“She’s tops, as far as I’m concerned,” says Marc Benson, a private investigator, former
detective in the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Department, recent candidate for the
sheriff’s job and the host of Blue Line Radio on The Big Talker (106.3 FM). “I first ran
into her 16 or 17 years ago, when I was a detective sergeant in the Sheriff’s Department.”
Benson’s first impression of Caison left him thinking she was just a “soccer mom,”
doing what she could to find people who’d gone missing — thinking, too, “Good for
her, but we’re the professionals here, so don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
In the spring of 1998, Benson found himself re-assessing his original impressions of
Caison and her organization. In April of that year, 32-year-old bride-to-be Peggy Carr
was abducted from a mall parking lot in Wilmington. One day, she was here; the next
day, she was not. She’d disappeared quickly and completely, and lacking evidence to the
contrary, law enforcement officials considered the possibility that her disappearance, in
spite of her impending marriage, was voluntary. Without a clue to work on, the investigation
languished. Displeased with this sort of response from law enforcement officials,
Peggy’s mother called Monica Caison, whose private phone remains the direct line to
what was then the fledgling and relatively unknown CUE Center for Missing Persons.
Seven months after Peggy’s disappearance, Caison and her volunteer army were instrumental
in discovering the whereabouts of Carr’s remains in Bladen County.
“It became a multi-state investigation, a national media case,” says Caison, “and
it taught us everything. We worked side by side with law enforcement, set up a 24-
hour tip line. The FBI would pick up our logs. We were learning, too. It was the
first time, really, that the full weight of the resources (we had) came to bear. We
kept (the case) in the public eye, just kept plugging and plugging, constantly searching.
It was our landmark case.”
40
WBM march 2011
Counterclockwise:
The search party
for Branson Perry in
Missouri. Caison and
cadaver dog Heidi
work in Tennessee to
find Rachel Conger.
Caison with Lisa
Valentino, sister
of Allison Jackson
Foy, at the site off
Carolina Beach Road
where Jackson Foy’s
body was found. All
photographs courtesy
of Monica Caison.