Daily Nonpareil Council Bluffs IA April 19th, 2004 WOMAN TRYING TO SOLVE "COLD CASE" by Tom McMahon, Staff Writer LOGAN - Raymond Nelson is missing - still. He has been since Dec. 3, 1940. A dead man in Australia looks like the former Logan Canty Drug Store clerk, but so far, Nelson's private detective granddaughter has not been able to make a positive identification. "It is freaky," Jennifer Huffman said. "I may never be able to prove it is him." Huffman began looking for her grandfather after joining the Jimmy Wilson Sr. Detective Agency. "I asked Mom (Nelson's daughter who was 4 months old when he left) for all the paperwork. I want to find him for her," the private investigator said. Nelson was last seen in Logan, his hometown, on Dec. 3, 1940. "He brought his laundry over to his parents right before he left," Huffman said. "My aunt swears he had tears in his eyes." The Dec. 12, 1940, "Harrison County Herald" said the 30-year-old Nelson rode to Council Bluffs on Dec. 3 with J. A. Peterson, a local truck driver. "According to officers, Nelson told Mr. Peterson he (Nelson) was to go to an Omaha airport the next morning, where he was to report for employment," the newspaper said. The Dec. 12, 1940, "Logan Observer" said, "No trace of him (Nelson) could be found in Omaha, suggesting to officials that he may have met with foul play, or may have gone further west." Nelson's social security number was never used after that date. Huffman said her granddad's number was called after Nelson disappeared. "The FBI was looking for him, as he was classified as a draft dodger," she said. "They never found him." Raymond Carl Nelson was born on Sept. 1, 1911, according to his daughter, Roberta Render. He graduated from Logan High School in 1931 and married Helen Louise Smith on Nov. 19, 1934. The couple lived in Logan until Nelson's disappearance. In addition to Render, the couple had another daughter, Claudia Duffy, who is Huffman's mother. Render wrote to "Unsolved Mysteries" in February 1959, asking them to investigate. Huffman said there was no response. Render writes, "Personally, I've always preferred to think that he didn't disappear on purpose - that something terrible might have happened to him. His mother (my grandmother) always told me, until the day she died, that she was sure something terrible had to have happened to him because he was a good man and that he would never have left us on purpose. My mother always told me that they had no marital problems." Huffman had heard some good stories about the grandfather she never knew, including those about his interest in model airplanes. "His planes were displayed in the Brandeis window in downtown Omaha, so he must have been good," she said. Brandeis was a big department store whose window displays were famous in the area. The "Logan Observer" noted in its Dec. 12, 1940, edition, "He (Nelson) has shown considerable genius in making model planes." Huffman said she put her P.I. skills to use and got on the Internet. She went onto model airplane sites and happened upon an Australian one that caught her eye. Not because of the planes or the site itself, but because of a photograph - a picture of Monty Tyrell. "He looked just like my grandfather," she said. Down to the hat he wore. Huffman's effort to connect Nelson and Tyrell continues, but she has not yet made a definite match - and fears she never may. She said initial e-mails she sent to Australia looking for information about Tyrell were dismissed. "Please don't flood my e-mail box," one disdainful Aussie replied. "I guess this Tyrell was pretty well-known for his airplanes," Huffman said. She said she learned every March 17, the day Tyrell died, there is a Monty Tyrell airplane show. Huffman recently asked Harrison County Sheriff Terry Baxter for help. Baxter said he checked through some old county records, back from when Cass Bullis was sheriff, but could find nothing on Nelson. "It looks like he (Nelson) just walked away," Baxter said. He's seen the photos of Nelson and Tyrell. "They look very similar," the sheriff said. Huffman recently found an Australian who knew Tyrell, having lived with him toward the end of his life. She said Tony Cincotta told her Tyrell's father, Ned, lived in southern Australia and worked at the Tivoli Theatre. But the plot thickened when an Australian private investigator hired by Huffman told her, "There was no Ned known to the Tivoli." Cincotta told Huffman Tyrell died in 1989, but a Web site indicates the year was 1993. The detective told Huffman that Tyrell died broke and appeared to be married to a woman named Elsie, who died sometime in the early 1980s. He writes to Huffman he cannot find any record of Tyrell for a 30-year period and, "I am suspicious at the lack of records on this man and his family." Even if the Australian is her dead grandfather, Huffman wants to know it. For her mother - and to satisfy that private detective urge to solve the case.