After 15 Years, Still Missing, Still Missed

As a New Canaan woman’s disappearance continues to dominate statewide public attention, a New Haven sex worker advocate is quietly working to revive the search for a Fair Haven woman who first went missing 15 years ago Saturday.

The missing woman, Evelyn Frisco, was last seen on June 29, 2004. She was 42 years old at the time, was last seen carrying a black pocketbook and leaving court downtown, according to a 2014 cold case file from the New Haven Police Department. She’s described as being five feet two inches tall, with blue eyes and blond hair.

“I want her family to have closure,” said Beatrice Codianni, the founder and director of the Sex Workers and Allies Network (SWAN).

The daily, detailed news attention paid to Jennifer Dulos, the New Canaan mom who went missing at the end of May, Codianni said, has only triggered for her the importance of remembering and continuing to look for Frisco and two other New Haven women who have gone missing in recent years: Lisa Ann Calvo and Marquita Jones.

Just because these local women were homeless, struggling with substance abuse, and, in Frisco and Calvo’s cases, performing survival sex work in the Fair Haven area, Codianni said, doesn’t mean that they should be forgotten. They were mothers and daughters too, she said, and they should remain as much of a priority for police and for the public as Dulos.

Every December since she founded SWAN in 2016, Codianni said, a group of sex worker advocates have gathered in Fair Haven to remember Frisco and Calvo in honor of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

“I’d like the cold cases to be reopened,” she said. ​“We shouldn’t have people missing.”

Lt. Renee Dominguez, who heads the department’s Family Services Unit, and Sgt. Mary Helland, who leads the department’s Special Victims Unit, said there have been no new developments in their searches for these three women.

Unfortunately, Dominguez said, ​“there is no new information to report.” If anyone does have any information on where Frisco, Calvo, or Jones might be, she said, they should call (203) 946‑6296 or text 274637 (which equates to ​“CRIMES” on the telephone keypad). They can also email tips to ECIC@newhavenct.gov.

“We put out missing persons notices daily,” Dominguez said about people reaching out in concern about a friend or family member they can’t find. But often they’re able to locate the person in a matter of days. No local women have been missing for as long as these three, she said. The department has a detective, Det. Dana Martin, ssigned solely to missing persons cases, she said.

“Although we are not actively working these cases,” Acting Police Chief Otoniel Reyes told the Independent via email, ​“they are very much open and we welcome an opportunity to remind the public about them in hopes it will spark new information.”

Frisco’s mother Janet, an East Haven native who now lives in Bella Vista, told the Independent just how painful it’s been to watch the news coverage day in, day out about Dulos and to be reminded of her own missing daughter.

“You never know what’s going on,” she told the Independent. ​“When you see anything about somebody missing or that you’ve found someone’s remains, you think of your daughter.”

The last she heard from the city’s police department, she said, detectives told her they believe her daughter is likely dead or permanently missing.

“She got along with everybody,” Janet remembered about her daughter’s personality. She said she’d like to see her daughter’s face and name back in the news, so that if someone knows what happened to her or where she might be, they can come forward these 15 years later and help her achieve some kind of closure.

The Charley Project, a website that publicizes missing persons cases, reported that Frisco was in court on June 29, 2004 for charges related to a shoplifting arrest.

The family and friends of Calvo and Jones deserve the same, Codianni said. According to the city’s police department, Calvo, originally from New Britain, was last seen on Oct. 6, 2005 on a side street in Fair Haven called Murray Place. She was 41 years old at the time, and is described as a white female, just under five feet tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, and tattoos on her right leg and right thigh.

In 2016, then-Gov. Dannel Malloy approved a $50,000 reward for information that helps the police crack the case.

Over the years, city cops brought cadaver dogs to Russell Street, to Middletown Avenue, to the West Haven dump, and to nearby marshes and woods in search of Calvo, but to no avail.

“She was a mother of twins,” Codianni said about Calvo. Just like Dulos. In both cases, she said, ​“the children are suffering.” They deserve to know where their mom is and what happened to her.

John Burroughs, the father of Calvo’s twins, who are now both 15 years old, said the same. ​“I want justice to be done for her,” he told the Independent. ​“I cared about her. I loved her. I want the kids to be able to understand where she’s at.

He described Calvo, who originally came from Plainville, as ​“a very joyful person.” As someone who was thrilled to become a mother, and who ​“was very responsive to other people. If she could help someone out, she would do it.”

As he watches the Dulos case play out in the news, he said, he remembers the fair amount of media attention that Calvo’s disappearance received at the time, particularly after her sister posted a reward for cracking the case. ​“But after a certain amount of time,” he said. ​“It just died down. It went cold for a long time. And it’s still cold.”

Marquita Jones, according to city police, last had contact with her family in the summer of 2011. She was 28 at the time, and is a dark skinned black female with brown eyes and black hair, five feet two inches tall, and may have been staying in the West Street area of the Hill when she went missing.

“It seems Jennifer Dulos was a priority because here was a white woman who lived in New Canaan and was wealthy,” Codianni said. New Haveners, both citizens and police, shouldn’t forget about those who appear to have suffered similar fates, even if they were poor, homeless, struggling with drug addiction and sex work.

“This really upsets me,” she said.

Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Frisco, Calvo, or Jones should call (203) 946‑6296 or text 274637 or email ECIC@newhavenct.gov.