Steven Earl Kraft, Jr. was born in 1989 to Steven Earl Kraft Sr. and Chyrille Ganczak-Kraft. The family resided at 2103 Holly Drive in Benton Heights, Michigan, an incorporated community of Benton Harbor.
By all accounts, Benton Heights was a tight-knit community in 2001—one where everybody knew everybody and probably everybody’s business as well.
Steven, known to family and friends as “Stevie,” (Davelyne, 2024) was 12 years old and attended the sixth grade at Hull Elementary School, about a mile from his home. His teachers and classmates said he was a quiet boy with few friends.
Steven knew many people in Benton Heights and was familiar with the area.
His older sister, Jodi, lived less than a mile away with her husband and young son. Steven also went to her house to visit his nephew and eat a meal. He also liked to roam around his neighborhood.
On February 15, 2001, Chyrille was fixing dinner at 6:30 p.m. when Steven left home with their two family dogs, an older German Shepherd/Chow mix and the other a six-month-old German Shepherd puppy. The boy wore his aqua and purple Charlotte Hornets jacket over a white, tan, and brown-striped shirt. He wore blue jeans and slipped on black Lugz boots before heading out the door. Steven did not take a hat or gloves, intending to be gone briefly. He was due home by 8 p.m. (Ferrante, 2023)
At 9 p.m., Steven had still not returned home, so Chyrille called Jodi, assuming the boy decided to eat dinner with his sister and her family. However, Jodi said she had not seen Steven all day.
Steven’s father began searching for Steven. A neighbor told him he saw the boy and the two dogs around 6:45 p.m., shortly after Steven left home (Davelyne). The boy was heading toward a nearby field, and the neighbor did not notice anything or anyone unusual. Steven often took the dogs with him around the neighborhood. He was last seen in the neighborhood between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Steven’s parents called the police when the boy never returned home, and a search began that night.
The police tracked paw prints and Steven’s boot prints east of the Kraft home to an iced-covered pond behind Harbor Haven Ministries, 2373 Irving Street, but then lost the scent. Did Steven enter someone’s vehicle? The location is about two blocks from the Kraft home. There was no indication on the ice that Steven had fallen through.
A more extensive search continued, but the authorities found no clues about his whereabouts.
Then, three days later, Steven’s older dog returned home, freezing and hungry but without injuries. Steven’s father noticed she showed signs of anxiety and fear, which the dog had not exhibited before. The dog led its owners to the ice-covered pond, but no evidence of Steven was found. (Good, 2022).
The next day, the puppy was found near Blue Creek, cold and hungry but otherwise in good shape.
Authorities and volunteers continued searching for Steven, including areas around Blue Creek, for months without success.
There were sightings of Steven following his disappearance, but none were the missing boy. Investigators continued receiving leads and investigated all of them, but none led to Steven.
Steven’s family never believed he had run away, although the police were initially skeptical. Shortly before his disappearance, Steven had served a five-day school suspension following an altercation between him and another student who initiated the fight. Steven only defended himself, but the principal had to suspend both boys per school policy. Investigators went to the school and interviewed students and teachers and were satisfied that Steven did not run away.
The case eventually turned cold, but an active investigation remains.
The Kraft family never gave up hope that Steven would be found. Each year, on his birthday, they made him a birthday cake in his honor.
I think Steven voluntarily entered a vehicle near Harbor Haven Ministries and knew the driver. That person likely killed him and dumped his body elsewhere. I also believe many people in Benton Heights knew what happened to the boy but remain silent for whatever reasons.
In the podcast “Inside the FBI,” Special Agent Trisha Kovac of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office said:
“I think some people are hesitant, and it’s easy to sit back and put it off when you’re anxious about giving away information. Unfortunately, a lot of witnesses, a lot of people over the years who had some sort of a tangential knowledge of the others around at the time and things, they have passed away for various reasons.
I don’t want any witnesses to go before they can give us their answers. And I’m hoping, perhaps, as some of them are aging and getting older and realizing their own mortality, that maybe they’ll realize this is something they shouldn’t take with them and that they need to give peace to the community and to Steven’s family before they depart. “
Sadly, that never happened with the boy’s parents. Steven’s father died unexpectedly on February 19, 2021, 20 years, almost to the day after his son disappeared. Steven’s mother, Chyrille, followed on April 3, 2021. The home the family lived in when Steven vanished was torn down sometime after 2005.
Sources
Good, Meaghan. “Steven Earl Kraft II.” The Charley Project. July 14, 2022. https://charleyproject.org/case/steven-earl-kraft-ii
Davelyne. “The Baffling Disappearance of Steven Earl Kraft.” Vocal Media. September 2024. https://vocal.media/criminal/the-baffling-disappearance-of-steven-earl-kraft
Ferrante, Ellen. “Inside the FBI Podcast: Searching for Steven.” August 18, 2023. https://www.fbi.gov/video-repository/inside-the-fbi-searching-for-steven-081823.mp4/view