http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pb...608080356/1001Woman copes with daughters' tragedies
One child went missing four years ago; another is in jail; the third was stabbed to death Sunday.By TOM ALEX
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
August 8, 2006
How much heartache can Sandra Moreland endure? That's what people might ask.
Moreland lost a daughter to a homicide over the weekend in Des Moines. Another daughter went missing four years ago, and a third daughter is in jail.
"At least I will have some closure with Georgina," Moreland said of her slain daughter, Georgina Kimble. "I know where she is. I wish I could say the same for Missy."
Kimble, 37, was stabbed to death in a basement apartment at Capitol Heights Apartments, 1414 E. Walnut St., in Des Moines. Early Sunday morning, Keith Parker, 48, a convicted sex offender, walked into the Polk County Jail and told employees that he had killed someone at his apartment. Parker was charged with first-degree murder.
The case was all but closed. But the pain at the Moreland house was just beginning.
"Georgina had been involved in drugs and prostitution, but regardless of how she lived her life, she loved her three children, and she loved her family, and she had a belief in God," Moreland said. "She had been investigating what happened to her sister Melissa — we called her Missy — and she never found out. We've never found out."
Melissa Hasley was 31 years old when she went to a party on the west side of downtown Des Moines in October 2002, her family said. After the party, she simply disappeared. Melissa also had been involved in drugs and prostitution, her mother said.
Cathy Leader, Moreland's sister, said her niece, Kimble, had been warned about her lifestyle.
"We told Georgina she needed to stop," Leader said. "You're going to end up like your younger sister. We told her that. She said she knew it."
Family members say they do not know what Kimble was doing at Parker's apartment. Police have not made public any theories about a motive for the stabbing.
Parker was convicted of sex crimes in 1982 and 1988 and is listed on the Iowa Sex Offender Registry.
Kimble was determined to find out what happened to her missing sister, but her mother said she did not know whether she had learned anything.
Moreland said she does not know whether Kimble's investigation into her sister's disappearance had anything to do with her death.
"Really, all we know is what we've seen on TV," she said.
Moreland and Leader said they hope Kimble's death renews interest in the search for Hasley. "Sometimes the smallest clue can be your biggest hope," Leader said.
Moreland said her third daughter, Lois Hasley, 36, has been involved in prostitution, too.
Hasley is now in the Marshal County Jail on prostitution charges.
"The whole thing is just so incredibly sad," Leader said.
