Casino Camper - Mardi Gras Casino

I don't want to give too much personal information, but I went to school with Francis. We ran in different crowds, but I was friends with some of her friends. Still kind of keep in touch with some of those girls.
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A friend of hers made a facebook page and invited me to it right when she first went missing. And then it was called, "Find Francis Wartenburg" but after they found her body it became a page of love and mourning and support for the family. It is very haunting for me that this is still unsolved. And I don't know if anybody in WV is even still working on it, but please if you are or you know someone and you have an update, people would really love to know.
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The story itself is just bizarre. When it first happened, Francis just up and disappeared. And left her phone behind which was not like her, according to close friends. I think it was winter and in St. Albans was when and where she first came up missing and nobody was able to find her. And her mother was distraught and her friends and her brother and her daughter.
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And then it became a week. And then a month. And finally they found the body in Ohio but nothing ever came of it, save her family and friends could finally mourn her properly.
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So here I am! Thinking about her in the dark of winter and wondering if anyone has any light to shine!
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Though she struggled with her thoughts and the habits meant to ease them, friends and family will always miss their beloved mom, daughter, co-worker and companion.
Wednesday marked two years since then 33-year-old Frances Wartenburg, of Winfield, disappeared from the town of Jefferson. Authorities found her body in early May 2015, stuck in a tree on the Ohio River in Gallia County, Ohio.
The circumstances surrounding her death remain a mystery.
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Heather Lovejoy, 35, met Wartenburg at Winfield Middle School where they were students. Lovejoy remembers joining her on a camping trip to Virginia Beach when they were teenagers. They walked down blocks of stores and tourist attractions, stopping to enjoy a haunted house or take pictures behind a cutout of bikini-clad figures. Lovejoy wanted to get an eyebrow piercing during the trip but knew her brother wouldn’t approve. Wartenburg got one anyway.
Decades later, the friends worked together at a Carrabba’s Italian Grill in North Carolina. Whether it was a shift at the restaurant or a major life event, they always looked out for each other. When Lovejoy found out she was pregnant, Wartenburg was there. When her mom passed away in 2015, Wartenburg was there. Lovejoy not only lost a friend — she lost the friend who usually comforted her in times of uncertainty.
“Then you start to think about your own mortality,” she said. “I can’t articulate into words how I felt.”
Lovejoy no longer lived in West Virginia and, for the most part, she was consumed with her own life when Wartenburg first disappeared. She was a quiet woman and would probably reappear at some point, Lovejoy said. Still, she prayed as friends and family in West Virginia held a bake sale and distributed missing posters.
The call came from Lovejoy’s brother: they found Wartenburg’s body. Lovejoy lost her best friend in the very state she calls home. As a mother of three daughters and a son, it shook her even more.
“She’s Frances Ann Wartenburg. A lot of people loved her and they still do, and they haven’t forgot about her,” she said.
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Jennifer Short met Wartenburg and Lovejoy at the same middle school in 1994.
Much like Wartenburg’s other loved ones, Short described her friend as sweet and good-natured. She was also “painfully shy.”
Short said her last words to Wartenburg were likely not kind. They worked together as cocktail waitresses in Nitro at the Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center, now called Mardi Gras Casino and Resort. After work they retired to their home atop a big hill.
The problem, Short said, was Wartenburg had a drug habit that pushed a wedge between them. The habit even lost Wartenburg a career in the U.S. Army, Short said.
“It was very difficult for me to know that she died thinking nobody cared about her,” she said.
The thing to remember, she said, is Wartenburg never hurt anyone but herself. Her closest friends and family could see through the substance abuse and into her loving, bubbly character.
That’s why on March 18, 2015, Short made the Facebook group “Find Frances Wartenburg,” where members could share updates and collaborate.
Loved ones still use the page for support and to wish Wartenburg well each birthday and holiday.
Though their friendship was strained, Wartenburg’s disappearance took hold of Short’s very sanity. The mystery affected everything: her online classes with West Virginia University, a nursing job in Los Angeles and even her marriage.
“My entire point of being was finding Frances,” Short said.
Several charity events resulted in the creation of a missing-person billboard, Short said. The advertising company returned the money after Wartenburg’s body was found days later, she said.
Detective Ana Pile of the Kanawha County Sheriff’s office said the investigation is not considered a “cold case” because it’s not yet clear how she died. Details are largely still kept from the public so the case is not harmed if it becomes a criminal investigation, she said.
Lovejoy and Short are convinced someone killed their friend. Anyone with information about Wartenburg or other unsolved cases can contact the sheriff’s office’s tip line at 304-357-4693 or on the office’s website.
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There is always hope a dead case will find new life.
Lt. Danny Swiger, who worked on unsolved cases from 2001 to 2009 for the West Virginia State Police, once solved an investigation that was nearly 20 years old.
Swiger had an interest in cases that had no perpetrator, and he took it upon himself to investigate.
The case began Feb. 7, 1991, when a father left his home in the Bruceton Mills-Brandonville community, according to Gazette-Mail archives. A man entered the home and raped the father’s 12-year-old daughter in her own bed.
Swiger used DNA stored since 1991 to clear five suspects and arrest a sixth man named Marshall Wolfe, according to the archives. A judge sentenced him to at least 10 years in prison.
“It’s a very touchy subject at times, but when we can resolve something, man it’s a good feeling,” Swiger said.
He was later reassigned to investigate the sexual exploitation of children, and Swiger now serves State Police as the director of its Crimes Against Children Unit.
Evolving technology allowed Swiger to solve the case, and novel tools remain one of the greatest sources of hope in unsolved cases, he said.
New information is another constant possibility. Swiger said people may reveal more about a case if they mature or feel guilty years later. Changed dynamics in a relationship may also increase someone’s willingness to speak up.
The greatest obstacle to solving a case, he said, is the shortage of staff at many agencies. And with piles of evidence and a high rate of turnover in the forensic laboratory, unsolved cases can often take a back seat to recent crimes.
Swiger said there is no database of how many unsolved cases exist in West Virginia, so it’s hard to know how many exist at each agency.
When they have time, Swiger encourages troopers at his agency to take on a case of their own. It’s a project with many dead ends and moments of disappointment, but there is always hope.
“One of the hardest things I always had and struggled with is you feel like, at times, you gave some of the families undue hope. You had to be very careful as an investigator that you didn’t make promises you couldn’t keep,” Swiger said. “I try to be mindful of that. But you know, you become attached to some of these folks.”

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https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/cops_and_courts/two-years-later-woman-s-death-remains-unsolved/article_dc96e88e-d973-50e2-ae98-66df2f5169e7.html