North Florida Missing Person Cases...
Slimpickins
Area missing are gone, but not forgotten
By KATHY CIOTOLA
Sun staff writer
As the search for Chandra Levy drags on, the likelihood grows that her
plight eventually will end up in a "cold case" file - a term used by police
to describe another mystery that might never be solved.
Gainesville Police Sgt. Larry Seale is actively involved in most of the
unsolved missing persons cases in the city, including the search for Danny
Jackson, pictured, who was reported missing in August of 1989. JON M.
FLETCHER/The Gainesville Sun
The highly publicized case of the former Washington, D.C., intern has
focused the national spotlight on similar instances where people have
seemingly disappeared without a trace, leaving families and investigators in
a frustrating and never-ending search for answers.
Alachua County's cold cases include those of Tiffany Sessions, a 20-year-old
University of Florida sophomore who disappeared from her southwest
Gainesville apartment complex in 1989; and Tom Sayre of Archer, who
disappeared during a 1999 fishing trip. Police continue to hope for a break
someday in the case of Danny Jackson, a 12-year-old who disappeared in 1989
from his northeast Gainesville home.
Foul play is suspected in the disappearances of Sessions and Jackson but not
in Sayre's disappearance, authorities said.
A parent's perspective
Patrick Sessions, Tiffany's father, can relate to the despair of the Levy
family. Sessions, a real estate developer from Miami, has spent thousands of
hours in the past 12 years trying to find out what happened to his daughter.
"There's a lot of parallels with Tiffany's case," Patrick Sessions said. "It
certainly brings back memories very clearly. I know what those parents are
going through, and I feel very bad for them."
It's hard not knowing what happened, he said.
"If someone dies, that's a terrible thing, but you go through it and through
the stages of grief and get on with your life," he said. "But with someone
missing, you don't know what's happened; you don't know whether you've done
enough or the right thing, and it's hard to get on with your life that way."
Levy's family seems to be doing everything it can to make sure nobody
forgets Chandra, which is important because it can generate more leads, he
said.
Sessions often talks with parents of missing children to help them through
the process of searching for their loved ones. He said it feels good to help
families, especially when they end up finding their children safe and sound,
which happens in most cases. But when children turn up dead or never turn up
at all, it's heartbreaking, he said.
But Sessions believes some day he will find out what happened to his
daughter.
"People get older, and they get sick, and they're going to confess and tell
someone," he said.
Although detectives have investigated thousands of leads in the Sessions
case, her fate remains a mystery. All that is known for sure is she left her
Casablanca East apartment off SW 35th Place to go jogging the evening of
Feb. 9, 1989, and never returned. Nothing was missing from her apartment to
indicate she left of her own free will.
Sayre, who disappeared on a fishing trip in the Keys, was expected home Aug.
19, 1999. He never showed up.
His fiancee reported him missing, but the Coast Guard searched more than 400
miles of coastline and was unable to find him by boat or plane.
In the Jackson case, the 12-year-old was last seen visiting a friend down
the street from his northeast Gainesville home in August 1989. Randy's
parents thought he spent the night at a friend's house. Police believed
Randy, a small, 50-pound boy, was the victim of a crime.
His face was featured on a national television show, and his picture has
been circulated nationally.
The Jackson, Sessions and Sayre cases remain open, waiting for new leads.
Danny
Investigators haunted
Detectives who sometimes spend years investigating a missing person become
very involved in their cases, said Alachua County Sheriff's Sgt. Jim
Troiano, who has worked numerous missing person cases in the past.
"Your personal life at times becomes part of that case," Troiano said. "You
invest so much of your time; you have to become one with what you are doing.
You have to understand what happened and what the victim went through."
He said he knows several detectives who have had sleepless nights over
missing persons cases.
Sometimes the detectives become close to the families and feel their sorrow,
Troiano said. But it can be frustrating when, no matter how hard they try,
they can't bring the missing person home.
"You know you've done your best, and you still don't feel it's good enough,"
he said.
Still more missing
In addition to cold cases, there are several cases in the city and county of
people missing more than 30 days. The longer a person, especially a child,
is missing, the less chance he or she will return home safely, GPD Sgt.
Larry Seale said. There are six people listed as missing more than 30 days
in Alachua County and nine in Gainesville, law enforcement officials said.
All are children. More on the Story:
'Cold cases'
Most of the missing children cases Gainesville Police work involve
teen-agers who run away from halfway houses or the Job Corps Center, which
is a facility that houses and trains at-risk youths, Seale said.
And sometimes their stories are sad.
In one case Seale worked, a 14-year-old girl ran away from home in Miami
because she had been abused. She ended up in Gainesville but then ran away
from a youth shelter. When police located her, they found out her mother
didn't want her.
"You see a lot of different situations," Seale said. "It's tragic in a lot
of situations when you realize the person isn't a bad person, they are
trying to reach out and get assistance but have no other alternative."
Even after police safely return the missing person home, they often worry
about the home situation to which the individual is returning, Seale said.
An all-out search
If there is no reason to believe the missing child is a runaway, police have
different things to worry about.
Police check with the 130 sexual offenders and predators in Gainesville's
city limits to make sure they don't have the child.
They also get on an emergency broadcast system that can break into any local
or statewide radio station to let people know a child is missing.
Police also can use their 911 system to call Alachua County residents about
the missing child, and they send out helicopters, police dogs and numerous
police officers.
Though most missing people are runaway youths, police come across all types
of situations.
In one case, an elderly woman from Sarasota with Alzheimer's disease got in
her car to drive to the store and wound up in Gainesville, not knowing where
she was or how she got there, Seale said.
When adults go missing, it's often because they are confused, they need a
breather and don't want to be found or are troubled and need help, Seale
said.
But once a missing person returns home, it seems there's another to take his
or her place, Diehl said. Police worked 391 missing person cases in
Gainesville last year.
And even though the three who haven't been found have faded from the height
of publicity, the cases are still open and police still search for answers.
"We never give up hope," Seale said.
http://www.sunone.com/articles/2001-08-15c.shtml
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