Bonnie Dages and her four-month-old son Jeremy left their home on Wednesday, April 28, 1993, around 8:30 p.m. The 18-year-old girl was going to meet up with a friend and buy some things for her son. Her home is in Lithia, Florida, about eight miles away. She drove her minivan to a shopping center in Brandon, Florida. It’s not known what happened to her and her son after she pulled into a parking spot. They never came back home, and no one ever saw them again.
Bonnie and Jeremy were thought to be missing when they didn’t come home by the next day. On Friday night, her van was found locked up and parked in the Kash n’ Karry grocery store parking lot. Detectives found Jeremy’s diaper bag and Bonnie’s purse, which had $75 in cash in it. Jeremy’s car seat was the only thing that didn’t seem to be there.
Lisa and Larry Dages had five children. Bonnie was the oldest. Jeremy was their first grandchild. Bonnie had just graduated from high school and was raising her son by herself. No one knew who his father was. She got a job as a nanny for a family in Lithia so she and Jeremy could make money.
At first, detectives thought Bonnie and her son might have left on their own. She could come and go as she pleased since she was 18 years old and a free adult. There were no signs of crime in or near her minivan. When they found her purse and money in the car, they were worried at first, but they soon found out that Bonnie had taken $15,000 out of the bank before she disappeared. That meant she had a lot of money if she needed to go away for a while.
Bonnie’s dad, Larry Dages, didn’t think the teen had just disappeared on her own; he was sure she had been a victim of crime. He said that Bonnie had left her minivan, which was her only way to get around, along with all of her clothes and Jeremy’s things. She would have brought Jeremy’s diaper bag with her if she was going somewhere. He thought Bonnie was going to go back to the minivan soon after she left because the item was still inside the car.
He didn’t know why his daughter took out so much money from her bank account, but he did notice that she left $25,000 there. The money came from her grandparents, and she had always said she wanted to buy a house with it. It didn’t make sense for her to leave with only some of the money.
Investigators were unable to confirm the rumors that Bonnie had been seeing someone behind their backs. Detectives talked to people who knew Bonnie well but couldn’t find anyone who had a bad opinion of her. There were also no signs that anyone wanted to hurt the missing teen or her son.
Three weeks after Bonnie was last seen, police said they thought something was wrong with her disappearance. A person who was supposed to meet her that night was still a mystery because no one had heard from her since she went shopping. Officials from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office searched the land around Bonnie’s house and the shopping center where her minivan was found in the hopes of finding some clues about where she was.
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Lt. Craig Latimer said that the police didn’t have many clues about what was going on. He was hoping that detectives would learn something new by searching Bonnie’s neighborhood and the area around the Brandon shopping center. Unfortunately, they didn’t find out anything that helped them find Bonnie and Jeremy.
Larry told the press that he thought the worst would happen. “It’s very clear to me that my daughter didn’t just disappear…”Someone did something bad to my daughter. It’s not clear because I can’t give a reason for it. I can’t figure out why they did it. I don’t get any of it…The main problem I see is that we don’t have any information.
Larry spent the day at the Kash ‘n Karry on June 3, 1993, where his daughter’s minivan had been found. He told the reporters that he was there to remind everyone that Jeremy and Bonnie were still down. He thought that someone must know something about their disappearance and hoped that person would come forward and tell the police what they knew. The man also said that Bonnie and Jeremy’s family had started to raise money so that they could offer a reward for information that led to their whereabouts.
Larry told her that he thought Bonnie and her son were being held against their will. “We think she can’t get in touch with us.” We’re sure she didn’t run away. He also talked about the unknown person Bonnie was going to meet the night she went missing and asked them to come forward. “We don’t want to kill this man.” That’s all we want to do: move on to the next part of the investigation.
It became clear after a few months that the investigation was beginning to slow down. Detectives were not able to find any solid information about the mother and son who went missing. Lindsay Dages, Bonnie’s mother, was sure that her daughter and grandson were dead, and she was heartbroken that police couldn’t find their killer.
Linda said it was hard for the family to deal with not knowing what happened to Bonnie and Jeremy. “We want to find someone who can help us find them and bring them home.” Also, they want to know who hurt them.
Detectives said they had talked to a lot of people but couldn’t find anyone who knew what happened to Bonnie. They even talked to a psychic in California to see if she could tell them anything new. Sgt. John Marsicano of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office told reporters that the town paid $1,000 for parapsychologist Kathy Rhea to fly to Florida. „She had worked for other firms. We didn’t have any other leads, and she was willing to give her time for free. They couldn’t use what she said to find Bonnie and her son.
NASA and the US Department of Defense took pictures from space over Brandon, Florida, in the hopes that they could help solve the mystery of what happened to Bonnie and Jeremy. Sgt. Marsicano ordered copies of the pictures but was still waiting for them to arrive. The photos didn’t show anything that could have helped the investigation, so it quickly went cold.
There is a missing persons display case at the Walmart in Bloomingdale, Florida, that was named after Bonnie and Jeremy in August 1995. There were dozens of missing person posters from all over the country in the case, which was put in the store’s lobby. It was a way for the community to let the Dages family know that they hadn’t forgotten about Bonnie and Jeremy.
In 1999, Bonnie’s parents made the hard choice to have both she and Jeremy legally declared dead. They were sure that the two had been killed. The judge agreed and granted their request, but that didn’t make them feel better. It was important to them to find their bodies so that they could bury them properly.
Bonnie and her son had not been seen or heard from since 2003. Linda Dages thought about what might have happened in the Kash ‘n Karry parking lot the night Bonnie and Jeremy went missing all the time. It was like she was stuck in time. It’s said, ‘Just move on with your life.’ You do your best because you have to.But there’s always that little bit of hope that they might be found in you. “You hope all the time.”
Linda took part in the “Have a Heart for Missing Children” walk in August 2003. She was there with other parents whose children were missing, friends, and police officers. The walk taught parents how to keep their kids safe and brought attention to the people who were missing.
Bonnie and Jeremy’s case didn’t get much attention from the news, even though double disappearances don’t happen very often. When they first went missing, there were a few short news stories, but the media quickly lost interest. Not even the anniversary of their disappearance got any attention.
Investigators talked to more than 700 people and searched for the missing mother and son several times over the years, but they never found out what happened to them. “It’s like they disappeared into thin air,” Capt. Craig Latimer said. We didn’t get anything. It’s not just a matter of “who did it?” but also “where is it?”
Larry told the news in June 2005 that he was upset with how the case had been played out. Besides his daughter, he had also lost his first grandchild. He said that Father’s Day was hard for him. “I have nightmares that happen while I’m awake, like during the day.” He thought the police hadn’t been very interested in the case because they thought Bonnie was silly for having a baby at such a young age.
Even though Larry didn’t give any names and admitted there wasn’t any proof, he thought he knew who the killer was. “I really think that the killer will be caught one day. “All I want is for it to happen in my lifetime.”
Over the next ten years, not much progress was made on the case. As of 2019, Linda said she still drove by the parking lot where Jeremy and Bonnie were last seen every day and thought about what might have happened to them. Bonnie was going to meet a neighbor that night who was 20 years older than her. She learned more about him over the years. It’s still not clear what kind of relationship they have.
Linda said that Bonnie had been seeing the man behind his back. “She thought she was in love with him and that he loved her, but he told her they had to keep their relationship a secret.” He was really using her, just like he had used other women. He likely thought Bonnie would be easy to get money from since she had money from her grandparents. She took out $15,000 from the bank to give to him, telling her friends that she was putting the money into a business.
Sadly, Bonnie seems to have been too caught up in love to see what the man really wanted. To keep the news from him, she told him that her life was about to change because he was going to marry her soon. She would have a new, happy life. Then Bonnie and Jeremy were no longer there. Gone away.”
The man was talked to by police soon after Bonnie and Jeremy were reported missing, but he denied having anything to do with her disappearance. He said he didn’t know her very well, wasn’t going to meet her the night she disappeared, and wasn’t going to do business with her or marry her. Even though Bonnie probably wouldn’t have lied to her friends about being with Jeremy, detectives found no signs of foul play and couldn’t connect this man or anyone else to the disappearance of Bonnie and Jeremy.
Bonnie’s family and friends think she was killed soon after she disappeared, but they don’t know if Jeremy died the same way. He was only four months old at the time, so there was no chance that he would be able to figure out who killed Bonnie. He may have been sold or adopted by a family who didn’t know his mother had been killed. Several years ago, a man came forward because he thought he might be the missing boy. However, a DNA test showed that this was not the case.
Jeremy and Bonnie haven’t been seen or heard from in more than 30 years, as of July 2023. Police still don’t know what happened to them. Linda only wants to know. “You’re always ready to hear something, even if it’s someone confessing on their deathbed.” We only need to know what took place.
Before she disappeared in April 1993, Bonnie Lee Dages was only 18 years old. She was last seen in Brandon, Florida. She told her friends she was going to meet the guy she was seeing so she could give him money to put into a business. This man has been identified, but he says he has nothing to do with Bonnie’s disappearance, and police have no proof that he did anything wrong. Bonnie is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. She has blue eyes and blonde hair. No one saw her last. She wore pink denim shorts, a blue T-shirt, and white sandals the last time she was seen.
He was only four months old when he and his mother went missing in April 1993. His eyes are blue and his hair is brown. It’s possible that he was adopted by a family who didn’t know he was missing.
Please call the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office at 813–247–8660 if you know anything about Bonnie and Jeremy.
