The Last Place You'd Look (20 page)

Helen fiddles with some papers on the table while, from the corner of her eye, she watches her young granddaughter play. In the playroom stands a giant wooden horse Scott had made for Phyllis.

All these years have passed, and Helen finds herself in disbelief at the things people still say to her about Phyllis and the Aragona family’s loss.

“People would say to me, ‘Well, she was thirty years old,’ and ‘You have other children,’ as if that means I shouldn’t mind losing my daughter,” Helen says. “I have never gotten over it, and I never will.”

Helen’s home is full of Phyllis’s things, but visitors would not get the impression that she has built a shrine to Phyllis.

“I have her shoes,” Helen says in a soft voice. She strokes Jennifer’s hand as her youngest daughter sits white-knuckled at the table.

“I still run into people to this day who ask about the case and want all of the juicy details,” Jennifer says, disbelieving. “I don’t always want to relive that.”

Helen’s windows are open, and the smell of cut grass wafts in from the yard. She is drinking water, and ice tinkles in the glass as her granddaughter babbles to her toys in the other room.

Phyllis, Helen says, wanted to be a veterinarian. It seemed like a natural extension of her affinity for animals. But Phyllis forgot all about veterinarian school when she met Scott. “He was all she wanted,” Helen says.

Her family says Phyllis was so short she had to sit on something to drive. But in direct opposition to her feminine personality, Phyllis preferred muscle cars, like Ford Mustangs.

She listened to Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand and Bon Jovi. Always cheerful, she was feisty, hardworking, and the kind of kid who makes a mom proud. After all this time, Helen still can’t believe she lost this happy-go-lucky child to the random greed and cruelty of someone like Gary Fernandez and his co-conspirators.

“See these letters? They’ve [the killers] written me,” Helen says, holding the papers in her hand. She shakes her head at the ordinariness of Phyllis and Scott’s killers. “I’ve met Gary and Maria and Orlando, and I did not see the evil in them.”

They have asked for her forgiveness, but it’s a request Helen will never grant.

“I don’t understand why they killed them,” she says. “And I will never understand it, never in a million years.”

She finds the community’s response to her daughter’s initial disappearance just as perplexing. After all, those driving the rumor mill were friends, neighbors, and classmates. Of all people, Helen says, they should have shot down the whispers and kept the good Aragona name out of the muck. They should have acted as her defender. Instead, many seemed not only willing, but eager to dirty her name.

“It was like losing my child all over again. First to the people who killed her and then to the people who decided it was their business to crucify her,” Helen says.

Fear is a journey, a terrible journey, but sorrow is at least an arriving.—Alan Paton,
Cry the Beloved Country

K
eith Call, a handsome twenty-year-old from a tight-knit family, stopped by his brother’s place on April 9, 1988, to borrow a shirt for his first date with a classmate. It was the last time his brother or anyone from his family would see him alive.

Later that night, Keith and his friend and fellow student, Cassandra Hailey, eighteen, a vivacious young woman with a crown of curly dark hair and sparkling eyes, would vanish like an unfinished thought, leaving not a single clue as to their whereabouts.

The two disappeared along Colonial Parkway in Virginia, where Keith was driving his red 1982 Toyota Celica. They had planned to take in a movie; they ended the evening with a spur-of-the-moment appearance at a local party.

The parkway itself is not a sinister place. In truth, it is a beautiful, scenic route for travelers, with twenty-three miles of roads connecting the historic Virginia cities of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. The drive is filled with trees, colorful bushes, and flowers, as well as wildlife. With abundant waterways along the route, ducks and geese crisscross the skies; raccoons, opossum, and deer fill the wooded areas. A drive along the parkway would have taken Keith and Cassandra past many secluded spots prized by lovers as quiet places to park.

But no one knows whether the couple chose to park and talk that night or if someone else forced their car to stop on the parkway. In either case, Keith and Cassandra never made it home. Instead, they vanished sometime in the early hours of April 10, leaving behind the little Toyota with most of their belongings in it, under circumstances that compel investigators to theorize they were the latest victims of what has been dubbed the Colonial Parkway Killer—or killers, since aspects of the crimes indicate the presence of more than one perpetrator.

The case of the Colonial Parkway Killings began on October 12, 1986, with the discovery of the bodies of Cathleen Thomas, a titian-haired Naval Academy graduate who worked in nearby Norfolk, and twenty-one-year-old Rebecca Ann Dowski, believed to be Thomas’s lover. The two women were found strangled, their throats cut, in Cathleen’s car, which was parked on an overlook. The killer had tried without success to torch the vehicle, and there were signs the victims fought for their lives.

As investigators continued to search for Thomas and Dowski’s killer, a second set of bodies was discovered. A little more than eleven months after the first killings, twenty-year-old David Lee Knobling and his fourteen-year-old companion, Robin Edwards, were found shot to death and dumped at a game refuge, three days after Knobling’s truck had been found abandoned on the parkway.

It was a little more than six months after the discovery of Knobling and Edwards in 1988 that Keith Call, of Gloucester, and Cassandra Hailey, a York County resident, disappeared. Multiple searches conducted over the years have failed to turn up indications of the couple’s whereabouts. But their disappearance did not signify an end to the string of violence and mystery in the vicinity of the Colonial Parkway: on September 5, 1989, twenty-one-year-old Daniel Lauer and his brother’s eighteen-year-old girlfriend, Annamaria Phelps, were found dead and decomposed after they disappeared from a rest stop along Route 64, near the parkway.

Six families lost children and siblings, but they could lay their loved ones to rest. They say that it is small comfort, but it’s something. However, for the Call and Hailey families, there have been no funerals, no grave markers, and no chance to bring their children home. And, as terrible as it is to have proof of loss, the limbo of not knowing a family member’s whereabouts can be worse in a way. Keith’s sister, Joyce Call-Canada, says that their parents both died without ever knowing what happened to their bright, popular, attractive son. Their loss haunted the Call family, leaving a hole in their lives that could never be filled.

“It was devastating. Agony. I had to watch my parents [go] to pieces. It was very hard. We never found any bodies, and [after] many, many years . . . we still are searching,” Joyce says.

Letting go of the hope that a loved one is still alive is one of the hardest steps for the family of a missing person to take. Joyce says her own family didn’t want to give up on Keith. “For the first few years we had the hope that someone had them, and that was very hard, too,” she says.

“Keith was very good-hearted, easy-going, loved his family. He had
just started college for computer science, worked part-time at a boatyard,
and commuted to nearby Christopher Newport College,” says Joyce. Keith and Cassandra were both freshmen at the college, just starting to move into adulthood and find out what they wanted to do with their lives. Joyce says Keith had broken up with his steady girlfriend and asked Cassandra out. The two were on their first date and following the movie had stopped by a small cookout at an apartment complex.

Despite many searches in and around the area near where the two students disappeared, no trace of either has ever been found or at least acknowledged by law enforcement. Authorities located most of their clothes and belongings in Keith’s abandoned car, along with evidence that makes some believe that the person or persons who abducted the students might have pretended to be law enforcement officers or were indeed connected to some type of police agency. Similar evidence was reportedly found in at least one of the other cases.

The six murders and the abductions of Keith and Cassandra grew cold. Although the victims’ families have stayed active in urging officials to continue to investigate the murders and disappearances, other cases have pressed to the front of the line. While all of the victims’ families want justice for their children, Joyce says their continuing pain comes from not having brought her brother home again. While finding Keith’s remains won’t end their tragedy, it would allow the Calls the opportunity to refocus their anger and energy.

“We’ve never even had the experience to have closure. What do I want? I would like some accountability,” Joyce says.

She and the families of the other victims saw their cases make headlines again when some of the original crime scene photographs surfaced and were made public—very public. In addition to being handed around to strangers not connected with the investigation, they were leaked to the media. The families were outraged. An internal investigation conducted by the FBI found the crime scene photographer, who had since retired from the federal agency and died, had retained copies of the photos. Although the victims’ families were furious at their release, something positive did come out of this act: the incident brought fresh attention to the case. Joyce and other family members hope that the renewed interest will help solve the cases, as well as bring them the news they have anticipated for more than two decades: the whereabouts of the bodies of Keith and Cassandra.

“It’s difficult,” Joyce says. “We went for many, many years without any response. Now I’m glad new agents have taken it over and they have been more receptive.”

Still, even with new investigators on the case, information sifts through official channels at a slow pace. The Calls, like the other families, are often told they can’t climb into the loop. “We want to know what happened to him and I don’t understand; it’s not like it’s a fresh case. We get very frustrated that they cannot give us more information,” Joyce says.

Some have theorized that the Colonial Parkway murderer, or murderers, have died, relocated, or were incarcerated, bringing the local killing spree to an end. Whatever happened to those responsible for so much heartache, the Call family has come to terms with the knowledge Keith will never walk back into their lives again. Unlike cases where a disappearance could have a happy ending, the evidence suggests that will not be the result with Keith and Cassandra. And after more than twenty years, the Calls wish for something they have long been denied: the chance to bury their loved one.

R

The name Jodi Huisentruit may ring a bell for many, even if most can’t quite place the name or face. Back when she disappeared on June 27, 1995, the attractive blond television personality was all over the news—and not just in the local Mason City, Iowa, market where she worked.

Jodi, an angelic-looking twenty-seven-year-old Minnesota native, anchored the morning news for KIMT-TV when she went missing. The morning Jodi disappeared, she had overslept and was running late to work. Official accounts say Jodi went to work around 3:00 a.m., but that day she was awakened by her producer at a quarter to four in the morning. From the evidence found at the scene, it appeared that Jodi grabbed her things and was trying to open the door of her car, a red Mazda Miata, in the parking lot of her apartment complex when she was attacked. Investigating officers found a bent car key in the door of the vehicle and blood at the scene. Personal articles—a pair of red shoes, a hair dryer, her purse, and other items—were found scattered, as if dropped during a struggle. A palm print, which remains unidentified, was also located during the initial investigation.

Police canvassed the area and found someone who reported hearing screams around 4:30 a.m. but did not contact police. A man told investigators he had seen a light-colored van in the area at the time, but thus far the van has failed to materialize.

According to reporter Josh Benson and death investigator Gary Peterson, two veteran investigative reporters who maintain a Web site dedicated to Jodi (www.findjodi.com) and have kept pressure on officials to solve the case, hundreds have been interviewed in connection with the missing anchorwoman. Dozens of searches have taken place, but unless investigators are playing their hands close to their chests, little information of value has resulted.

The courts declared Jodi Huisentruit dead in 2001. The declaration follows what most believe: that she was abducted and killed. Who did it and where they left Jodi’s body is a mystery that Benson and Peterson, as well as Jodi’s family and friends, want to see resolved.

The fate of the independent and high-profile young career woman remains the Mason City area’s most puzzling case.

R

Sometimes when an individual goes missing, it is apparent that foul play is involved, as in the cases of Keith Call, Cassandra Hailey, and Jodi Huisentruit. Law enforcement classifies those cases as “missing, endangered.” The press sums it up with “foul play is suspected.” But despite the impression offered by the occasional sensationalized case in the media, the vast majority of disappearances are not sinister: kids become lost; people grow unhappy and walk away from their lives; the mentally disabled quit taking their medications or do not receive adequate treatment and join the throngs who live on this nation’s streets; and some fall prey to accidents.

In 2009, 719,558 persons were reported as missing to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Of those, 22,993 children younger than the age of twenty-one were classified as “endangered,” while 59,571 adults received the same classification. Another 10,055 persons younger than twenty-one were recorded as “involuntary.” Of those twenty-one and older, 10,136 also received an “involuntary” classification.

“Endangered,” for purposes of the NCIC report, is defined as a person who is missing under the types of circumstances that would indicate that he or she might be in physical danger. The NCIC definition for “involuntary” is that the person appears missing under circumstances that indicate the disappearance may not have been voluntary, as in a parental abduction, although these types of abductions can also be classified as “endangered.”

Another 41,272 persons received an NCIC classification of “other,” which means that the known circumstances do not meet the criteria for “endangered” or “involuntary” but there is reason to be concerned about that person’s safety. The “other” statistics for 2009 break down as follows: 9,496 younger than age twenty-one, with the remainder of 31,776 being twenty-one and older.

It is worth noting that the majority of these cases are cleared, most with positive results: often, the person is found, alive and well, and the case is closed. However, because NCIC has no category for cases opened and closed in the same reporting period, it is impossible to say how many of 2009’s cases originated and closed in that year. Many cases from previous years are often included in the “closed” statistics. So, hypothetically, the case of a seventeen-year-old whose 2005 disappearance is classified as “endangered” but is found and whose case cleared in 2009 would play out like this: her disappearance would appear in the 2005 statistics and her recovery in the 2009 numbers. Because there is this overlap in national statistics, under the current system, it is impossible to tell what percentage of cases that originate in a given year are cleared. However, local agencies may keep running accounts of clearances and may be able to better correlate the years of origination and clearance.

Also worth noting is that some missing persons cases are never recorded. Either the person disappears and no one knows or cares enough to report him or her missing or officials decline to report the individual missing. Official numbers reflect the cases that are reported—not the true numbers of missing in this country. Outpost for Hope founder Libba Phillips calls these missing persons the “missing missing” and estimates their numbers in excess of a million people—maybe even twice that. She believes the overwhelming majority who fit into this category would also by official definition be considered “endangered.” No one will ever know how many are deceased and never found or are recovered and kept in a morgue or buried in an unmarked grave.

Since the airwaves and newspapers often carry headline-grabbing stories about missing persons, it’s easy to come away with the misconception that police are quick to label a disappearance “suspicious.” This is not true. Police are taught to deal in concrete evidence and leads, not supposition. Even when evidence tends to support a darker reason for a victim’s vanishing, law enforcement leans toward conservative conclusions—at least for the record. They do not like to speculate aloud because it can hurt the families of the missing, and very often those speculations impede the investigation. But a cautious approach can also have a negative effect on a missing persons case because it can hold back the initiation of the investigatory process. Time is a precious commodity in these kinds of investigations. When too much time elapses before a probe gets rolling, evidence—and even the opportunity to find the missing person—can be lost forever. Preventing this lag was the guiding principle behind the enactment of Suzanne’s Law.