Jill Beaty grew up in Eugene, Oregon. She had 3 brothers and 2 sisters. Jill was born deaf and according to her sister Tina, she could read lips, but had limited speech.
The first time she moved to Reno, Nevada was in 1990; she stayed there for a couple of years but ultimately returned back home to Oregon. In 1994 while Jill was living with her sister, Tina, in Eugene, she again decides to move to Reno. According to her sister, Jill wanted to get away from her former boyfriend – we will call him “Steve” (not his real name).
Apparently angry over their breakup, Steve barges in to Tina’s apartment in Eugene and demands to know where Jill is. According to Tina, Steve put his hands around her neck and began to strangle her until she almost blacked out. In an effort to pacify an enraged Steve, she made up a story about where Jill went. Steve left the apartment, threatening to come back and kill her if he did not find Jill.
But Jill was already on a bus on her way to Reno. In early August 1994 Jill moves into a shared apartment on Wells Avenue with a friend we will call “Robert “(not his real name). Robert and Jill’s relationship begins as platonic, according to sources, but turns sexual for a short time. Thereafter, the two mutually decide to just ‘be friends’. On August 14, 1994, Jill goes to visit Robert at his place of work – The Holiday Resort and Casino on Mill Street in downtown Reno, where he was working as a bartender. This would be the last time and place where Jill is seen, as reported by her roommate-friend Robert.
When Robert arrives at his apartment that night, Jill is not there. Robert does not report Jill as missing because she had previously left for periods of time, so it did not apparently concern him. Jill’s mother had also not heard from Jill, and similarly, did not find it unusual at first. It is reported that Jill’s mother wanted to give her daughter some space. But when Jill’s birthday on October 3rd comes and goes, her mother Cecilia apparently became increasingly worried and continued to try and contact Jill. On October 18, 1994, Cecilia drives to Reno and speaks with Robert, noticing that Jill’s belongings are still at the apartment appearing as if she would be returning. With that knowledge, Cecilia went directly to Reno Police headquarters and filed a missing person report. The following day, the case landed on the desk of Detective Charlie Dimino.
Now retired, Detective Dimino knows the case better than anyone. He told APB Cold Case that in the early days of the investigation they spent a lot of time focusing on the last person to see Jill alive: Robert. And after a year of questioning and checking facts, including a polygraph examination of Robert, he was cleared. Others who also frequented Robert’s apartment were also questioned and cleared. Police posted flyers in the areas frequented by Jill, hoping that someone would recognize her and have information of her whereabouts. But there was not a single tip.
Almost two years later, in May 1996, police receive information from Jill’s mother which she reportedly overheard from another source. This hearsay information indicated that Steve said that Jill had died from a drug overdose in Reno. But Reno PD had no such record. Detective Dimino said that throughout his investigation, he was routinely checking official files for any proof of life or death of Jill. Dimino told APB Cold Case that there was no record that indicated that Jill was either dead or alive. It was also around May 1996 when Steve’s then-current girlfriend who we will call “Chloe” (not her real name) had filed for a restraining order against Steve. Sources said that Chloe eventually returned to Steve. But in November 1996, it was reported that Chloe sought another restraining order against Steve, and she ends the relationship. But during the time that Chloe and Steve were together, Chloe told police that she had found a letter in Steve’s vehicle. It was in a pink envelope, dated in August of ‘94 and was purportedly from Jill. In it, Jill said that she was looking forward to seeing Steve in Reno. Detectives say this meeting would have been at the time that Jill was last seen, giving police cause to delve deeper into Steve’s background.
A couple months after Chloe ended her relationship with Steve, around January 1997, he is incarcerated for a parole violation. A month later, Reno detectives travel to Corvallis, Oregon where Steve had been working on a farm. They interview the farmer who showed detectives the ramshackle structure or “shelter” that Steve lived in – it had no running water, no septic system, and no electricity. This was a location described to police by Chloe previously, and it was also a place that Jill would have known because of her relationship with Steve.
While at the farm and examining Steve’s shelter, they found things that corroborated what Chloe had said; in particular, they found what appeared to be a bullet hole, something that Chloe had talked about. Chloe told detectives about a conversation that Steve said he had with Jill, saying that Jill had picked up a handgun one night during an argument and fired a shot at Steve. Detective Dimino said that they did find a bullet hole in a door frame. Chloe had mentioned, too, that Steve was into the occult, that he was a satanic worshiper, and that during intimate sessions he would burn her with hot wax.
Chloe also told police that Steve wanted her to accompany him to a place on the farm property at midnight on one occasion. But she was afraid and she didn’t go. The area where Steve wanted to take her was where there were reinforced bunkers – the type built by families during the WW2 and cold war era over concerns of nuclear war and fallout. When police visited the farm back in 1996 weather conditions were unfavorable, and they were unable to conduct a search of the bunker area. Detective Dimino said that such a search would have also required heavy machinery. Once detectives finished their investigation at the Corvallis farm they went to the jail to interview Steve. But, said detectives, he was uncooperative, and admitted to nothing.
The focus on Steve by Reno detectives seems well placed. There’s the letter reportedly found by Chloe which confirms a previous relationship between Steve and Jill; and the timing of his visit to see Jill in Reno coincides with the approximate time when she goes missing; And according to Chloe, Steve confirmed to her that he visited Jill; also according to Chloe, Steve had commented to her that, “you’re going to end up like Jill”. Additionally, there is the false rumor where Steve allegedly told one of Jill’s friends that Jill died of an overdose in Reno. There is also the reported history of violence by Steve reported by both Jill’s family and Chloe.
If you have information on the disappearance of Jill Beaty, call the Reno Homicide Unit at 775-334-2188. Or send an email to RPDcoldcases@reno.gov
There’s much more to this story – listen to the APB Cold Case audio podcast: The Holiday – Where is Jill Beaty? Available at apbcoldcase.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Postscript
The investigation of the disappearance of Jill Beaty was another one of our episodes that demonstrates how personal these cases can become to investigators. Charlie Dimino was the Reno Detective who first got the case when Jill Beaty’s mother came to Reno to make the report in October 1994. Now, more than 29 years later, when we asked Reno PD for information about Jill’s case, they connected us with Detective Dimino, now retired and working in the private sector. He was more than willing to speak with us – and we could tell that he is just as vested in this case today as he was almost three decades ago. Said Dimino, “You look for answers. You dig for answers. You’re tedious… when you sleep things come to your mind…”
The retired Reno cop said that there are some cases that haunt detectives, and this is one of his. He often thinks about what else they could have done. “What did I miss here? There’s got to be something I missed,” said Dimino. “That’s why I’m doing this podcast to be honest with you. I mean, you contacted our police department on this case, and they contacted me because I have the most information, because I worked it the hardest.” Detective/Retired Charlie Dimino is quick to credit all of the detectives who worked on the case with him in the early days, and all who have been assigned the case in the years since.
For Dimino, it’s not just about getting an answer to where Jill is, but it is a sense of obligation to Jill’s family. “The pain on her mother and father’s faces, the conversation I had with them. Her mother understood that she could possibly be getting information that Jill was deceased.” Dimino said that he’s sure that any parents in a similar position would want closure. But sometimes that is beyond the grasp of the best detectives. But what he could promise, was that he would give all of himself in the investigation. “And I said, I can’t promise you a total disposition, but what I will promise is that I will do everything in my power in this case…. I’ll promise you that.”
Dimino is keeping his promise to the family. He spent several days with APB Cold Case in preparing for our interview and with follow-up questions during production. It is obvious to the producers of APB Cold Case that is still a goal for the retired detective to get a resolution to the question, ‘Where is Jill?’ Said Dimino, “I guess you’d say, truly, it’s personal, too. Personal in the fact that, here’s a 25-year-old girl that we can’t locate.”
-APB Cold Case
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