VICTIM'S ADVOCATE - Part Four

In my last post I discussed - "Victims and Agents". I did so rather briefly, considering the scope of the subject. In most cases we have more than one, or two choices... and quite obviously doing nothing is always a choice. So that makes three choices we have, in general, when confronted by life and all it's opportunities and surprises. And tragedies...

It's the internet that changed things for me, and many others - for good and bad... it is the internet which is why I'm here, to state the obvious. What isn't obvious is what things were like prior to the internet. I came of age in 1974... it wasn't until 1992 that I had access to a computer, and the internet. Prior to that, I may have written editorials for newspapers, but I didn't. I find it ironic that within my lifetime I am given the opportunity the WWW has given to me. Ironic in the sense it's frightening... because never before in human history has communication on such an immediate and world-wide scale existed. Yet now it does.

In this, what is probably my conclusion for this series, I wanted to describe some of my own personal experiences as well as tragic cases I followed in the past that led up to my involvement in two real-life cases as a "victim's advocate".

1) ~1964: I was with my family - sister and parents in San Francisco. My father was there on an all expense paid convention. I've mentioned this before, so to make a long story short, I was 8 years old and i left a dept store, thinking my parents had gone back to our hotel... an 8yo walking alone on the streets of SF. I bumped into a guy dressed in a black trench-coat... he showed me a badge that said he was "secret service"... since I was lost, I trusted him, and he got me to my hotel. It just so happened there was a convention of Supreme Court Justices also. So he really was SS.

2) ~1968: HS was rough on me - I was an easy target for bullies. To help boost my confidence my parents thought karate classes would help. I had just earned my yellow belt, and soon after a class i was downtown waiting for the city-bus. A man asked me if I could use to make some money helping him move into his apartment - at the Boy's Club. Full of Confidence and totally nieve I said sure... I walked up the street with the guy bragging about my karate skills... ended up in a one room room, to have him lock the door behind us. There was nothing to "move"... but during the walk he's admitted to working as a counselor at my town's public beach, and with children. I rushed out with an excuse to leave, unlocked his door and entered a corridor with identical looking doors. I had no idea which door was the stairwell!!! I found it, my heart pounding... and made it home. When I told my parents they didn't believe me. It was 1968 afterall.

3) ~1982: I was living in a rooming house in the Boston MA area... I was a recent resident... a small town guy in a big city. I was so lonely... drank a lot. One night, quite unexpectedly I bumped into a fellow rooming house roomy... seemed decent enough and he said, "hey, want to go to the Chelsea strip club, have a few beers - I'll drive", and I said "sure", scared of nothing. I got in his car and we started driving... it seemed odd the way we were going to Chelsea, but I was busy talking too. Suddenly, and it was sudden, we were driving through the area in Boston where I90 turnpike starts - I forget the name of the area, but it was downtown Boston, and suddenly a half a dozen or more Boston police cruisers converged on the car I was in. We were at the side of the road in less than 10 seconds, the guy driving, that i was with was ordered out of the car, the 38 cal hand-gun stuffed into the back of his jeans was removed, and I was told by the police to "leave".

Yes, I had met my first serial killer and I had been his likely target. No drugs were involved - unless my being intoxicated counts as a drug.

It took me several years to shake off the fear that event caused me...

As far as those victims stories I found that further encouraged me:


1) Martha Moxley: Wikipedia Link ... October 30, 1975 - she was 15 years old. Murdered in her back-yark... her neighbor was convicted many years later for her death. I read: Mark Fuhrman's 1998 book, Murder in Greenwich. 


2)The Butts family Murders: Butt's Family Murders ; Gerri Faye Butts, 29, and her daughters, Jessica, 11, and MacKenzie, 3. Ironically this case which I could only read about and do nothing, ultimately led to a friendship with Glen, one of the Texarkana investigative officers... whom I met while helping in the Brianna Maitland case. He is now a prominent criminal profiler and works for the US military.


3) Dru Sjodin - 2003: Dru Sjodin - this is the first case I felt I was "involved in... she was missing for almost a year... it was widely publicized. You might say I had a feverish need to help... and with Google Earth and all I succumbed to a form of assistance that has a name, and has actually been researched by the US ARMY - it's called "remote viewing", a psychological ability to see things from afar. Admittedly, i was no help, although I e-mailed in my ideas. I never did hear from anyone, and they did find Dru. It was extremely tragic, and a short time later... I read where two persons within hours of me had disappeared.

I ask myself now, as I did then... why get involved? I was fortunate to hear Pres. George H.W. Bush say at a college... "it's okay" to want to help those less fortunate than ourselves, victims... even though there's a selfish sense of feeling good from doing so... I say fortunate, because I felt "guilty" or like I was" in the way" offering my assistance. See, there's no hero's when it comes to solving a missing person case. They either aren't solved, or when solved, it's not pleasant. It's not a troop of boy scouts you've led on a rugged camping expedition, or saving someone's life... because in both cases I found myself involved in, foul play is very likely, and the families involved are suffering in the worse way possible.



 I'll conclude with an experience I had Memorial Day 2005... it was a beautiful Spring day, and I went metal detecting in the area in Woodsville, NH, where Maura Murray "had her accident". By then i was also spending a lot of time on her family forum, as Sherlock. Where she disappeared was a hour or so from where I lived - much closer than Brianna Maitland. I had let the family know I'd be there. Got their okay.

It was a nice drive to the location. I parked, legally off the road. I got my gear and looked around. There was a open forest across the road, then next to my car a small field. Seems like 100 yards further in all directions was private land. Unless you walk further east, across a road and there's lots of wilderness. So this is what I did for several hours that day.

Back at my car later, I was just finishing the small field next to my car a second and last time. I started to pack up and a Woodsville police cruiser pulled to a stop on the opposite side of the road, and the officer was watching me.

I love America. I got in my car, thirsty and tired, and the cruiser followed. All right, i thought, i know where this is going... so a half-mile or so down the road there is a country store. I pulled in there and parked. So did the officer. I went over to his car!

"Hi" I said as he got out of his car, and he voiced similar in response. I said, "I noticed you are following me".

Considering it was a holiday, many people were out enjoying themselves, I was rather annoyed, yet curious.

He asked me what i was doing, and for my drivers licence. I told him and gave it to him. I explained I was helping the Murray family find their daughter, Maura, missing in the area.

He smiled and said - "haven't heard of the case - but then I'm new here". He gave me back my license and drove off. I went into the country store unable to miss the Missing Person's Poster for Maura Murray tacked to the door.

And that's what a "Victim's Advocate" does... we shake our heads a lot!!!

Not really, but there are those moments.