Kevin Art Verville Jr.

• Missing Since 07/01/1980
• Missing From Oceanside, California
• Classification Non-Family Abduction
• Sex Male
• Race Asian, Biracial, White
• Date of Birth 06/14/1980 (45)
• Age 17 days old
• Height and Weight 6 pounds, 1'8 tall
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A yellow t-shirt and a plastic diaper. Wrapped in a pink and blue striped receiving blanket.
• Medical Conditions Kevin was recovering from jaundice at the time of his disappearance.
• Associated Vehicle(s) Gray or silver four-door sedan, possibly a 1975 Cougar
• Distinguishing Characteristics Biracial (Asian/Caucasian) male. Black hair, brown eyes. Kevin is of Filipino descent.

Details of Disappearance

Kevin was last seen in Oceanside, California on July 1, 1980. His family lived in the Sterling Homes apartment complex in the 900 block of Bougainville Street, which was off-base housing for military families stationed at Camp Pendleton. He was their first child.

An unidentified woman came to his home on June 30 and introduced herself to his parents by only the first name "Sheila". She spoke to Kevin's mother, Angelina Verville, in Tagalog, a Filipino language which is Angelina's native tongue.

Sheila said she was a social worker from an organization called Project Help which offered financial assistance, diapers and baby formula to low-income military families, and showed them a laminated Project Help identification card. She promised to come back later and take Kevin and his mother to Project Help's headquarters to enroll them in the program.

Late the next afternoon, Sheila picked up Kevin and his mother, Angelina, in a gray or silver four-door sedan, possibly a 1975 Cougar, and drove them to a remote, rural area in northern San Diego County, California, near the town of Fallbrook. Then she pulled over at a point slightly east of Highway 76 and Interstate 15 and asked Angelina to knock on the door of a nearby house, saying another mother she was enrolling in Project Help's program lived there.

When Angelina got out of the car, Sheila drove away with Kevin. Neither of them have been heard from again.

Project Help was a real organization, but no one who worked there had any knowledge of Sheila or anyone who looked like her. Authorities later found out that Sheila had been at Sterling Homes in the days leading up to Kevin's abduction. She spoke to some thirty different families there, looking for a child who was part Filipino and under six months of age, until she identified the Verville family and Kevin as fitting her criteria.

Composite sketches of Sheila are posted with this case summary. She had some knowledge of military life, as she asked people about anyone with a rating of up to E-5 who had had a baby recently. Military personnel rated E-6 and higher are career military and would be less likely to want help from a social service agency.

She was about 20 to 28 years old in 1980, about 5'1 to 5'3 tall and 105 to 135 pounds, and described as white, possibly of Filipino or Spanish heritage. She had frizzy or curly red or blonde shoulder-length hair, freckles on her arms and face, and a tattoo on her left hand between her thumb and index finger of a circle with an X inside it. She was wearing navy blue pants, a blue maternity top with red or orange decorations, and sunglasses with white- or pearl-colored oval frames. She appeared to be in the second trimester of pregnancy and spoke with a slight Spanish accent.

It's possible that Sheila's hair was a wig, and the glasses and apparent pregnancy could have also been part of her disguise. She has never been identified. The FBI created a profile of her which suggested she lived alone and might have recently lost a baby son to stillbirth, crib death or removal from the home by child protective services. According to the profile, she would probably have been depressed, even suicidal, over her loss, and kidnapped Kevin to "replace" her own baby boy.

Authorities believe Kevin may still be alive and may have been raised by his abductor, not knowing his true identity.