Gwen Barringer
IVN Contributing Writer

National Missing Persons Day was Feb. 3. According to the list that is available on oregon.gov, there are 1,231 people currently missing from the state of Oregon, and approximately 50 of those people are missing from Josephine County. Many of these individuals once called the Illinois Valley home, and their families are still waiting for answers after years have passed. Some have even been waiting for decades. Domingo Raul Ramirez grew up in Josephine County and attended both public and private schools in the Illinois Valley area. His mother, Yvonne Valdez, describes Ramirez as a bright and cheerful boy who grew into an intelligent and compassionate young man. On June 5, 2004, Ramirez left his residence with the intention of driving to Kelly Lake in Northern California with his dog, Kandi. A week after Ramirez had left Cave Junction, his vehicle and several of his personal possessions were discovered at Page Mountain Sno-Park. His dog, Kandi, was also found with multiple gunshot wounds. Though Kandi survived, Ramirez’s family and local law enforcement believe that Ramirez is likely deceased. At the time of his disappearance, Ramirez and his girlfriend were expecting their first child, a son who Ramirez never got the opportunity to meet. There are two men who are persons of interest in Ramirez’s case: Jose Luis Villegas-Cavada and Joel Brian Rico-Orozco. Despite this, no movement has been made in the investigation since 2006, when investigators announced that they had located evidence in Ramirez’s case in an unspecified foreign country. Teresa Joann Peroni was last seen in Selma, Oregon, July 3, 1983. She walked into the woods near 1270 Illinois River Road while arguing with her significant other, a man named Marcus Sanfratello. Peroni never emerged from the woods and was never seen again. In 1997, a Jane Doe was discovered approximately a half mile from Peroni’s last known location. These remains are currently awaiting DNA extraction in the hopes that they can be identified. In 1985, Sanfratello, the last person to have interacted with Peroni, was convicted of attempted murder after stabbing his ex-wife and her teenage daughter in Siskiyou County, Calif. Ericka Renee Hogg disappeared from the 7800 block of Deer Creek Road in Selma, Oregon, May 17, 2018. She was working at a marijuana farm in the vicinity with her boyfriend, Larry Anthony “Hannibal” Hopkins II. Hopkins told the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office that Hogg left the property during a mental health crisis. Hogg has schizophrenia and was unmedicated at the time of her disappearance, and Search and Rescue was not activated because Hogg may have been carrying a firearm. Kevin Gordon Hill left his home in Yakima, Washington in February 1987 on a motorcycle that he had recently bought. He was driving through Oregon on his way to California for reasons that remain unclear. Hill was last seen in the Oregon Caves Feb. 28. Hill had recently begun experiencing mental health issues and may have been experiencing delusions at the time of his last sighting. When asked to leave the Caves by an employee, Hill refused. His motorcycle was later recovered on a forest service road off of Caves Highway, and Hill has never been found. And of course, there is Toby Eugene Anderson, the 16-year-old-boy who disappeared sometime in November 1986. Anderson was on the front page of the Illinois Valley News in 2023 when the search for his remains was denied by the current owners of the property that Anderson was last known to be living on with his uncle Almer Willis “Billy” Wright. Wright is currently incarcerated in an Arkansas state prison after being convicted of child sex crimes. Each of these missing people’s cases has grown cold, but each of these individuals has friends and family who are waiting for the day when their loved ones will finally be found. For some, that moment will be one of closure. For others, it will simply be a moment that confirms what they have already known for many years. If you have any information about the disappearances of Domingo Ramirez or Teresa Peroni, please contact the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office at 541-474-5123. If you have information about the disappearances of Ericka Hogg or Toby Anderson, please contact the Oregon State Police at 503-934-0188. If you have information about the disappearance of Kevin Hill, please contact the Yakima Police Department at 509- 575-6200.