Georgia Mystery | Raymond Green
<p>He was only five days old when he was taken from his mother. Now, 37 years later, Raymond Lamar Green is still missing. </p>
He was only five days old when he was taken from his mother. Now, 37 years later, Raymond Lamar Green is still missing.
The last time Donna Green saw her son was on November 6, 1978 in her apartment in southwest Atlanta. That was also the last time anyone saw Raymond's kidnapper.
“He was a beautiful baby," Green said. “I held him. It was amazing...He was my first boy.”
According to Green, she met the kidnapper at the maternity ward of Grady Memorial Hospital. The woman, who called herself "Lisa Morris", befriended Green and told her she was visiting her sister who had recently given birth. The woman was able to figure out where Green lived after getting a ride home from the hospital.
A few days later, uninvited, "Lisa Morris" showed up at Green's apartment. During her visit, Green says she went upstairs to take a quick shower, leaving the newborn with her brother and Morris. But Green says when she returned downstairs, her brother had fallen asleep and "Morris" and the baby were gone.
“Raymond’s uncle was physically in the room had drifted off to sleep," former death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan said. "And never saw her leave.”
"There was an indication, when she was seen exiting the home, that she got into the passenger side of a car. Someone else was operating the car and took off and no one has seen Raymond since.”
Now, nearly four decades later, the case seems virtually impossible to solve.
"This is a tough one," criminal investigator Charles Mittelstadt said. "Somebody, somewhere will see this program and may recall back in time they knew a woman who wasn’t pregnant and suddenly, for no apparent reason, had a child.”
Complicating the investigation: The fact that not much is known about "Lisa Morris", or who was helping her steal little Raymond.
"I think the biggest evidentiary piece is you have two people working in concert," Morgan said. "Whether he was sold or brought home to be raised by a family it seems as though this was very well orchestrated and planned. It gives me an indication that the people know the ins and outs of Grady at that time… where the maternity ward was and how to gain the confidence of other people in a very quick manner this is very difficult wall to break down between a mother and her newborn.”
Investigators do know that "Morris" was 23 to 24 years old, approximately 160 pounds and wearing a red bandanna at the time she stole Raymond. That description only gave investigators a very rough composite sketch.
However, the lack of evidence may not even be the biggest hurdle in the case.
"This goes back so many years," Morgan said. "Over a period of time, those memories...the ability to recall..It's one of the biggest obstacles investigators have.”
What investigators do have is an aged progressed composite sketch of what Raymond Green might look like as an adult. There was no photograph taken of Raymond as a baby, so the composite is based on a sketch of the child as a newborn.
“I am familiar with composites where you are trying to age a photograph but that’s with individuals with facial features that have fully developed then you could project 20 years out," Mittelstadt said. “Authorities are proceeding on the basis this is accurate but that doesn’t account for tissue depth. Raymond could be extremely obese and wouldn’t look anything like this."
Each year, Green posts a birthday message for Raymond in the hopes that it receives enough shares to hopefully reach her lost son. There is one thing which may help bring Raymond home: A mother who never stops believing...a mother who never stops hoping.
"Dear Raymond,
Another birthday has passed and you are still not home. I never thought 37 years later, I would still be searching for you. I think of you often, praying for you always. I wonder what kind of man you've become? What's your favorite foods, are you more like your dad or me? The list goes on and on. I promise you I will never stop looking for you. I believe in my heart that one day soon you will be coming home. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON. MOM LOVES YOU VERY MUCH."
Anyone with any information about Raymond Green's whereabouts is urged to get in contact with the Atlanta Police Department by calling (404) 658-6666.