Crystal Lynn Russ -- Missing From Houston, Texas

Details from NamUs**: 

The MP drove a taxi cab and was last seen at an Exxon gas station near Crosstimbers and I45 in Houston, Texas.

Missing Person: Crystal Lynn Russ

Alias: Crystal Lynn Cason (possibly name changed due to adoption), Crystal Lynn Herrera (she was married for a few years)

Last-contact date: April 13th, 2000
The area where the MP was last seen: Houston, Texas at Crosstimbers and I-45
Link to government source: NamUs #78585

VITAL DETAILS

Ethnicity: Caucasian
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 25 years old

Birthdate: March 17th, 1975
Hair: Red/Auburn
Eyes: Green
Scar: None listed at NamUs
Height/weight: 5-foot-4 and 135 to 140 pounds
BMI*: Crystal Lynn Russ was in the normal range for BMI.
Tattoos: Crystal Lynn Russ did not have any tattoos associated with her profiles. If you know this to be a mistake, then please contact this site.

Crystal Lynn Russ, a missing person, was last heard from on April 13th, 2000 when she was 25 years old. This individual has now been missing for 21 years as of the original publication date of this blog post.

This case was not one where details were readily available. I searched for her name with and without the middle name at newspapers.com and nothing came up. Nor were there any hits on the web for her name and nor did an image search for her picture bring anything up. It seems like this is an uncovered case in journalism.

I was able to find a very helpful online profile for this individual at Ancestry.com. That's where I got her birthdate. It's also indicated at this profile that she had been married, perhaps multiple times. On her profile, her date of disappearance is listed as her date of death. That could be presumptive on the part of the individual that made Crystal's profile.

What stands out to me with this case is the NamUs description. My assumption was that she went missing during a shift as a taxi driver, however, I did find a post that suggested that Crystal was both a taxi driver and a trainee for an Exxon Station manager.

Someone named Margo Anne Cason Smith, likely a relative of Crystal's, took an interest in this case. I will repost her statements on Crystal's disappearance in case the statements should get deleted at the original-post location. The post was titled "Missing" and it was written on June 1st, 2012:

Crystal was very ill for about a week before she was taken. She had 2 ear infections. She started feeling better and asked me Wednesday if she could go back to work.  I told her to wait one more day and see how she was feeling.  She came to me on Thursday morning and told me that her other ear had popped and she was feeling much better and that she was going to go to work for awhile before she went to her training job.  She was training to be a manager of an Exxon Station.  She was driving one of my taxi's.  She went to the airport and got one trip off. Not sure where she went. She went to her other job, she worked from 10pm to 6am.  She told her manager about 2am that her ear was starting to hurt again and asked if she could leave a little early. Manager told her sure, it's slow.  She left at 2:15 am. A friend tried to call out for her as he drove into the station, but wether she heard or not, we will never know.  That was the last anyone saw of her, that knew her.  Her last phone call was a friend at 8 pm. We found the car a week later after I put a reward out on it, with no questions asked, to every cab company in Houston.  Her personal items were still in the cab,(birthday cards, favorite perfume, fingernail polish, stuffed animals) the ID holder had been cut in half (why?) all you had to do is slide her ID out of the holder.  All of her "for sale" beanie babies were gone and other things that could be a quick small sale.  What happened?  She is still missing. Her husband, Kevin, is still missing her.  We are all missing her. Her children still ask questions. I have no answers.  If she ever reads this,Crystal please come home, we still Love You.

 Margo Anne (Gersdorf) Cason Smith

Missing from a gas station late at night could invoke shades of the Jessica Heeringa missing person case from 2013. That's not to say that these cases are related but the similarities are still interesting to compare and contrast.

One big difference is that Jessica went missing after her scheduled shift, whereas Crystal went home early. Jessica was being stalked and her stalker knew when her shift ended. If Crystal was being stalked then ending her shift early would have been a curveball for her stalker. Furthermore, Jessica was abducted at the scene of the gas station whereas Crystal, according to the description above, left the gas station in a vehicle she was operating.

I think a major detail, in this case, is that Crystal Lynn Russ was driving a taxi cab. There is an indication that she picked up a fare earlier in the night before her shift. I wonder if she received a fare request during her shift at the gas station and decided to take that taxi work instead of completing her gas-station shift. Conversely, maybe she received a fare request on her way home and decided to take it.

The sliced ID holder is something to think about. For me, it hints that someone other than Crystal was in the car. What I am picturing here is that this person wanted to rid the car of Crystal's ID so as to prolong any investigation. The author of the post I quoted asks why he (presumingly a "he") simply wouldn't slide the ID out. My answer is that maybe he didn't know that was an option due to a lack of familiarity with the device. If you have ever struggled with something incredibly simple just because it was your first time using it, you will understand this. He cut the ID holder to get rid of the ID because he didn't realize that the ID could be removed in a far simpler manner.

Someone left these comments on this blog post. I repost them in case they are later deleted. I have not been able to authenticate the identity of the commenter so they can only be taken as food for thought.

"My daughter had several tattoo's. On the back of her neck in about 1 inch English Script she had SMITH. She had a small heart on I believe the outside of her left leg down towards the ankle. She had a couple others, but I can't remember.

The car was located at an apartment house, that has been torn down and I think there is a clinic there now. I don't know if the police found any fingerprints?? They had the car for about a month and tore it apart. They still have all her private belongings that were left in the car."

Please share this article to social media using hashtags that are related to where the missing person went missing from, which is Houston, Texas.

Author: S.K. Lambert (Blogger Hobbyist and Freelance Writer)

All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

S.K. Lambert (Blogger Hobbyist and Freelance Writer) is not a Private Investigator, however, he is currently studying to be one as of March 2021.

Website hashtag: #MPCSL

*For BMI values, I use the UPPER or HIGHER ranges that are given for height and weight.
**Text might be paraphrased. If taken verbatim, then grammar or spelling errors are not necessarily corrected from original sources.
Disclaimer: Whenever possible, government sources are preferred for getting the details of a missing person's case. However, any source that the article writer deems reputable may be used.