Dark clouds to the south and marginally lighter ones all overhead lent a somberness to the light very much fitting the tenth anniversary date when 24-year-old, 5’5” 115-pound mother of two young boys Madeline Tomlin was reportedly last seen here on May 19th 2015. Photos of the location, with its two vacant and decrepit buildings on the north side and weathered yellow warehouse on the south, can be seen below this article. A potential witness told police she may have gotten into a gold or tan 2000s-year model single-cab Chevy pickup. She has not been heard from since.
For older half-sister Haley Hinton and her and Madeline’s younger sister Miranda Tomlin, the date brings profound disappointment. No one could have persuaded either of them in the first days after Madeline disappeared that in ten years, there would be no new information, only maddening rumors spread on social media.
Hinton described the experience of recently finding misinformation about her sister’s case in Facebook comments: “People [are] saying stuff that don't have any clue as to what they're talking about, saying they heard that a bone fragment and one of her rings was found near Fulton, and the police just weren't doing anything about it, because they didn't have the money and the time to send out the people. I probably shouldn't have even responded, but I did because it's just so silly, because we're her family. Do you think if there was bone fragment or a ring found that we wouldn't know about it?”
Anger and the sense of loss are the emotions that surround the anniversary date for Hinton. “So it's frustrating for one, and then for two, just for me, it's just very solemn, because here we are, ten years later, and we don't have any more answers than we did the first week after her being missing. And I hate it for myself, selfishly, but I hate it for my family and for her sons.”
For Miranda Tomlin, with whom Madeline spent most of her childhood and teen years in the same household, with Haley living in a different place, the grief and the frustration is present but also the bitter unlikelihood of her sister’s ten-year absence and the absence of clues about what happened to her or her whereabouts.
“No one ever thinks that this is going to happen,” Miranda Tomlin said. “I definitely didn't see us being here ten years later. For it to have gone on as long as this, and just for the sheer lack of answers that we've gotten as a family and then as a community too, because I know there are a lot of people that really do care about what happened to her and want us to have answers. Obviously, there are people that you know don't, and they just are fueled by the drama of it all. But I don't know. It's kind of a strange and surreal feeling.”
With no vigils occurring and no mass searches, Hinton and Tomlin said they had no particular plans for the anniversary date. But over these ten years they have found one helpful way to cope. As Miranda Tomlin explained, “I think for me, just talking about her in general, and just kind of keeping the memory alive, among us, especially. I know it really helps me to talk to Haley about her, obviously, because we knew her better than anybody.”
Madeline, they both said, had a charisma and a sense of humor that lifted the mood of anyone nearby with zingers and one-liners. “She was an entertainer from the start,” Miranda Tomlin said. “She was the first grandchild on our mother's side of the family. She enjoyed putting on a show. She kind of lit up the room in most of the situations that she was in. If Madeline was there, then it was a good time. She just kind of liked to joke around, pick at people. She loved to tell jokes.”
Hinton said that her hijinks were also hard to ignore. “If she was there, she was going to be the one entertaining everybody, and she was really loud and boisterous … but it wasn't really in an obnoxious way. She was just going to get your attention and she was going to make sure that it was held on her.”
Madeline also enjoyed taking on different looks, the sisters said. This can be seen in the number of photos that have been released of her showing different styles and colors of hair, different make-up, different styles of dress.
“Since I was the older sister, she always wanted to come and raid my closet or my jewelry,” Hinton said. She loved makeup and hair and doing all that. And she loved getting ready and going out, whether it was just out to eat, for a night of fun, whatever. She enjoyed being a girl and getting dressed up and dolled up and going out. Everyone always complimented her on her style or her hair or her makeup, and told her how pretty she was. And she thrived on that, because who wouldn't, right?
Perhaps the best place to hear the sisters remember both the good and the bad times Madeline experienced is a February 13, 2023 episode of The Vanished podcast, in which Miranda described the poverty-stricken and often dangerous conditions in which she and Madeline lived when in their mother’s custody. They even witnessed a violent home invasion attack against their mother. When Madeline reached her middle to late teen years, she became ensnared in drug addiction, to the point of having to entrust her two baby boys to relatives to take care of them. As the podcast makes clear, Madeline was perhaps at her addiction’s lowest point when she went missing.
Both Hinton and Tomlin agree the podcast was of a high quality, but they were disappointed that it did not result in investigators having more to go on in the search for what happened to Madeline.
Hinton said the podcast did make the story better known and she received feedback from many who heard it. “It [led to] a lot of awareness. [Madeline’s story] hadn't been seen in a while, because it's just been so long. Right after it, a lot of people would come up and say, ‘Oh, Haley, I heard Madeline's podcast, and it was done really well, and we're so sorry for you.’ But it still didn't bring us any answers.”
The sisters have planned no rituals, no get-togethers for Tuesday May 20th this year. “I mean to just observe it,” Haley Hinton said. “Because it's not like a happy date for me. I know my dad always gets really upset this time of year. I'll probably spend it at work for the most part, and then, usually, me and Miranda, will call and or text each other and check on each other, and then I call and check on my dad, and that that's really kind of what it consists of for me.” Miranda Tomlin calls it a “dim day” and said, “I try not to think about it as much as humanly possible.”
Detective Casey Singleton of the Hope Police Department was among the officers responding to the missing persons report filed about a week after Madeline was last seen and is currently in charge of the investigation. Miranda Tomlin said she wants people reading this article to know they can provide any information they may have that may be relevant to her sister’s case to Detective Singleton without any fear of their identity being shared. “No names will be issued in anything. They can feel free and feel safe to talk about it,” she said.
In an email to SWARK.Today, answering questions about the case, Detective Singleton, who took the lead on the case in April of last year, explained how the first report of her being missing came to the attention of the police department. “A family member was contacted by a friend of Madeline Tomlin and stated that Madeline had not been seen for approximately a week. This was unlike Tomlin and began to raise concerns. Tomlin was last seen on May 19, 2015 in the area of 306 East Ave. B,” he said.
He said the investigation found no evidence she planned to be gone and that “it is unknown what items may or may have not been with her at the time of her disappearance.”
Asked if leads are still being investigated, Singleton said, “Yes, this is case is an open case with the City of Hope. Along with the Hope Police Department, several other Law Enforcement Agencies including the Hempstead County Sheriff's Department, Arkansas State Police, and the FBI [are involved in the case]. All leads that are formed are investigated until the lead is exhausted.”
Singleton can be reached at 870-777-3434 or csingleton@hopearkansas.net.
