Family hopes arrests of sex offenders solve disabled Kentucky woman’s disappearance
Two men wanted for failing to register as sex offenders were arrested in Kentucky this week, and law enforcement says they are “parties of interest” in a Nicholas County woman’s disappearance.
Brendan Camous, 27, and Clinton Peterson, 29, were arrested Thursday, according to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado. Camous was being held in the Franklin County Regional Jail in Frankfort, while Peterson was being held in the Woodford County Detention Center in Versailles Saturday.
Both men were wanted on felony charges, including failure to register as sex offenders. Earlier this month, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office released information to locate them. At the time, they were thought to be homeless and possibly living in Colorado.
It’s unclear where they were arrested in Kentucky.
Law enforcement officers believe that in 2016, Camous and Peterson were living in a shack in the woods in Nicholas County near the same place Lori Feltz went missing, according to affidavits filed by a deputy U.S. marshal in U.S. District Court in Lexington.
Feltz, 58, had been in a car crash years ago and had mental challenges as a result. She lived with one of her sisters, retired Lexington police officer Tricia Langley, in a farmhouse in Nicholas County. On Dec. 26, 2016, she set out to walk the short distance from the farmhouse to a log home nearby that Langley owns, said their sister Kathy Bauer. She never arrived.
In an interview Saturday, Bauer said that she believes Camous and Peterson had something to do with Feltz’s disappearance, and she hopes their arrests will lead to some answers.
“I do feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, but then it’s coupled with other emotions, like bringing back the thoughts of what Lori might have had to endure,” Bauer said. “It’s kind of like lifting a Band-Aid off an old wound, but it’s a day that we’ve been hoping and praying for.”
The affidavits filed in federal court state that Peterson’s mother, Penny Snapp, lived near Feltz. While law enforcement officers were searching for Feltz soon after her disappearance, they found the shack on Snapp’s property. A sheriff’s deputy talked with two men who he now believes were Camous and Peterson, though he did not know at the time that they were fugitives, the affidavits say.
The deputy U.S. marshal says in the affidavits that a woman told law enforcement officers that she hid the two men in the crawl space under her home in Millersburg for three weeks in early 2017 before taking them back to Snapp.
The woman also said that “Penny Snapp told her that Peterson and Camous had found a body with its head bashed on the farm. However, no one notified police, and the body has not been recovered,” the affidavits state.
Bauer said Feltz would not have been likely to wander off. “She was not one to want to walk,” she said. “She wouldn’t have walked far.”
She said a search was conducted by helicopter and by people on horseback and on ATVs.
“They didn’t find anything,” Bauer said. “There was a great effort by many different agencies to find her immediately.”
In the four years that have passed, Bauer said, “We’ve not ever just given up.”
“I can only hope that somebody talks,” she said.
She said Feltz was “beautiful and sweet.”
“She was very trusting and very happy,” Bauer said. “She deserved better.”
According to the affidavit in Peterson’s case, Peterson was convicted in 2013 of sexual assault of a child in Colorado after he took pictures of sexual conduct with a 3-year-old child. According to the affidavit in Camous’ case, Camous was convicted in 2014 of sexual assault of a child in Colorado after he had sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl.
Peterson and Camous were living together in Colorado when they allegedly stopped reporting to probation officers and had warrants issued for their arrests in early 2015, court documents show.
Bauer said it’s concerning that the men were on probation at all.
“We really want to try and push for reform,” she said.
Bauer said she and Feltz grew up in a family with six siblings — four girls and two boys — but she and Feltz were just a year apart and were particularly close.
In 1978, Bauer said, Feltz had returned home to Wisconsin to attend Bauer’s wedding shower and was driving with their younger brother when the two of them were involved in a head-on collision that left their brother dead and Lori Feltz in a coma.
While the crash changed Feltz’s life, “you couldn’t catch her feeling too sorry for herself,” Bauer said.
“One of her favorite sayings was, ‘Well, C’est la vie!,’” Bauer said. “And if I didn’t answer, ‘Oui,’ she would look at me until I did.”
For years, Bauer said, Feltz lived with and was cared for by a family in Wisconsin.
“She was happy,” Bauer said, but “she always, always said, ‘But I want to live with my real family.’”
Bauer said that opportunity became possible when Langley began caring for their mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. They set the farmhouse up as a “care home” of sorts, Bauer said, and Feltz moved there too.
“It was working out quite well,” Bauer said.
On the morning of Dec. 26, 2016, Bauer said, Langley had gone to clean the log house, which she often rented to overnight guests. Langley left word with Feltz’s caregiver at the farmhouse that Feltz could walk over and help after breakfast, something Feltz enjoyed doing.
Bauer said the caregiver texted Langley when Feltz left. But Feltz never made it to the cabin, and the search soon began.
Bauer said she made the trip from her home in Ohio to Kentucky.
When she arrived, she said she thought about how loudly Feltz could whistle. As Bauer walked the area, she whistled as loud as she could, hoping her sister could hear and know they were coming for her.
“We’re still coming for her,” she said.
This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 11:17 AM.
