Lutheran church in Colfax. It was a resource center for single-parents. They would provide childcare and help one another.

Ruth was indefatigable. She got it from her family.

Growing up in rural Colfax, Wisconsin, was no easy life. She was part of a big family—4th in a lineup of 6 siblings—3 girls and 3 boys. As the kids grew up, they became farm hands, working with their parents on the family dairy farm. They were a John Deere family—you could see their iconic green tractors from the road. Ruth started driving a tractor at the age of 6—she was precocious. They were 6 miles out of town in a rural valley, and they had about 20 dairy cows and 266 acres of grass. They had the iconic cow breed—Holstein—the kind with big pretty black and white spots. Ruth grew up alongside the cows—dairy cows stuck around for awhile—they lived to their mid-teens, and their prime milking years were from about 4 to 12. It was “good hard work.” Life was rustic. Ruth’s family didn’t have an indoor bathroom until she was in 7th grade. Also in 7th grade, Ruth won the title of arm-wrestling champion of her class—and not just the girls, but the boys, too—she was something of a tomboy. She played baseball as a catcher and was involved with 4-H ag fairs. She was bright, too, and did well in school—particularly English and math—and she graduated high school as salutatorian. She was the first of her family to go to college. Ruth was confident and capable. She was formidable. Charlie had picked quite an adversary.

Media pressure

Ruth was on a war path—and a centerpiece of that war was media pressure. Any time there was a tip that came in, she, assisted by support organizations, would paper the area with flyers. And that’s what she believed the case needed—publicity.

Charlie had been discovered in Oklahoma for that very reason.

So, Ruth started pitching various media outlets—particularly national ones—with her story.

In 1989, she got a bite. A fairly new national program called “Missing: Reward” was interested. This was a true crime documentary show similar to Unsolved Mysteries. It had a prominent host (Stacy Keach), and included reenactments and interviews.

They did a 30-minute TV special on Ruth’s case which resulted in a number of new tips. In cases like Ruth’s, law enforcement is often acting in a more reactive role—waiting for something promising to come in, and then investigating it. The FBI even asked Ruth, many years later, do you know how big the file is? It was massive. And the majority of that file? Documenting and running down tips.

Charlie’s ex-wives

With the help of a private investigator, Ruth was able to learn the identities of the two ex-wives Charlie had married before they had gotten hitched. Charlie had revealed one of his prior marriages while Ruth and he were dating, but the second one she didn’t learn about until after they were already married.

She tracked them down and spoke to them. First, they confirmed that they didn’t have any children with Charlie—his first wife had had a number of miscarriages, though. The first wife said that Charlie had left her multiple times, but that they would get back together. The second wife said that she came home one day to find that she was locked out with an address across town where she could go to stay. The first wife said that Charlie had been physically abusive, and she was still very afraid of him.

When they divorced, Charlie told her that she was lucky that they didn’t have any kids, or he would have taken them away from her. The second wife complained that there will still many of her things that he had never returned.

Sound familiar?

The Beckers - a link to Charlie?

Ruth contacted Charlie’s extended family. Charlie’s maternal uncle was a successful businessman in Willington, Connecticut, who had a lot of resources. She wondered if he could be helping Charlie. His whole maternal extended family closed ranks early on and refused to talk to Ruth or her PIs, despite many attempts. His uncle lived to 100 years old, and much later in his life, he admitted to Ruth that he had helped Charlie in the early years of his life as a fugitive.

Ruth marries again

After the splash in the media with Missing: Reward, the case went quiet for awhile. There were fewer leads coming in. Ruth was running out of tangible things to pursue.

In the 1990’s, Ruth relocated to North Carolina. There, she met her second husband and took the last name Parker. He was a long-distance trucker. They had been introduced by a friend. He had children, but they were mostly grown—his oldest daughter was 19 years old. She continued her career in social work in the Winston-Salem area. Ruth remained married to him until he passed away in 2013.

NCMEC and other organizations

Ruth has worked with many different organizations devoted to helping children over the years.

When she was in Wisconsin, she was assisted in her search by Missing Children Minnesota (MCM), a support group for parents of abducted children. Ruth said, “MCM does wonderful things, but the most important to me is the support they offer.”

The organization widely-known today—NCMEC—the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children—didn’t even exist when Billy and CJ were taken. Ruth explained to us, “Its first incarnation was the Adam Walsh Center.”

She worked initially with Child Find Incorporated, who were very helpful. She also worked with the Society for Young Victims.

She said that her experience with NCMEC is mixed. Parental abductions are just not as high on the priority list for the organization or their donors as other types of child victims—particularly sexually-abused children and runaways. Donations to the non-profit are often earmarked for a particular purpose. The primary initiatives of NCMEC are publicity, training, and support. They’re very good at flooding an area with publicity—newspapers, posters, police. They do training seminars for law enforcement, explaining, for example, the laws that are being broken in a parental abduction case, and the steps to take to advance the case. They also provide support to parents and others who are victims, in child cases. Ruth, today, volunteers for “Team Hope,” with NCMEC which provides parents someone to talk who really understands their situation—something akin to a social worker.

Something to understand about NCMEC, and most of these organizations, though, is that they do not actually investigate cases—that is the responsibility of law enforcement.

Most recently, Ruth has become a supporter of the MD Fund—the Mother-Daughter Fund—which is run by Jodi Homaune, who is a friend of Ruth’s, and has experienced her own child abduction. She wrote a book called Perfidious about her experience.

Monty Curtis, who had drifted away from the case, rejoined the investigation. He followed up on old leads, consulting with the FBI and the NH Joint Fugitive Task Force, which had been formed in 2002. Led by the U.S. Marshals Service, the task force was comprised of officials from sheriffs’ departments, local and state police, the US Attorney’s Office, state probation and parole officers, and a host of federal agencies. This meant that the group could apply significant state and federal resources to the hunt for Charlie, who was considered among the “most wanted” fugitives from the state.

Immunity offers

Law enforcement tried to lure Charlie out of hiding with the promise of immunity. That’s right—law enforcement said if Charlie returned the children to Ruth, they would not pursue criminal charges against him. It was an offer issued by District Attorney Lincoln Soldani.

It was hard for Ruth to swallow at first, but she has come to accept it. Whatever the deal made, if the kids are returned, then it is a bargain worth making.

The death of Charles L. and Beth Vosseler, secret revealed?

In December 2010, Beth Vosseler passed away in St. Petersburg, FL, at the age of 91. Her obituary noted that she was survived by her husband of 73 years, Charles, and by her only child, Charlie. If the latter mourned her, it was from afar, and the obit made no mention of the two grandsons who had disappeared so long ago. A little over four years later, Charles followed his wife, at 96 years old.

Visitors to their memorial pages have not been kind to the Vosselers. The comments there are vitriolic, calling the pair “demons,” parents to “a psychopath,” and “disgusting, selfish, condescending, sorry excuses of human beings.” Posters accuse them of helping their son carry out the abduction and condemn them to whatever punishment awaits in the next life. Many of the online commenters never knew the Vosselers personally but were familiar with media coverage of the case.

One comment stands out among the rest for its balanced tone: “So glad we got to talk one last time. You always were a man with interesting stories.” It’s signed Ruth Parker—the name of her second husband. Those two sentences bear the weight of her final meeting with her former father-in-law.

Ruth explained to us that she, along with the FBI, sat down with Charles L. for one final discussion.

He was complaining that he had no money and nobody came to see him—except his wealthy brother-in-law from Connecticut. Ruth wasn’t convinced that he was telling the truth—perhaps he was just trying to convince the FBI that he didn’t have the means to help Charlie from afar. Charles L. said that he had seen Charlie two times—once, when he and Beth had driven through Mexico to South America, meeting Charlie in a small town. The other time was at a train station in Stuttgart, Germany. He implied that the boys were with him.

Charles L. Vosseler died on April 29th, 2014, at 96 years old, in St. Petersburg, Florida. His body was taken back to Connecticut by his brother-in-law where he was buried at Willington Hill Cemetery.

Buried with him were the many secrets that he and his wife harbored for decades.

Oklahoma, revisited

One of those secrets was likely the mystery of fate of the Oklahoma property.

After Charlie burned the house down and fled, the FBI put a hold on the real estate and a related bank account.

But 8 years later, somehow the holds had been lifted or circumvented, and the deed holder, “Ann Wilson,” appeared before a notary in Iowa and transferred the property to a Stilwell, Oklahoma, neighbor. Ruth’s PI spoke to the notary and they said that the woman who signed the document was, quote, “younger, had blonde hair, and looked like the actress Peggy Lipton.” The FBI later revealed to Ruth that they ran a check on the financial account that they had frozen, and it had been drained.

Other major media

Ruth has continued pressing national media to cover her case.

Deadline Crime with Tamron Hall covered it in 2015. The FBI even cooperated with the filming. The episode is entitled “Never Stop Looking,” and can be streamed on MAX.

And Unsolved Mysteries had nearly included Billy and CJ in their recent Netflix reboot. Ruth said that she was getting a call from the producer and was expecting to talk about their filming dates, when they broke the news that they would be featuring her story on their podcast instead—they released an episode about Billy & CJ in 2022.

Ruth and her family even created their own website about the boys, which you can visit today—neverstoplooking.org.

Ambiguous loss

Today, in 2025, the boys have been missing for 39 years. And for 39 years, Ruth has been stuck in a kind of limbo. She told us,

“I applied to some graduate schools but didn’t really follow through—I was always ready for the boys to come home, and I didn’t want to be in the middle of something. I really can’t plan a future. [In contrast], if you lose a spouse, after a time, you decide, at some point, that it’s time to make a life for yourself. I wonder [to myself], if I put all my money and time in graduate school, am I abandoning my kids? I can’t rent a 1-bedroom apartment, it’s got to be at least 2... Whenever I plan for myself, I have a sense of guilt.”

She has a word for it, too—ambiguous loss.

Ruth says that following the abduction, she did not have the choice of falling apart. She knew she had to keep herself together so that she could focus on searching for them. She said, "I would wake up in the middle of the night and hear my children calling my name. I would hear them calling, but I couldn’t find them. You lose all the breath in your body.”

Ruth said, “People say that time flies. I don’t agree. I think when you have a missing loved one, time stops, goes sometimes painfully slowly, and then sometimes makes a violent jerk forward leaving you barely holding yourself together. What I was afraid of is that I would start to scream and I wouldn't be able to stop.”

Ruth wants her sons to know that she has not stopped looking for them. “I’m a mom until my last breath.”

Why

One of the questions that has haunted her from the beginning is why—why would Charlie have done this.

Her PI, Monty Curtis, told the Fosters Daily Democrat, “I think his goal was to find someone with a decent background and a high intelligence who could bear his children. I think it was by design that he married Ruth for the simple reason of giving him children and that he was probably planning this all along.”

Ruth told Unsolved Mysteries, “Charlie was a sociopath—a sociopath cares nothing about anybody else's feelings. The boys were less his children than they were his possessions, his property. I believe, and I believe strongly based on his behavior and knowing him so well, that he took the children [simply] because they were his.”

Charlie was meticulous and a glib liar. He was calculated and intelligent. Ruth’s PI, David Rogers, said, “In my career, I only had three people who were able to literally disappear and not have a trace for days, weeks, months, or years. Charlie was one of those people.”

But still, these explanations feel somewhat inadequate. Ruth told the Leader-Telegram back in 1987, “He just never came back. People have asked me a thousand times why he did it, and I [just] don’t know.”

Ruth’s hope for her kids

Monty thinks that Charlie either told CJ and Billy that Ruth died in a car accident, that she did not want them, or that she was mentally unstable. He theorizes that if Charlie told them these things at a young age, they would believe him. He thinks CJ and Billy do not know who they really are—they have lived their whole lives under assumed names, so they have no reason to believe that they are actually missing.

Ruth’s last memory of her boys was when she was running off to work. She had to peel them off of her and told them, “You’ll be fine. Your dad’s coming.”

Ruth told Unsolved Mysteries, “Mostly I hope that they are fine, happy, well-adjusted adults, who have gone on to have wonderful families of their own. I'm concerned that, if they were raised by their father, they are as emotionally crippled as he is.”

Genetic genealogy - The ultimate answer

Charlie Vosseler has never been brought to justice for his crimes. He made a clean escape, in part, because the authorities initially regarded his flight as no more than a domestic dispute that would work itself out in time. Today, the laws around parental abduction vary by state, but there are early response systems in place that are intended to prevent children from disappearing. The AMBER Alert System, for instance, goes into effect across multiple states when a child goes missing—even when the suspected abductor is a family member. As of 2022, 58% of all AMBER Alerts that were issued were for “family abduction” cases. While the statistics are not firm, the Department of Justice estimates as many as 200,000 kidnappings a year—the vast majority—are committed by members a child’s family.

While he may have been able to evade the authorities, Charlie, if he is alive, cannot outrun genetic genealogy. Even he can’t control the curiosity of his children or even grandchildren, who may one day submit samples to 23andMe or any of the other genetic testing services on the market. That’s Ruth’s hope. That is my hope. She and her relatives have submitted their DNA to all the databases, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the boys to follow.

Ruth told Unsolved Mysteries, “I hope that someday I get an email, a call, from one of those services to say that they have located them. I'm a mom. You don't give up on finding your children. You don't give up on knowing that they're safe. It's not a choice. You just do what you need to do.”

A very close look at Charlie Vosseler

As we wrap up this incredible story, I’d like to encourage you to do two things. The first is to look at the photos below.

NCMEC has used software to create age-progressed photos of CJ and Billy. They’ve also produced a number of photos of what Charlie might look like in his old age—he would be 83 years old. CJ would be 42 years old as of the release of this episode; Billy would have just turned 41 on April 21st.

The second thing I’d encourage you to do, is to read carefully this description of Charlie Vosseler, and ask yourself if you know anyone in their 80s who matches it.

Charlie was born in Connecticut in March of 1942. He is an only child. He was born and raised in Connecticut, and has a good knowledge of New England.

He is polite and well-spoken. He is tall—6’1”. He has a medium to heavy build at 220 pounds. He had brown hair, which may now be gray or thinning. He has blue eyes. He may wear glasses or contacts—he was last known to wear contacts. He often wears flannel shirts, blue jeans, and work boots. He could be going by his first name and a different last name. Other names that he may use are Malcolm, Martin, Amidon, Foster, or Wilson.

Charlie has a degree in economics from Coe College in Iowa. He speaks Spanish. He is uncomfortable around blood—it makes him faint. He has a tic—he tilts his head to the right, and bobs his head slightly up and down when concentrating.

He hates the government and loves the writings of Ayn Rand. The book, “Atlas Shrugged,” is a favorite of his. He has a particular interest in the stock market—he has dabbled in trading penny stocks and options. He reads the Wall Street Journal. He is very interested in real estate—he often buys rehab properties, does the work himself to improve them, and then flips them. He is interested in horses—breeding them, training them, and selling them.

Charlie is very concerned about his health. He takes lots of vitamins. He buys healthy food and grows his own vegetables. He’s particularly concerned about his heart.

In relationships, he is very controlling about money.

His most distinguishing physical feature is a condition in his right eye called horizontal nystagmus. It causes it to vibrate back and forth.

Charlie could be living anywhere. Charlie is hiding in plain sight. Charlie is probably alive—his family seems to have longevity in their genes.

And if everyone in the world knew this description, Charlie would be found.

If you have any information on the location of Charles Martin Vosseler or the abduction of his children, Charles Jason “CJ” Vosseler and William Martin “Billy” Vosseler, please contact your local FBI office or the Boston field office at (857) 386-2000.

Submit an anonymous tip online: https://tips.fbi.gov/home

The FBI is offering a $25k reward for information that leads to locating either Charles Martin Vosseler or his two sons.

This portion of text has been adapted from the Murder, She Told podcast episode, The Abduction of Billy and CJ Vossler, Part 2. To hear Billy and CJ’s full story and Ruth’s interview, find Murder, She Told on your favorite podcast platform.

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Ruth Vosseler, as featured in *Missing: Reward* ~1990 (Missing: Reward)

Joint check account, wiped out by Charlie

Apartment house that Ruth got in divorce settlement, 17 River St, Rochester, NH (Google Maps)

Ellen C. (Gunderson) Gotliebson, Gisle M. Gotliebson, Ruth’s mother and father (ID)

Blanche “Beth” Vosseler, Charles Martin Vosseler, Ruth (Gotliebson) Vosseler, Charles Leon Vosseler, left to right (ID)

Charles Vosseler, Ruth (Gotliebson) Vosseler (ID)

Charles Vosseler, Ruth Vosseler, baby (Facebook)

Ruth Vosseler, Charles Vosseler (Facebook)

Charles Vosseler, Ruth Vosseler, and the boys (ID)

Charles Vosseler, Ruth Vosseler, the boys, 12-25-1985 (NCMEC)

CJ Vosseler, ~3 years old, behind, Billy Vosseler, ~1 year old, front, 12-25-1985 (NCMEC Facebook)

Sources For This Episode

Newspaper articles

Various articles from Chippewa Herald-Telegram, Dunn County News, Foster's Daily Democrat, Leader-Telegram, Montgomery Adviser, Morning Sentinel, New Hampshire Union Leader, Newsweek, and the Portage Daily Register, here.

Written by various authors including Blythe Bjerkeset, Bob Brown, Brad Morin, Dan Tuohy, Danielle Curtis, Dave Diel, Max Kutner, Mike Recht, Randy Skjerly, and Samantha Allen.

Official documents

Divorce decree, Ruth and Charles Vosseler (Feb 9, 1988)

Interviews

Special thank you to Ruth for speaking with us

Video sources

'Reward for missing children; the abduction of the Vosseler boys' (YouTube), 10/8/2011 (This is the “Missing: Reward” segment that aired in ~1990)

'Mother's message to abducted boys' (YouTube), 3/30/2011

'Missing CJ and Billy Vosseler' (YouTube), 3/29/2011

'Missing for Decades: The Vosseler Abduction' (YouTube), 4/18/2024 (WMUR mini-documentary)

'Never Stop Looking' (IMDB), http://imdb.com 8/15/2017 (This is the Tamron Hall documentary IMDB page, with places to stream)

Online written sources

'Charles Jason Vosseler' (The Charley Project), 10/12/2004, by Meaghan Good

'Charles Jason Vosseler' (Doe Network), 5/18/2010, by u/kc

'Blanche Decker Vosseler' (Introvigne Funeral Home), 12/19/2010

'Blanche Decker Vosseler' (Find A Grave), http://findagrave.com 12/19/2010, by no author credited

'Cold Case Parental Abduction' (American Heroes Radio), 4/30/2011

'Ruth Meets Charlie' (Never Stop Looking), 8/31/2011, by Ruth Ann Gottliebson

'Charles L. Vosseler' (Introvigne Funeral Home), 4/29/2014

'Charles Leon Vosseler' (Find A Grave), 4/29/2014

'CJ and Billy Vosseler' (Unsolved Mysteries Wiki), 11/29/2016

'Charles Martin Vosseler' (Unsolved Mysteries Wiki), 11/29/2016

'Charles William Vosseler' (FBI), 12/29/2016

'After 31 years, Ruth Parker Still Hopes to See Sons Billy and CJ Again' (NBC), 10/8/2017, by Logan Johnson

'A Christmas Wish, Greensboro woman still searching for missing sons' (Carolina Journal), 12/29/2022, by Dallas Woodhouse

'Mother's Day, "I'm a mom till my last breath"' (NCMEC), 5/12/2023, by Sarah Baker & Haley Gillespie

'Former real estate broker still wanted by FBI' (WMUR), 10/9/2023

Podcasts

'A Mother's Nightmare' (Unsolved Mysteries), 8/2/2022

Photos

As credited above

Credits

Research, vocal performance, and audio editing by Kristen Seavey

Research, photo editing, and writing by Byron Willis

Writing by Morgan Hamilton

Additional research by Chelsea Hanrahan and Kimberly Thompson

Murder, She Told is created by Kristen Seavey.

1980sNew HampshireMissing PersonsCold CasesUnsolvedCharles VosselerBilly VosselerCJ Vosseler

Kristen Seavey