Shannon Dale Verhage ( Baby missing - mother murdered. Today, in 2011, she would be 15 years old.)
Cedar Springs, Mich.
Birth: June 15, 1996
Race: White
Gender: Female
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Marks: A strawberry birthmark on the back of her neck at her hairline
Shannon Dale Verhage was last seen on June 3, 1997, with her mother, Rachel Timmerman, who was also reported missing. Rachel's body was discovered in the Manistee National Forest on July 5, 1997. There was no sign of Shannon.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Michigan State Police Newaygo Post at (231) 652-1661.
Have you seen Baby Shannon Verhage? Her mom, pictured, Rachel Timmerman, was brutally raped, again, and murdered and Shannon vanished.
Families baffled by Gabrion decision: woodtv.com
Marvin Gabrion convicted of murdering baby Shannon's mother. Where is baby Shannon?
Details: In 1996 in Cedar Springs, Michigan, Marvin Charles Gabrion raped Rachel Timmermann. Rachel planned to testify against Gabrion in the summer of 1997, but on June 3, 1997, Rachel and her infant daughter, Shannon, were picked up by an unidentified man and disappeared. On July 5, Rachel was found brutually raped and murdered in Oxford Lake. Police believed that Gabrion murdered Rachel in a ill-concieved attempt to keep her from testifying against him in his criminal activities. Gabrion was soon tied to the disappearances of three men. Wayne Davis, a friend of Marvin who was with him on the night he raped Rachel, vanished sometime during 1997.John Weeks, a friend of Rachel's who was later identified as the person that picked her and Baby Shannon, Rachel's daughter vanished in June of 1997. Robert Allen, a transient from Grand Rapids whose identity was being used by Gabrion, vanished sometime during 1997. None of these people have been located and Gabrion has been convicted for Rachel's murder.
Families baffled by Gabrion decision
Want to see him on death row
Updated: Wednesday, 03 Aug 2011, 6:35 PM EDT Click to read entire article.
"I believe Mr. Gabrion should be put to death because of what he did to my daughter, Rachel," her father, Tim Timmerman told 24 Hour News 8 on Wednesday. "He put her in handcuffs and chains, he chained cement blocks to her. He wrapped her entire head in duct tape. He put her on a boat and drug her out into the middle of Oxford Lake and then he threw her in."
Rachel, 19, was alive when she went under.
"If that doesn't deserve the death penalty," he asked, "what does?"
"I don't care" if he's put to death, Verhage said. "I really don't care." But she wants him on death row.
Though Michigan does not have the death penalty , the lake is on federal land -- and that's how Gabrion came to receive a death sentence once he was convicted of the crime.
Police searched the same lake for Shannon, believing Gabrion dumped her there with her mom, but some still hold out hope she's alive.
"I loved my granddaughter. I watched her take some of her first steps. She told me hi," he said.
Tim Timmerman co-wrote The Color of Night about the case, which is the best seller in Kim Verhage's Reading Book Store in Rockford. He was shocked when 24 Hour News 8 told him an appeals court had overturned the death penalty for Gabrion.
"I was afraid it was going to be for him punching his lawyer. I thought that's why he was g oing to get off, not because of Judge (Robert Holmes) Bell making a mistake," he said. "I never would have guessed that.'
The apparent mistake was that Judge Bell failed to tell the federal jury that Gabrion couldn't get the death penalty if this were a state case.
"It seems to me that they're overthinking it, doesn't it? Aren't they overthinking it? The jury decided. The jury is the only one capable of giving the death penalty; it wasn't the judge; it wasn't an appeals court judge. It was the jury."
Kim Verhage is certain Gabrion is gloating in prison.
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