Missing persons cases happen everywhere and for all intents and purposes, for many reasons.
Some people are victims of a kidnapping, taken away by force, with weapons or threats. They sometimes escape, but often don’t. Some victims are never found. They are victims of a car jacking or home invasion or simply taken when walking or bicycling down the street – even their own street. These cases often go unsolved for years, sometimes forever.
Sometimes a wife goes missing and more times than not, it turns out she was brutally murdered by non other than her own spouse. The person who promises to love and protect her is the one who ultimately takes her life. This is a terrible crime (not like some crimes are any less terrible, so I do not know why I even said that) – this crime is sometimes called a crime of passion but that is a crock, if you know what I mean. It is murder, pure and simple – if murder can ever be simple. The loss of a loved one is never simple. Sometimes when the husband kills his wife she is pregnant and therefore the baby sadly also dies, sometimes he also kills his children.
Sometimes people go missing and it is because of an accident. Their car goes over a cliff and they are not found for years; or someone is hiking and they slip into a crevice and never found. There are many ways to go missing.
And sometimes it is the mother who kills her own children; the babies that grew in her womb, the children that she gave birth to and nurtured as an infant are murdered by their own mommies and reported missing, sometimes gone for months before being found, and as with all missing person’s cases, sometimes never found. This is a hard one for me to wrap my brain around – speaking as a mother with a missing child.
Some people children are taken away by one of their own parents – parental abduction is a huge crime often not reported, as people incorrectly assume that if a parent takes the child they are relatively safe from harm. This is so wrong. Facts show that the trauma to children abducted by one of their parents goes long into adulthood, making it no easier on the kidnapping victims in the long run, except they possibly were not physically or sexually abused and they are rarely killed.
Some people are kidnapped by a human trafficking ring and forced to do anything and everything you can imagine – children forced to work 10 to 20 hours a day in sweat shops to make name brand clothing for pennies a day; man forced to work in marijuana grow operations; woman & children, boys and girls, forced into the sex trade – victimized over and over, day after day, sometimes getting away, sometimes taking their own lives rather than face a future such as this…some like child victim Johnny Gosch – missing over 2 decades – TWO DECADES, my God. Or like my daughter, Jessie Foster, missing and for 3 years, heard from again – others have never been heard from again, EVER.
Can you even imagine what these poor people went through? These human beings who are treated like someone’s own property, treated worse than any animal should ever be treated – what they went through would have been ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE – ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. I know I cannot imagine and I have been living the nightmare a mother lives when her daughter is a victim like my daughter is.
Can you even imagine what the family goes through when their loved one is missing? The mothers…the daughters…the wives…the husbands…the siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins…not to mention the elderly relatives, the grandmothers & grandfathers?? The pain is indescribable; it is something you do not wish on even your worst enemies.
Now can you imagine someone choosing to do this to their families & friends…to their loved ones? I certainly can’t. Well it happens and it happens a lot. As a matter of fact, right now, as of today, there are 2 such cases in the news that are garnering attention. “Bartlesville resident David Lee Rockey
disappeared when he was my age…51 years old. He told his family he had a job interview in nearby Skitook back in August 2002 – he never arrived and his car was found in a Tulsa International Airport parking lot the very next day. Recently this poor excuse for a man tried to get a driver’s licence at the South Dakota DPS – sending up an alert that he had surfaced”. It has been almost 7 years of hell for his family and friends and you know what – he deserves to go to jail for what he put them and the police through. The expense of a missing persons case can ultimately run into the millions…no, not a year – PER PERSON!
Then there is the case that is very near and dear to my heart. The case of a man I have never met and whose wife of over 28 years I have never met but to tell you something, Maureen is family to me. We are in a family together. The family of those with a missing loved one in their life. No one wants to be in this family, but you know what, if you are missing a loved one, there is not a better place to be than in the comfort of those who tread down this terrible path before us. This is the case of MSGT USMC RET Jon R. Van Dyke
– missing from Las Vegas since May 19, 2005. Nearly one year before my daughter JESSIE FOSTER went missing in Las Vegas (March 29, 2006), who also resurfaced recently. Maureen saw him on May 11, 2009 and knew this was not her Jon. For all he put her through, I guess he suffered too – however, possibly not quite enough, because he now deserves to charged with something for what he put his wife, daughters, grandson, family and friends through for 4 years – this is more than someone ever should have to deal with.
This is one of the most horrendous things for someone to deal with, with all your heart, soul and might you search, you fight to find them and you face the world with the story of their disappearance and how this person would NEVER, EVER choose to leave their family. Then you find out they did. This person you loved and cherished and shared your life with has put you through this terrible thing BY CHOICE.
Wow, I do not know how this could ever be accepted. I just do not know. But what I do know is it should be illegal. To choose to go missing – to let your family report you, let the police search for you – friends and volunteers searching for your and in the end, you decided that you wanted a BETTER LIFE needs to be a crime. If you want to go then just go. Just don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out!! I mean, even if you could keep them from leaving, do you really want to? Chances are if you were told that you had a choice; go through a separation & divorce or go through the pain & suffering of having a missing loved one you would choose the former.
This is something that needs to be addressed as it is much more common than you would know. It is something that will hinder all other missing adult cases when it happens as it puts the idea into people’s heads that it is more likely others ‘chose’ to go missing when they really are victims of a crime. Help us get this to your law-makers and ensure that this crime of willingly, maliciously and without forethought (barring mental and/or physical evaluations – because if they are not in their right mind, then they really can’t be held responsible), of going missing needs to be a crime punishable by law – by prison. Because given a choice, would that person rather go though separation & divorce or being charged with a crime & jailed? Chances are they too, would choose the former.
So remember, if you do not think this should be a crime, punishable by jail – they try this . . . imagine for a minute what it would be like to have a missing loved one. For now, we will use husband as an example – and you then find out years later he is fine, remarried or whatever, but living a perfectly good life somewhere else – somewhere he thought was better than living with you – now, decided if he should be punished for that.
Written by Glendene Grant.
