VICTIM'S ADVOCATE - Part One

There are victims and there are victim's advocates. We come in many types and styles. Prior to the availability of the internet, the best a person could do was write an editorial in a newspaper. Nothing much would happen - if he really knew something 9she didn't dial 911, either because (s)he figured what he knew wasn't really that important, or it didn't exist. Perhaps, that's the way it should have stayed that way... but it didn't. So now, there are advocates for many issues. Mine is for the victim.

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I've been a voracious reader my whole life... sci-fi, murder mysteries, true-crime, etc... But to be honest, it took several self-death defying moments, personally, before I could get involved, that and the fact that the WWW was now at my fingertips.

I first suggested this topic, "victim's advocate"  to my fellow blogger, Slam Dunks, available HERE, when I was a "guest writer" on his series about Brianna Maitland, FBI Link.  Brianna Maitland, 17, disappeared the night of March 19, 2004, in Montgomery VT. She has not been found, her disappearance remains a mystery. Slam and I discussed it, as a topic, and it was obvious it wasn't one of those usual topics. Meaning, it went into the cupboard.

Link to Slam Dunk's first post for Brianna is: HERE. I was invited to be a guest writer somewhere around Post 14 after I wrote to him, and volunteered. I had become involved in late 2004, by then, Brianna had been missing 5 years. 

The question I get a lot, is "what's it to me?" "Why get involved?" The answer is, I'm already involved. The "why"... well, that's fate. I called her parents and offered to find her "missing car keys" with my metal detector. One thing led to another.

The basic facts are that I read about her disappearance in the news, online. I read that she was considered to be of "questionable character", in that drug abuse was suspected. It was likely, the news-papers reported, that she "ran away, to escape a drug debt". A month earlier another young woman, Maura Murray, disappeared in Haverhill NH, 90 min. SE of there. Coincidence? I expect, the answer is yes. The cases were different, then, but the Brianna case bothered me. The Murray case too, but for different reasons. With Brianna the case rested on her alleged "character". And I had to really wonder what the press was alluding to when it reported that police were suspicious of her disappearance as a "drug-related problem", and not something worse.

When it comes to "black and white" thinking I get annoyed. When it comes to "drugs", I always am left wondering, what drugs? They, the free press, don't mean alcohol... if they did, and they love that topic too, they would say it - alcohol. But in this case, a 17 year old woman disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and the hairs on my head stood up because there was an alleged "drug problem" with her disappearance, and to me, something didn't seem right. There was something rotten... and it wasn't in Denmark!

In my next post I will continue with my experiences. This is just an introduction.

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Until next time, my favorite quote from the:

Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

SOURCE: Wikipedia - "Declaration of Independence"

We hold these truths to be self-evident..." 

We are all unique, we are all the same... quite the paradox then... little surprise to me that I stand up for someone less fortunate than myself. It's my friends that are perplexed... "why get involved?"

Why? Because I got screwed by the system too! And I have a voice... where others don't.
anonymous