Breakfast fundraiser planned to help search for missing Winton woman

It has been 19 years since Vanessa Smith went out for her nightly walk near her Winton home and disappeared, leaving behind a walking stick discovered 200 yards away from her residence.

The freckle-faced 15-year-old with strawberry-blond hair vanished on May 31, 1997. Today, she would be 34 and her mother, Beverly Smith, holds out hope she’ll see her daughter again.

“Ever since she disappeared, I had a feeling she was alive,” Smith said. “I can’t explain it. I just know.”

Smith has spent the past 19 years looking for her only daughter, hoping and praying she will be found and working to raise money to continue spreading the word about Vanessa Smith.

For four years, she has raised money to put up billboards with Vanessa’s image off Highway 99 between Merced and Atwater. At current rates, the billboard costs $5,000 and stays up for two months – longer if the space is not rented by someone else.

To raise money, Smith is organizing a fundraising breakfast to be held May 21 at the Atwater Applebee’s, 820 Commerce Ave.

Tickets for the breakfast will be sold Friday at Tractor Supply, 1700 Bell Lane, in Awater from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The $10 ticket will allow purchasers to receive a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon and a beverage. Tickets must be presented at the time of the breakfast. They also will be available for purchase at Applebee’s the morning of the event.

Volunteers are needed to help serve and clean for the Applebee’s fundraiser. Smith said anyone wanting to help can call her at 209-664-9042.

“This fundraiser for Vanessa means everything to me, everything,” Smith said Thursday.

For more than one year, Merced County sheriff’s Detective Clinten Landrum has been the lead investigator on Vanessa Smith’s case, which remains open.

“The case, in my opinion, has never been in better shape,” Landrum said.

Landrum, with the help of Detective John Beaudry, spent two weeks looking through, repackaging and categorizing every piece of evidence pertaining to the case, dating back to 1997.

Smith said she and her husband are doing everything they can to keep the search for Vanessa going, including putting up posters on windows and the back of trucks.

“It keeps on going until she’s found,” Smith said.

She also has started making gift baskets four times a year to raise money for the billboards. She makes baskets for Mother’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter, selling them for $25 to $30.

“She opened her heart to a lot of people,” Smith said. “I sure do miss her.”

As she waits and continues the search, Smith said, she often leans on her religious faith.

“If I didn’t have the Lord, I don’t know what I’d do,” she said. “The Lord knows where Vanessa is.”

Anyone with information about the case may call Landrum at 209-385-4983.

Donations to help the search may be made in care of Vanessa’s trust fund at the Travis Credit Union branch in Atwater.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Breakfast fundraiser planned to help search for missing Winton woman."