Thursday, August 19, 1999
Father asks help in finding daughter
17-year-old may be with man, 32
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
J. Michael Revis of Middletown tapes posters of his daughter to the door of a restaurant where she was last seen.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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MADISON TOWNSHIP — J. Michael Revis can't hear, but he's trying to get others to listen. His 17-year-old daughter has been missing for more than three weeks. She is believed to be with a 32-year-old man who has a criminal past. And Mr. Revis needs help finding her.
“It's not easy to try and find your child, being deaf and trying to communicate to the public about your child's whereabouts,” Mr. Revis wrote in an e-mail. “However, I don't think I feel any different than a hearing parent would.”
Mr. Revis, 39, was born deaf in one ear, but has partial hearing in the other. He speaks rather well, but cannot hear what others say, so he must use an interpreter or a special phone system to communicate with people who can hear — systems that hearing people often don't understand or lack the patience to deal with.
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AT LARGE
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 Nichole Marie Revis
• Age 17.
• 5-foot-8.
• 145 pounds.
• Long, curly, dyed-blond hair.
• Green-blue eyes; freckles around her nose.
Timothy Charles Hill
• Age 32.
• 5-foot-8.
• 185 pounds.
• Short, dark brown hair.
• Wears a goatee.
• Brown eyes.
• Drives a black 1990 Ford Thunderbird with an expired Ohio temporary license tag. Anyone with information is asked to call the Butler County Sheriff's Office, (513) 424-2456, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, (800) THE-LOST.
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So he has relied largely on the Internet — and on fliers he hands out at highway rest stops — to spread the word about the disappearance of his daughter, Nichole Marie Revis, 17.
“He's communicating very effectively. Thank goodness for the Internet because it can really help people in a situation like his,” said Chris Wilder, assistant director of the Vanished Children's Alliance in San Jose, Calif.
Since its inception in 1980, the association has worked on cases of 22,000 missing children — 90 percent of whom were found, Mr. Wilder said.
Public apathy about runaways such as Nichole is troubling, Mr. Wilder said, “because children who run away are still missing — and they're at great risk.” Once runaways have been gone at least two weeks, they have a 70 percent chance of becoming victimized or involved in drugs, prostitution or pornography, he said.
Although some children run away with an older companion voluntarily — as presumed in Nichole's case — “a lot of times, they're not aware of that older person's checkered past or criminal history,” he said. “There's a lot of mystery and intrigue about running away, and they may not know what they're getting into.”
Investigators said Nichole is probably with Timothy C. Hill, who worked with her at the Perkins restaurant at 1610 Germantown Road in Madison Township, said Butler County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Thacker.
“She was last seen with him,” Sgt. Thacker said, adding that no charges have been filed against Mr. Hill. But authorities want to question him in connection with Nichole's disappearance.
Sgt. Thacker recently ended work on a similar case, in which 16-year-old Bessie Lou McCoy fled to Texas with James H. “Jay” Smith of Trenton.
The pair were found in January, after they had been gone four months. Mr. Smith pleaded guilty to several charges in the case.
Mr. Hill, a Middletown native, was convicted of corruption of a minor in 1991, after being intimately involved with a 14-year-old girl when he was 24, Butler County court records show. He served four months of a two-year prison sentence, but was released on probation.
Mr. Hill, who was divorced in 1990 after a one-year marriage, also has been convicted of cocaine abuse, assault and falsification. His most recent arrest, in March, resulted in his second drunken-driving conviction, Middletown police and court records show.
Meanwhile, Nichole's father worries his daughter is throwing away a bright future.
Nichole is scheduled to enter her senior year at Madison High School, where she has been an honor student and a member of the drill team. She has been offered several college scholarships, her father said. Nichole served a brief stint on the wrestling team, but quit after her father became ill and required abdominal surgery, Mr. Revis said.
“I believe that if my daughter knew the real truth about (Mr. Hill), she would not have left with him,” Mr. Revis said. “I don't know whether my daughter is in danger or not, but I don't like what his record says about him.”
Mr. Hill's sister, Vycki Amis, 28, of Middletown, said her brother is ashamed of his past and wouldn't do anything to hurt Nichole.
“He said, "I know you think I'm crazy, but I love her. And now that I know what love is, I couldn't stand to lose it,'” Ms. Amis said. “Both of them, it was like the only thing they could think about was a way to be together.”
Ms. Amis, who also is a shift manager at the Perkins where her brother and Nichole worked, said, “I feel caught in the middle. He's my brother, and I was pretty close with her, too, so I've lost two people.”
Nichole had worked at the Perkins for about a year and a half. When Mr. Hill started working there a few months ago, co-workers noticed the pair were drawn to each other, said Berty Puckett, another manager.
“It was definitely not one-sided,” she said.
Mr. Revis said he was dismayed to learn that his daughter had become romantically involved with someone almost twice her age. On July 13, he went to authorities to see if they could intervene. The next day, Butler County Sheriff's Office deputies warned Mr. Hill that Nichole's father wanted the relationship to end.
By July 25, she was gone.
On that day, Ms. Puckett said she saw Nichole “standing at the door (of the restaurant), looking like she was waiting for a ride,” sometime around 3:30 p.m. At the time, Ms. Puckett said she thought nothing of it, because Nichole didn't drive and her grandparents would pick her up at times.
Now Ms. Puckett realizes she may have been the last local person to see Nichole before she disappeared.
“I have an 18-year-old daughter, and it would just drive me crazy if she was gone,” Ms. Puckett said, standing behind a counter where a stack of fliers about Nichole was sitting.
“They're still your kids, even if they're grown up or almost grown up.”
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