In the early hours of a summer morning in 2007, emergency services rushed to a house engulfed in flames on Dr. Fugate Drive in Sykesville, Pennsylvania. After the fire was extinguished, firefighters discovered the remains of a baby boy in a bathtub. His mother was nowhere to be seen.
Arson and a Missing Mother
An investigation revealed the fire was arson, as evidence of accelerant was found. An autopsy could not confirm the infant’s cause of death but determined he had been killed before the fire was set. The house was rented by 33-year-old Joey Lynn Offutt, who had given birth to the baby, Alexis Alfred Brolin III, just six weeks earlier.
Joey was mildly intellectually disabled, with the estimated mental capacity of a 14-year-old, and spoke with a noticeable speech impediment. She could feel overwhelmed by her disabilities and was known to isolate herself, refusing to answer her phone or door for days, according to WTAJ news.
A Troubled Past
Joey had always wanted a family of her own. She grew up as a child of divorce after her parents split when she was three. Her mother, Sherry Hallett, described her as a painfully shy and insecure child with a childlike naivety. Joey studied journalism for a year at Shepherd University in West Virginia but dropped out after failing her first year. She moved from job to job and had two children, aged nine and two in 2007, from a relationship that fell apart.
Joey eventually moved to Sykesville, where she gave birth to her third child with an on-and-off-again boyfriend, Alexis Brolin, also the father of her middle child. Her mother said: “She was happy there and loved her children.” Fortunately, Joey’s eldest children were staying with relatives at the time of the fire.
The Investigation
Investigators issued a missing persons appeal for Joey, believing she had disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Police believed someone may have abducted or killed her, as her red 1994 Saturn coupe with Virginia license plates was missing from her home. Two days after the fire, on July 16, investigators found the car parked outside an apartment in State College, about 70 miles east of Sykesville. The car was parked outside an apartment where Joey used to live with Alexis. Investigators said they were looking for Joey “out of concern for her welfare.” Her family insisted she must not have been driving, as the car was parked immaculately and Joey was not a good driver or parker. Alexis said he had no clue how the car ended up there.
The initial theory was that Joey had killed her son, started the fire, and fled. State Police Trooper Bruce A. Morris said: “It’s almost like she’s fallen off the face of the planet. I’m confident this case is going to be resolved. She’s the key to this whole thing.” The family believed Joey may have been missing since the day before the fire, as a bag of rotting hamburger meat was found in her fridge. The last time Joey was seen was on July 5.
Dead Ends and a Reward
Two days after Christmas in 2007, skeletal remains were discovered in Somerset, Pennsylvania. The remains belonged to a petite, brown-haired woman aged between 30 and 40 who had died during the summer. The body bore similarities to Joey, but it was later ruled out as being her. In July 2008, Joey’s family offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to her. Her nephew, Jason Hungerford, said he didn’t think Joey just went missing as she would never abandon her children. He said: “Each of us is bracing for the news that she is dead. If anyone knows anything, or saw anything — even if they didn’t think at the time that it meant anything — please call the Pennsylvania State Police.” Her mother, Sherry, said: “I believe that someone in that little town knows what happened. It’s taken me more than a year to run it through my mind, but I believe it’s somebody that she knew.”
When the case aired on America’s Most Wanted, a tip came in from Decatur, Alabama, from a man who said he spoke to Joey there in November. On the two-year anniversary of her disappearance, the reward was increased to $20,000. Jason said: “I think that we’re at this point working on the assumption that she was the victim of a crime and most likely that she’s dead. So we’re looking for a body. That’s very difficult for us to say, but we can’t fathom any other possibility. She certainly would not have run off on her own, leaving her other children behind.” Joey’s family said Alexis Brolin has helped and cooperated in every way possible. Joey was described in missing person flyers as a 5-foot-3 white woman with a slim build, brown hair, and brown eyes, possibly wearing glasses when she disappeared.
