It's been 13 years since my second cousin went missing one evening while collecting for her paper route.
Her name was Jeralee. She lived in Pocatello, Idaho. Her family was the "J Family". All the people in her family's names began with J. I remember them visiting our house in the summer, and she and her older brother Jamen would pick cherries from our magnificent cherry tree.
I can't say I knew them all that well. I only knew them in the way that you know their names, you know what they look like, and you usually see them once a year. We'd play at family reunions, but she was always the younger kid, hanging around us older ones. I was 15 that summer she disappeared; she was 11.
I absolutely remember the drama of the whole thing. She was abducted; the highway patrol was putting up check points; and I even remember hearing about it on the Salt Lake news. I can't remember how long it was until the whole thing ended. Like a week? We couldn't do much, living so far south in Utah. But our family kept us posted, and we grieved and worried right along with the more local family and friends.
When I learned her fate, I was wracked with sadness. I remember that as the first time I had feelings of support for capital punishment. And I still have them. This triggered my first attempt at raw, emotional writing. I cried when I wrote a story about her and her killer. I have a copy in my night-stand still.
The fucker who kidnapped and molested and murdered and dismembered her, and then threw her into the Snake River in a trash bag inside a cooler (if I remember correctly) was named James Wood. This is him:
He died in jail in 2004, from a heart attack. I just found that out this morning.Well, my purpose in writing about this is only to memorialize my cousin, and to share deep sympathy for the families of kids who don't come home to their own beds at night.
5 comments:
That's horrible. I remember something similar happened to a girl in my junior high. I didn't know her, but everyone in school was just in shock. There's just no good way to react to something like this.
La..
I am so sorry. I have family that live in Pocatello. And I agree that this crime is horrible. I believe that someone who kills children should get the death penalty.
It is shame that it has taken us so long to create an Amber alert. You wonder how many children suffered, that we never heard of because it was 'JUST' a local crime. There have been many pedofiles (not sure the spelling is correct) but I know from experience that it has been going on for ages.
Sorry you had to realize that so young in your life. I remember when the boys were little and there were several kidnappings in Wappingers, I wanted to them to stick to me all the time when we went shopping. Ask Eric if he remembers anything. They found a boy within 5 miles of our hours.
Scary as the dickens, makes you paranoid. We have to keep our kids safe however we can. Of course they have been coming into homes and taking kids from their beds. We need to give them ammo to fight back if we can.
I don't remember this very much. You've got a good memory.
I wish he had died from massive rectal hemhorraging instead of a quiet heart attack.
I am reading this many years later and somewhat randomly, but I grew up in Pocatello. The man lived across the street from my elementary school. I think that was the scariest event of my entire childhood.
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