Kidnapped by Their Father: The Disturbing Tale of CJ and Billy Vosseler
Shortly after her divorce from Charles Vosseler in 1986, Ruth Parker was met with the horrific realization that Charles had disappeared with their sons CJ and Billy. Today, they are still missing.
On October 9, 1986, Ruth Parker dropped off her two sons, three-year-old CJ, and two-year-old Billy, with their father Charles for the weekend.
The four of them had grown accustomed to the routine of shared custody following the couple’s divorce earlier that same year.
Ruth had no reason to suspect anything was amiss.
But then Sunday came and went, and Charles still hadn’t returned home with the boys.
Instead, he called to inform her that they were visiting his aunt in Connecticut and would be home the following day.
When they failed to return on Monday, a panicked Ruth, now unable to get in touch with Charles over the phone, went to his real estate office.
She found it closed, and an employee in the parking lot informed her that Charles had suddenly dissolved the business and let all of its employees go on Saturday–the same day he’d picked up her sons.
Before going to the police to make a kidnapping report, Ruth made one more horrific discovery: every single photo of the boys had been stolen from her home. All that she had to take to the police station with her was an old baptism certificate.
Ruth Parker and Charles Vosseler
Ruth and Charles first met in late 1980 through a personal ad Charles had placed in Mother Earth Magazine. Mother Earth published articles on backyard farming, gardening, and other nature-related topics.
Ruth was enchanted by Charles’s ad, where he described his search for companionship and a simple life. She sent him a letter and less than a year later; Ruth was packing up her things to move to New Hampshire and get married.
The first few years of their marriage were anything but simple.
Charles traveled to visit family frequently but wouldn’t allow Ruth to join him, citing concerns about her pregnancy. Instead, he left her at home alone for long periods, isolated from her own family.
The two worked as house flippers–in addition to Charles’s income streams from stocks and his beloved racehorse. They would move into “fixer-upper” homes, repair and refurbish them, and then sell them before moving on to the next spot.
But then, one day, they moved into a new home in Rochester, NH–what Ruth described as “the most distressed property [they] had ever lived in.”
Charles told Ruth that his father had made a mistake in buying it, and they were there to get him out of a tough spot–but, the longer they stayed there, the more it seemed to Ruth that Charles didn’t have any real intentions of repairing anything.
One day, Billy tried to pull himself to his feet by holding on to a cabinet door. The whole cabinet came off of the wall.
It was the last straw for Ruth. She informed Charles that she and the boys were moving out. He helped them find an apartment, and not long later, the two had obtained a divorce.
Abduction of CJ and Billy Vosseler
The more investigating Ruth did, the more obvious it seemed that Charles had been preparing to run off with her sons for a long time.
In addition to the theft of the photographs, which made it incredibly difficult to search for her missing sons, he had cleared out their joint bank account. Even worse, months prior, he’d secretly stopped making payments on Ruth’s car so that it was close to being repossessed.
He hadn’t just sold his business, either. Charles’s father auctioned off his horse, as well as many of Ruth’s belongings, which Charles had been holding in a storage unit for her.
Despite the obviously premeditated nature of the crime, police officers didn’t take it seriously at first. Parental kidnapping wasn’t considered a serious crime in the 80s.
Things changed when Ruth mentioned that Charles was driving her car the weekend he went missing–apparently, kidnapping wasn’t a serious crime, but car theft was.
Meanwhile, a family friend managed to find home movies with clips of the boys, finally allowing authorities to make missing posters.
Open Case
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.
Thirty-eight years later, Ruth is still waiting for CJ and Billy–who would now be grown men–to come home.
The authorities only came close to catching Charles once, in 1988, while he was living in Stillwell, Oklahoma, under the name Dr. Charles Wilson.
A woman he was seeing saw a missing poster and reported him to the police, but by the time they arrived, Charles had burned down his house and fled the scene.
The search is ongoing, although it is uncertain whether CJ and Billy are still alive or living in the United States.
The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Charles Vosseler.
Sources:
Good, Meaghan. “Charles Jason Vosseler.” The Charley Project, 12 Oct. 2004, charleyproject.org/case/charles-jason-vosseler.
Johnson, Logan. “After 31 Years, Ruth Parker Still Hopes to See Sons CJ and Billy Vosseler Again.” NBC News, 8 Oct. 2017, www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/after-31-years-ruth-parker-still-hopes-see-sons-cj-n808721.
Ruth Ann Vosseler. “The Vosseler Story.” Neverstoplooking.org, 1985, neverstoplooking.org/blog1/cases/the-vosseler-story/.