Friday, June 29, 2007

6/29/07 The Untold Story: Awaiting DNA, Part V

Please see this post for an explanation and introduction before reading:
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2007/06/62107-untold-story-awaiting-dna.html

Part V: (*Names and places have been changed)

Wednesday, June 23rd:

Wednesday I went back to work. The day went fairly fast, and I felt ok. When I came home from work, I called the PD again and got Carl on the first ring. He said he didn’t call because he didn’t know anything new. He was waiting for an email from the detective from Oakview, CA, in regards to the shoe size, toenail and any other information. He also was still not sure about the DNA test timeframe, other than he heard it could take up to a month, depending on which lab they sent it to. I then told him that I already knew the shoe size and the UK translation to US sizes as I understood it from the chart on the Internet. I explained that I found the John Doe on the Net and that I wasn’t going to wait around if I could find any information that could eliminate Jason as being the person who suffered that hideous fate.

I told him of my conversation with the woman and what she said about the pointed ears and “European” look. He said that he was working directly with the person most familiar with this John Doe and that he felt strongly enough about him as being Jason to ask for the DNA as we had no dental and no fingerprints. He said he never said anything about that look, and that they were doing it based on his knowledge, because, after all, those DNA tests were going to cost close to $1,000. The only good thing in that was that once taken, those tests could be quickly used for any future ID’s needed, and we could be spared the longer waiting each time.

It then became an evening of ups and downs, and the ‘downs” took precedence.

I received a call from a young woman who is going to do an interview for Omaha Magazine, which she said has a circulation of a million over its two month issue life span. It also gets read by many travelers, as it is in all the hotel rooms and at the airport. This will certainly be great exposure for the project and our mission, plus get Jason’s story out there again, perhaps to a new audience. Press means so much in cases like ours. It’s always such a gift. Jim teases me that I like it for me, but he knows that I would give anything just to go back to our quiet, ordinary lives with our entire family intact and together once again. (They never did publish the interview.)

Tomorrow is Jason’s 23rd birthday. I looked through the mail and there was a birthday card for him. It was from Martha, a woman who lived next door to us in Grand Island when Jason was young. She and her husband, now deceased, loved Jason as if he was their own. Martha occasionally writes to us and has never forgotten Jason. She wrote: “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you, Jason. Happy Birthday, wherever you are! Love, your friend, Martha C.” I think I will mail her a couple of Jason’s buttons and his info card from our Adopt a Missing Person program. I have no doubt that she would like that. In truth, she adopted him all those years ago, when life had some semblance of normalcy. She sent the card out of love, but it was still bittersweet for us to view it.

Later in the evening, Carl’s words started to cause seeds of doubt to creep into my mind. What if that woman had given me incorrect information? It seemed to contradict what the assigned detective said. I tried to put it out of my mind, but it intensified and threw me into a tailspin of pain once again. I hoped that I could get through one more day of work, and especially with it being his birthday. I knew Carl wasn’t trying to be harsh in what he said. He only had his perspective, based on the facts given him. I knew I had to call Oakview myself. I was not going to go through this nor make my family go through it for weeks. If I could verify the strange shoe size and find out about the toenail that would help.

Of all the things that missing person’s families go through, certainly this is the worst. It tops the psychics and the extortionists and all of the others who have tried to take advantage of us. If Jason was dead, I could do nothing, but I prayed he was not this person, who was so brutally murdered.

To be continued...........

Go to Part VI:
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2007/06/63007-untold-story-awaiting-dna-part-vi.html

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