Was body of missing Missouri woman dumped in river? Family seeks $500,000 for search
The family of a Missouri woman presumed killed by her husband is seeking help from lawmakers and the community to spend at least $500,000 toward the search for her body.
Columbia police believe the body of Mengqi Ji was dumped in the Lamine River, near Booneville. Cadaver dogs indicated human remains there, and divers have been searching the waters for five months. Police say the area they need to concentrate on is near the Missouri 41 overpass.
“We are 90% sure that her body is in the Lamine River,” said Amy Salladay, the family’s attorney. “But they can’t get to that area because it is under dense trees and brush.”
Now engineers, including a group of professors from the University of Missouri, have come to the same conclusion: “There needs to be a retaining wall built,” Sallady said.
Such a wall would allow crews to pump out the water near the bridge and pull up the trees and brush so searchers can see better. “And let the dogs climb through,” Sallady said.
But such an effort, she said, would cost a minimum of $500,000.
“The family doesn’t have that kind of money.” And, she said, “there is no guarantee her remains are there.”
They have asked for help from some of Missouri’s congressional delegation: Sen. Roy Blunt and Rep. Vicky Hartzler.
“We have put pressure on them to free up money for the Army Corps of Engineers to continue the search for Mengqi Ji,” Salladay said.
Officials in Blunt’s office said he received a request for assistance from the Columbia Police Department, and his office “has been working to facilitate cooperation between police and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the search for Ji’s body.”
Hartzler’s office said it is also working on getting help to continue the search effort.
Ji, a 28-year-old Chinese national and University of Missouri graduate, disappeared on Oct. 8 from her Columbia apartment, leaving her keys, her car, her phone and her 1-year-old baby girl behind.
On Feb. 19, Boone County Prosecutor Daniel Knight charged Ji’s husband, Joseph Elledge, a 24-year-old University of Missouri student from the Kansas City area, with first-degree murder. A grand jury indicted Elledge on that charge and more.
A missing woman
Ji came to the United States about seven years ago and earned her master’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from MU in 2014.
She stayed in Columbia and met Elledge at her job, where he was a student intern. The two married on Sept. 22, 2017, in Columbia.
Friends describe her as “sunshine,” a good listener, a hard worker and more like a sister.
Elledge was first arrested on child abuse charges related to his alleged treatment of the couple’s 18-month-old daughter. He was held in the Boone County jail on a $500,000 cash-only bond. He was later indicted for murder.
Columbia police said that the day after Ji was last seen, Elledge drove to several remote locations that he had never visited before, including the banks of the Lamine River, about 20 miles west of Columbia.
Salladay said searchers had already tried searching the river using sonar and radar, but “both were unsuccessful all because of the brush that’s there. It is not safe for the divers in that area because there is almost zero visibility, less than 12 inches.”
Ji’s mother, Ke Ren, came to Missouri from China five days after her daughter disappeared, and has stayed there ever since. Last month, she visited the riverbank to place some traditional items that are left for Chinese burial — food, a blanket, a hat, gloves and other items her daughter was fond of. She left art supplies too, because painting was a favorite hobby for Ji.
While they are awaiting funding, Salladay said, the community is donating.
“We have to raise this money pretty quickly because every day that goes by her body could drift down the river,” Salladay said. “We would have been raising money all along if we knew there was going to be a need.”
True North of Columbia, a domestic violence shelter, is displaying pieces of Ji’s artwork and hosting a fundraiser planned for April 27 — if stay at home orders are lifted by then. Donations are being accepted via Missing Persons Support Center’s Facebook page, or checks can be mailed to MPSC, P.O. Box 262, Foristell, Mo. 63348. Checks need to include MJ on the memo line to indicate that funds are to go toward the Mengqi Ji search.
