TIM DAMOS Juneau County Star-Times
February 22, 2006
Ricky Jean Bryant's remains were never found.
But the 4-year-old girl, known as Jeannie to her family, was assumed
to have perished in a house fire in Mauston in 1949.
More than 50 years later, her surviving siblings believe she may not
have died that day.
There never was any solid evidence that Jeannie died in the fire. An
article in the New Lisbon Times said particles that may have been
human bones were taken to the state Crime Laboratory in Madison the
day after the fire, but the Mauston Star reported a week later that
the results were negative.
Certainly, the Bryant family was never the same. And more than a half-
century later, the girl's three surviving siblings are still
searching for the truth about how their sister disappeared.
They suspect the fire may have been a decoy: that while their house
went up in flames, Jeannie was spirited away by an unknown woman.
What's more, they think Jeannie is alive today, and want a DNA test
to confirm whether their suspicions are accurate.
The strange tale begins when fire broke out at the Bryant family farm
house about three miles northeast of Mauston on Dec. 19, 1949. On
that Monday afternoon, Jeannie's parents, Raymond and Opal Bryant,
were not home. Their children - Jeannie, 18-month- old Liz, 5-year-
old Forrest and 7-year-old Sharon - were being looked after by their
grandparents - Opal Bryant's parents - Casper and Helen Halverson.
Accounts of events that afternoon differ.
In newspaper stories three days after the fire, Helen Halverson said
she escorted Forrest and Liz out of the house - Sharon was at the
nearby schoolhouse - when the fire broke out, but assumed Jeannie was
still inside. She said she searched the house, begging Jeannie to
answer. "I don't know how she could possibly have been in there. It's
a mystery," she was quoted in one newspaper.
After exhausting her search for Jeannie, Halverson said in the
reports, she propped a ladder against the house and climbed to the
second-story window to rescue her husband, who was handicapped. She
said she carried him down the ladder to safety.
In accounts in the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times,
volunteer firefighter W. E. Kastner says he heard a girl scream while
he was fighting the fire but could not find her. The State Journal
reported Forrest and Liz "rushed from the home after the blaze
started." Neither story mentions Halverson going into the house to
search for Jeannie.
But according to Forrest, Liz (now Liz Wiley) and Jeannie were both
in the yard with Forrest when Halverson told him to watch his sisters.
Perhaps most mysteriously, Wiley says her brother recalls that after
being told by Halverson to watch Liz and Jeannie, "Somebody pulled up
in an expensive car," she said. According to Forrest, a woman got out
of the car and told him to run to a neighbor's house to get help. But
instead of sending him to a house that was relatively close, she sent
him in the opposite direction to a house farther down the road.
When Forrest returned with the neighbor, Liz was still there, but the
woman, the car and Jeannie were gone. After the fire consumed the
home, "Jeannie was nowhere to be found," Wiley said.
The neighbor who returned with Forrest has since added to their
suspicions. "She said when she arrived, she went in the house to look
for Jeannie. While she was in there, my grandmother told her, 'Don't
worry about the girl, she's with a relative,' " Wiley said.
Some years later, during conversations with Forrest, the two
remaining sisters realized that "the stories just didn't jibe," Wiley
said.
After the fire, Wiley said, Jeannie's name was not to be spoken in
their family. The only time Jeannie was mentioned was at Christmas,
when they put the star on their tree.
"They told us she was a star in heaven," Wiley said.
In 1959, Opal and Raymond Bryant split up and later divorced. Wiley
went to live with her mother, in Washington state. Forrest and Sharon
remained in the Midwest with their father.
Sharon, now Sharon Mattson of Baraboo, the oldest, and only sibling
remaining in the area, said her mother frequently returned to
Wisconsin.
"She and I would go to Minnesota to visit relatives," said Mattson,
who remembers watching the fire from a nearby schoolhouse.
But when they would get to Minnesota, her mother would drop her off
with relatives and then leave for days without telling anyone where
she was going.
Mattson and Wiley believe she was secretly visiting Jeannie, who they
now believe was their mother's daughter by another man.
Both parents of the Bryant family are now deceased.
Lois Kane is Opal Bryant's second cousin and says the two were close
friends as teenagers. Kane said Bryant had a relationship with a man
she thinks may be Jeannie's real father.
Recently, while looking at a scrapbook with Wiley, Kane came across a
picture of the man, and said Bryant maintained a relationship with
him over the years, even before the family split up.
That man, Kane said, has a daughter who is the same age as Jeannie
would be today. Wiley and Mattson contacted the woman, who agreed
that her history would be consistent with Jeannie's and that it's
possible she is their sister.
Wiley and Mattson asked that the woman's identity not be disclosed
until a DNA sample can be taken and analyzed. The woman is willing to
take one. But they don't know when, or if, such a test might happen.
And they may be running out of time, as the woman is not in good
health, they said.
Last year, Wiley and Mattson told their story to the Juneau County
Sheriff's Department, which filed a report about Jeannie's
disappearance.
Last February, Jeannie's case was officially opened with the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children. With the aid of old
pictures of Jeannie, the center was able to create a composite sketch
of what Jeannie may look like today. She is now listed on group's Web
site, at
www.missingkids.com.
Juneau County Sheriff Brent Oleson said he had contact with the
missing-children center last year and was awaiting a response
regarding a possible DNA test. A representative of the center said
the Sheriff's Department is in charge of the investigation and any
decision on a DNA test is up to the sheriff.
Wiley said the possibility that her sister could be alive has taken
an emotional toll.
"You just don't lose a life," she said. "I still feel in my heart
that we're going to find her before we die."
State Journal reporter George Hesselberg contributed to this story.
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