Crystal Sue Hunt (Courtesy Iowa Department of Public Safety)
Crystal Sue Hunt was reported missing to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office in Corydon, Iowa, on Feb. 24, 1998.
Corydon in Wayne County
Crystal, who’d celebrated her 21st birthday just six days earlier and was pregnant, was last seen leaving her parents’ residence in Centerville on Feb. 24, 1998, with her boyfriend. He said they argued and she got out of the car.
Crystal has not been seen nor heard from since.
She is described as 5-foot-9 , 140-142 pounds, with blue eyes and blonde hair.
She was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, white sweatshirt, black and white checked stirrup pants and Nike tennis shoes with blue spots on the tops.
She has a scar on her left leg from the ankle to below the knee. She also has a scar from her wrist to her elbow, a scar under her chin and three scar holes on each side of her pelvic area. She also has a scar on her right shoulder and walks with a slight limp.
In a March 13, 1998 brief published in the Daily Iowegian, Sheriff D. Keith Davis of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office said Hunt was 5-1/2 months pregnant.
Three months after she went missing, the Wayne County Coalition Against Domestic Violence offered a $500 reward to anyone with information leading to her whereabouts.
Centerville in Appanoose County
In an Ottumwa Evening Post story dated Dec. 4, 2013, staff writer Doug Potter recalled the day — about a year after Crystal’s disappearance — when eight of Crystal’s relatives came to the Ottumwa Courier where he worked as a reporter. He said they’d asked him to write an article in hopes of jarring law enforcement from their chairs.
The family, he said, blamed the boyfriend.
Potter said he’d contacted the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, the Appanoose County Sheriff’s Department and the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation the following day. The case belonged to Wayne County, and the sheriff said there were no new leads. Potter wrote of the three conversations:
One agency said she’d probably never be found. Another jurisdiction said she is probably in a well or buried in Missouri where no one will find her. The DCI said that small sheriff’s departments like those in Wayne and Appanoose counties do not have the money or employees to maintain the search for Crystal.
Potter said he talked to several people from Corydon in 1999, and then approached the Courier’s editor about writing a story about Crystal’s unsolved disappearance. Wrote Potter:
The Courier’s editor said an article wouldn’t be of interest to readers because Crystal was from Wayne County. I wrote it anyway. And I’ve written others because I promised Crystal’s family that I would.
When the Iowa DCI established a Cold Case Unit in 2009, Crystal Hunt’s case was one of approximately 150 cases listed on the Cold Case Unit’s new website as those the DCI hoped to solve using latest advancements in DNA technology.
Although federal grant funding for the DCI Cold Case Unit was exhausted in December 2011, the DCI continues to assign agents to investigate cold cases as new leads develop or as technological advances allow for additional forensic testing of original evidence.
The DCI remains committed to resolving Iowa’s cold cases and will continue to work diligently with local law enforcement partners to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice for the victims and their families.
A DNA sample has been submitted and tests are complete.
If you have any information about Crystal Hunt’s unsolved disappearance or her whereabouts, please contact Sheriff D. Keith Davis at the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office at (641) 872-1566.
Crystal was in my class in the early 90s. I remember that they lived in a rural run down house that caught fire and they remained there. Her and her brother smelled of smoke for days. She rode my bus route. I was at a Burger King a few years after graduation and saw a missing person picture there.
She’s 7 months pregnant, gets into a fight with her bf & he says she gets out & chooses to walk the rest of the way at 7 months pregnant?
I have a hard time buying this.
I feel like he didn’t want the responsibility & that’s what they were fighting about.
I feel like it gout out of hand & she ended up dead.
Praying this is resolved.
I am Patty’s first cousin, her father and my mother are brother and sister. I just learned about this today, decided to do some research. Don’t know anything about who is who either. Have never heard any talk of any kind, Patty died in 2014
I have so many questions. The only reason I came upon this was because u googled unsolved murders in Appanoose County. It brought up this woman and the Deteach man murdered at his home. I don’t know how often this page is updated but there is nothing about the Ty Husted case. And I find it very disturbing is agencies say she’ll never be found, she’s either in a well or buried in Missouri…very odd, a friend of mine said someone had said the same thing about Ty. I find it absurd that Appanoose County law enforcement has so many cop cars sitting in their parking lot but do not have funds to even attempt to find missing people, whuch don’t mind the new jail being built here. I understand with Crystal happened in Wayne County but counties don’t work together nor was the Ty case ever brought to public attention. I feel Appanoose County should shift their focus on important matters other than “drug busts” that never change. Same people in and out of jail. But what do I know….
If these departments don’t have the resources, then the Iowa DCI should take it over. They have the resources to work this case.
I am sure like most cases if if was one of their own it would have been solved by now, just saying,
I searched Sebastian Husted’s case again. One thing that bothers me is that he disappeared from a hog farm, where he had been working for a few weeks. I assume this hog farm has a formal name, unless it’s a unauthorized farm.
Also, I assume that Sebastian was an employee of this hog farm.
So, it bothers me, that they should have been concerned about one of their employees who disappeared.
Yet, we hear nothing from them. Their should be some comment from them, showing their concern, oroffering a reward. This sort of makes me wonder, about some suspicious activity going on there.
Also, could he been seriously injured, and did not want OSHA, coming in and finding out they violated federal safety regulations. In my time enforcing federal pollution regulations with the U.S. Coast Guard, many facilities had issues with OSHA inspector’s, who assume you are guilty, and not innocent until proven innocent.
Also, his brother gets some text’s supposedly from Sebastian. The text’s asked him to come and get him. Yet, his family has no clue where he is working at. Also, the text’s seem to claim that his co-worker, also unidentified is supposedly getting aggressive. I wonder if this text was actually sent by him. Yet, his family is unaware of any previous problems with any co-workers.
There is no explanation of what the co-worker was doing. Also, pictures of Sebastian mention his tattoos, which gave me the impression that he was a gang banger. Which might explain his disappearance, as revenge for possibly leaving the gang, or his refusal to do something illegal.
Why does her dad say she is in Omaha NE
This family seems to have been fully denied justice. There has historically been a great deal of discrimination in how cases are treated based on personal and law enforcement biases, including how the victim is portrayed by the press and potentally even people involved in the disappearance.
They need to talk ..no.
.interrogate the boyfriend
I found her.
Taylor, Spokeo is a search website that aggregates data from online and offline sources, and as long as someone is still missing, they’ll continue to show the age “progressing” and show last known address info. In 2012 they were fined $800,000 by the Federal Trade Commission for FCRA and FTC violations, and ordered to submit compliance reports to the FTC for the next 20 years. They’re just one of the many aggregate “trash collectors” in the Deep Internet.
Just a question, if her last know address when she came up missing was Centerville, IA, then why does this place Spoko that Taylor post have it as Eldon, IA. Centerville and Eldon are two different towns. Just a confused friend of the family.
There certainly is a crystal s. Hunt on Facebook. She is blonde. Looks possibly the same age,however I don’t see much resemblance otherwise. Maybe it’s possible there are 2 crystal s.hunts??
Ok
Found who
I’d say the boyfriend knows quite a bit more than he is saying.
She’s 7 months pregnant and they fight (so far 100% believable). Did she get out of the car though? Just from my experience with missing people I’d say the boyfriend knows more than what he’s saying.
https://www.moodyfuneralservices.com/obituary?id=108359
Patty was her mother. They declared her legally dead to family. She has never been found.
Crystal, thank you for clarifying that!
Prayers that she is found and safe. Prayers to the families and friends.
Why would he ever let her get out alone? Sounds fishy!!!!
Who was the bf?
I googled Crystal once and there was a Crystal S, Hunt living in Eldon,ia . Hopefully shes found some day
Same age also
Keep trying.never give up.she’s out there somewhere.Will keep you in my prayers.
The links for the Ottumwa Evening Post don’t take you an article. And I can’t find anything when I searched for it. ???
sounds to me like that boyfriend killed her…
I think so too she was and will always be my best friend he was very mean and wasnt nice to her at all
What??? Who was boyfriend