SO. ILL.—Just wanted to take a moment to remind you that this woman went missing in Jefferson County three years ago this month:
Benedetta (“Beth”) Bentley
Here’s what we know about her case:
Benedetta (‘Beth’) Rogers Bentley, 41, is from Woodstock, Illinois and went missing from either Jefferson County (where she was reportedly visiting, thus the reason for her train trip down from Woodstock) or Marion County.
Bentley, who is an exotic-looking, 5-foot 6-inch, 165 pound, brown-eyed platinum blonde, was said to have been visiting a friend in southern Illinois over the weekend of May 22-23, 2010.
When she was last seen (by whom is unclear, as is much of the story surrounding her disappearance) she was wearing a black tank top, blue denim miniskirt, flip flops, a Pandora bracelet, a wedding ring, and was carrying a large white purse and a pink and orange Vera Bradley overnight bag. She was with an unnamed friend whose purpose in traveling to Mt. Vernon was to visit the friend’s boyfriend, who was in a rehab program in a halfway house there.
It is thought that Bentley was going to the Amtrak train station in Centralia to catch a 6 p.m. train to Union Station in Chicago. The train she was supposed to be on arrived at Union Station around 11 p.m. that Sunday night. It has never been confirmed that she actually boarded the Amtrak train from Centralia to Union Station as planned. She did not arrive home as expected, and a missing person’s report was filed by her husband on Monday, May 24, 2010, with Woodstock Police. Search areas of concentration included Mt. Vernon, Centralia and Chicago. Some say it’s possible she was never in southern Illinois. At the time she went missing, it’s been revealed she was allegedly pregnant.
Disclosure was encouraged to call her husband, Scott Bentley, an attorney whose practice is in Woodstock, being told he was anxious to discuss his wife’s disappearance. Disclosure did so, leaving many messages, but no calls were ever returned.
It was later reported that the husband had moved “a love interest” into the house with him and the children.
There has been no serious investigation into Bentley’s downstate disappearance, including attempting to learn if she ever really was in southern Illinois, since that time.
There are many others missing in the Midwest and they are featured at the Facebook page Illinois Missing. Bentley’s is the latest up top there because the anniversary of her disappearance is coming up. Others featured in the past have been Ed Hataway (whose disappearance has been resolved with the finding of his body in November 2012, but has never been explained) and Joel Moore.
Ed Hataway, who was missing for weeks from Olney before his body was found in Lawrence County
Anyone who has ANY information on the whereabouts of Beth Bentley is asked to contact the Illinois State Police, who maintains a registry of missing people in the state. The state police will have the advantage of side-stepping local and county authorities in the matter, as they are sometimes the reason why people can be harmed after not taking a missing persons report seriously enough.