ENID, Okla. – An Oklahoma woman vanishes and her children have been left to wonder what happened to her for years.
However, they aren’t the only ones; the case has police in Enid stumped as well.
Detective Shawn Ramsey, with the Enid Police Department, has been working the case of Shannon Baldwin Hokanson since 2012.
“I feel like she’s out there. We just haven’t found her yet,” said Ramsey.
The mother of three was just 29-years-old when she was last seen in the spring of 2012.
“Everything stopped at the end of May. We hadn’t gotten anything and we couldn’t get her to respond to us,” said Roni Kitchen, a friend of Shannon.
Kitchen is a close family friend and knew something was wrong when Shannon stopped responding to her calls and texts.
“I tried for several months,” she said.
In August, Kitchen went to the police and the case was handed to Detective Ramsey.
“It’s something I think about every day and every day when I’m at work, I work on it,” said Det. Ramsey.
Now, the department is haunted with questions about Shannon.
“I’m very hopeful that someone will call me one day or come to the station one day and say that they know where she is at,” he said.
There have been very few leads in the case, but there were two which brought high hopes of answers.
One led investigators to a home in rural Garfield County.
They spent days searching a property near Bison, Oklahoma after receiving a tip that Shannon’s body had been left in a cellar.
After sifting through the brush and debris of the dilapidated home, investigators walked away with no answers.
Another tip led them about a mile south of that home to a well.
The rural setting miles away from any town led once again to a dead-end.
“It takes its toll on you, not knowing where to find her, or if she’s alive or if she’s dead,” he said.
“You have to have hope,” Kitchen said.
Kitchen is now raising one of Shannon’s sons. She has also worked tirelessly to create posters and missing persons websites in hopes of finding Shannon.
“It doesn’t matter what happened to her now, we just want to make sure we bring her home,” she said.
While Detective Ramsey believes Shannon is a victim of foul play, he is hoping someone will come forward with information to help close this case.
“The children deserve to know that their mother’s at least been found,” he said.
Shannon’s other two children live with their father.
Police say Shannon did have a history of drug use, which may have played a role in her disappearance.
While talking to Enid police about Shannon’s case, they told NewsChannel 4 they have another unsolved mystery on their hands.
Keith Butricks has been missing since June 2009.
Police say he was last seen leaving an Enid bar. He headed south along Van Buren and seemingly vanished.
“Since that time, there’s been no contact, no phone calls, no message,” said Detective Robin Bench, with the Enid Police Department.
If you have any information on either of these cases, you are asked to contact the Enid Police Department.
