SPRINGFIELD — Every day we hear about other people’s struggles and tragedies, and there are times we think that will not happen to us, but then it does.
For more than two years, a Springfield family has battled, not knowing what happened to Cameron Baugh.
One day he was there, the next day he was gone.
Cameron was born on March 28, 2002. His mother, Shannon Baugh, said, “Cameron was a beautiful baby.” He brought so much joy to his mother and his sister, Jessica.
“Anything I asked him to do, he would do it. He’s so good,” Jessica said.
Cameron also had a bigger-than-life sense of humor.
“He always wanted to make people laugh. Like that was just what made him happy. To make other people happy,” Jessica said.
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However, life was not easy for Cameron and his family. While his mother battled with drugs, alcohol, and rehab, Cameron faced different struggles.
“My son is very small in stature and he’s gay,” Shannon said.
After Cameron came out about his sexuality, Jessica said he was more “himself”, but Shannon’s struggles got worse.
In the summer of 2023, Shannon and Cameron did not have their own place.
He would always stay with friends.
With Shannon’s addiction, she went weeks without seeing her son.
But they talked regularly on the phone, and then the week of October 20, 2023, with Shannon desperate to help herself, she saw Cameron standing along Leffel Lane in Springfield.
“He said, Mom, I’m homeless. I don’t have anywhere to go. He had a backpack on his back, and I couldn’t help him because I was staying in the car myself. I had nowhere to go,” Shannon said.
Shannon told Cameron she was checking herself into a Dayton rehab facility.
“I felt guilty. I felt guilty, but I couldn’t help him. There was just nothing I could do,” Shannon said.
When Shannon drove away that day, she had no idea that her son would disappear without a trace.
Det. Kyle Sullivan with Springfield Police said, “It’s extremely frustrating. Obviously, I have a job, and my job is locating Cameron for them.”
Sullivan got the case when Shannon reported her son missing in December 2023. Early in the fall, Clark County Sheriff’s Deputies caught Cameron and some friends vandalizing a Clark County church.
Sullivan called the charges minor. When it came time for court, Cameron’s friends showed up, but Cameron did not.
“It’s not common for somebody to just stop communication with somebody that they’ve been seeing or running around with or staying with,” Sullivan said.
However, nothing led investigators to believe that his friends or acquaintances had anything to do with Cameron’s disappearance.
“What was odd about this case to me, he was 21 at the time when it was reported, and there was no known social media or cell phone or anything like that,” Sullivan said.
Cameron’s family said he never had much interest in social media, and when he disappeared, his phone was not working because he did not have the money to pay for it.
Sullivan’s case file on Cameron is meticulous.
“Case facts, family, known parties, tips, NamUs,” Sullivan said. NAMUS is the national database that police use to help identify missing people.
Cameron’s fingerprints are in NamUs, but nothing.
“Something has happened. I have a horrible, just sick feeling in my stomach,” Shannon said.
In August of 2025, Cameron’s sister saw a Facebook post. In March, a woman thought she saw Cameron at a homeless camp in some nearby woods.
When Sullivan checked the area behind the old Big Lots on Leffel Lane, everyone was gone. Months earlier, city crews moved in and cleaned up the area.
“Am I looking for somebody that’s still alive, or am I looking for closure for the family more or less? Getting him identified and where he would be,” Sullivan said.
When Sullivan was asked if he thought Cameron was still alive, he said, “My gut is telling me I hope he is for his family’s sake.”
Sullivan and Cameron’s mother and sister are certain somebody knows what happened to him.
Every day, Shannon lives with the guilt that she did not do more two years ago. The last thing she said to Cameron that day... “I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me, too, and that he was going to go to the shelter. I thought he was going to,”
Shannon prays somehow, someday, she can again tell Cameron, “I love you.”
Because Cameron was small and not able to defend himself, his mom and sister feared he might have wound up a sex trafficking victim. Sullivan said there is no evidence of that.
While it is possible, he met someone and left Springfield on his own, and Cameron not calling any family members has detective Sullivan more concerned.
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