Searching For Answers

My mother, Diana Lynn Harris, 27, disappeared from Big Pine Key, Florida, in October 1981.  I was ten years old at the time.  My brother and I were in Michigan, visiting our father.  After our mother's disappearance, our grandmother raised us. 

When I turned 17, I returned to Florida to begin my personal investigation of Mom's disappearance.  I've been at it ever since.  Information I've recently uncovered leads me to suspect that my mother may have become a threat to an ongoing, major drug operation and that she might not have been the only person to lose her life for that reason. 

I recently ran names connected to Mom's disappearance through a search engine.  When I ran the name "Mark Ripin" - an ex-convict, who was questioned in regard to my mom's case -- I landed on the Real Crimes web site.  My heart dropped into my shoes when I discovered that Mark Ripin was also questioned as a possible suspect in the "Tom Stump Missing Persons Case," and that several other individuals linked to my mother's case are also linked to Tom Stump's case. 

On the web site I learned that Tom Stump disappeared from Sugarloaf Key, Florida, in 1995.  Like my mom, his body was never found.  At the time of his disappearance, Tom was married to Mark Ripin's ex-wife, Bernie Ripin/Stump.  A few days prior to vanishing, Tom was telling people that he suspected Bernie of having an affair with radio talk show host Bill Becker. As soon as she was legally able to do so, Bernie married Becker. 

I recognized some of the names on the web site and on the message board as people my mom knew back in 1981.  Mark Ripin, the ex-con; Mark's then-wife Bernie; and their attorney friend, Mitchell Denker, were part of a tight knit group of friends who partied together -- and some of whom actually lived together -- during that time period.  My mom was introduced to that group by a new boyfriend, Gary Vincente Argenzio, who, I've now found out, was another ex-convict and a close friend of Mark Ripin.  Mark Ripen was then, and still is, a close friend of Bernie's fourth and current husband, Bill Becker, who was Bernie's live-in boyfriend in 1980 and again began living with her after Tom Stump vanished in 1995. 

In October 1981, Mom phoned a friend in Michigan from a hot tub at attorney Mitchell Denker's "party house" on Big Pine Key and told her that a big drug drop-off was scheduled and she was afraid the phone might be tapped.  She also mentioned guard dogs. That's the last anybody ever heard from her.  I've since been told by someone in law enforcement that certain police officers attended functions at that party house and that some lost their jobs because of the activities there.   

My grandmother filed missing person's reports in both Michigan and Monroe County, Florida.  Nobody at the party house reported Mom missing. 

One week after Mom vanished, Gary Argenzio stole a boat that belonged to a man named Robert Thompson.  Mitchell Denker told me that Gary also stole two motorcycles from him and possibly a gun.  Mark Ripin has since told me that he and Denker owned a boat together, and Denker once allowed Gary to take this boat out and Gary ran it with no oil and blew the motor.  Is that why Gary took Robert Thompson's boat instead of Denker's? 

Another vehicle that was missing was a car that belonged to Mom's friend Donna.   Donna thought it was taken by a man named "Mark" who lived on No Name Key, which is where Mark Ripin and his wife Bernie lived at that time.  However, she also added that she believed that man was Mitchell Denker's cousin, who worked at Denker's law office.  It's possible she may have confused Mark Ripin with Mitchell Denker's cousin, Michael Gilbert, who died of a drug overdose in the '80s.  Which one was it? 

After Argenzio ran off to Mexico, Denker allegedly found Donna's car on a side road.  He has stated that he believes Gary Argenzio took the car, perhaps to transport Mom's body, and claims to have checked it for forensic evidence and found none.  Denker is an attorney, not a forensic expert.  Why didn't he turn the car over to the authorities for a professional work-up? 

Detective Richard Conrady and Detective Lynn McNeil of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department were originally the lead detectives in Mom's case.  In June 1995, when Mom's case was being re-investigated as a possible homicide, Detective Phil Harrold questioned Mitchell Denker.  Denker told Detective Harrold that Mom was murdered and suggested that she speak with Argenzio's friend Mark Ripin.  Ripin told him he believed Argenzio killed Mom and dumped her body in the ocean. 

In July 1982, Gary Argenzio was arrested in Mexico, but he wasn't charged with Mom's murder.  Instead, (under the name "Gary Vincento"), he was charged and found guilty of stealing Robert Thompson's boat.  Mitchell Denker's cousin, Michael Gilbert, a member of Denker's law firm, defended Gary Argenzio pro bono.  Argenzio was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.   

In May 1990, I contacted Mitchell Denker by phone, and he informed me that he'd sold the party house in 1984.  He said he was going to Turkey on business for two weeks and to call him when he got back.  When I called him again, he acted like he'd never before talked to me.   

In 1992, Gary Argenzio was convicted of another felony.  Five days later, he died in his Broward County home in Dania, Florida, allegedly of pneumonia.   

But I wasn't going to give up.  Approximately January 1995, I again contacted Mitchell Denker.  This time he told me that he thought Gary Argenzio might have buried my mother in Denker's back yard.  As a result of Denker's new statement, I was able to convince the Sheriff's Department to reactivate my mother's case.  When questioned in June 1995 by Detective Harrald, Denker said it would have been impossible to bury a body in his yard because of the guard dogs and the coral.  Detective Harrald told me the yard had been cemented over so it could not be searched or dug up. 

Mitchell Denker asked Harrold if his original statement from 1981 still existed.  When Det. Harrold assured him it did not, Denker and Mark Ripin informed him that Argenzio had admitted to smashing Mom's head into the wall of Denker's house.  Both men stated that they saw the hole in the wall with blood spatters, but Denker described the hole as being in his bedroom and Ripin described it as being by the back door.  Detective Lynn McNeil, who investigated the case in 1981, recalled no such damage.  She also told me that she and Det. Conrady had checked the woods in the yard for any evidence and had found none.  How could the back yard have had woods on it, when Denker said it was solid coral? 

In July 1995 - at approximately the same time my mother's case was reactivated - Tom Stump disappeared from his home on Sugarloaf Key.  The Monroe County Sheriff's Department was investigating both the Stump case and Mom's case simultaneously and was interrogating Mark Ripin in regard to both missing persons cases.  Yet apparently nobody found anything the slightest bit suspicious about the fact that the same man was linked to both cases. 

In the summer of 2003, Mitchell Denker was convicted of two felonies --  Transporting Monetary Instruments and perjury.  He was sentenced to five months in prison and disbarred in the state of Florida.  This proof that Denker was as much of a crook as Mark Ripin and Gary Argenzio caused me to start wondering if all three men might have been involved in my mother's disappearance.  I immediately requested that Detective James Norman of the Monroe County Sheriff's Department provide me with reports from their 1981 and 1995 investigations.  Det. Norman informed me that the files from 1981 did not exist.  I was not surprised to hear this, because my Grandma had been trying to get those files for years and had been told they didn't exist.  I was stunned, however, to be told now that former Sheriff William

Who Killed My Mom?

There are some suggesting that her boyfriend Gary at the time killed her and dumped her into the ocean. This is a possibility Yes, the man had a violent criminal past.

So did several of the other people that hung out with my Mom in Mitch's home. Stay tuned for my theories.....