http://www.kilgorenewsherald.com/news/2009/0819/news/012.html
'Every missing person is somebody's childBy BRENDA BROWN
knhedit@kilgorenewsherald.comAugust 19, 2009
Marie Martin of Henderson knows her brother was no angel — he had issues with drugs and alcohol and the law over in Cherokee County knew his name long before he disappeared.
But after 50-year-old
Jimmy Charles Scott vanished on Nov. 3, 2001, Martin says law enforcement wrote off his case almost immediately and that has never really changed.
Still, his big sister mourns his loss and looks for news of Scott even today, hoping without hope and knowing that he was likely murdered by someone he probably knew.
Because Martin knows the pain of losing a loved one and never really knowing what happened, she says she is sympathetic to others in the same predicament and wants everyone to know about the 6th annual "On the Road to Remember" Nationwide Tour for Missing Persons, which will make a stop Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the Henderson Plaza Shopping Center parking lot (in front of Tractor Supply), 2309 US Hwy. 79 South.
Cal Riley and 94 West Band will perform and Martin encourages people to bring their lawn chairs to hear the music and sit a spell in between looking at the photos of missing people from Texas and across the nation.
Sponsored by Community United Effort (CUE) Center for Missing Persons, based in North Carolina, the tour began Tuesday in Roberson County, N.C., and will feature 23 pre-planned rally stops in seven states to promote a mixture of 104 cold cases, including missing persons, unidentified persons and unsolved homicide cases. CUE's motto is "Every missing person is somebody's child."
They can also be somebody's mom, as is the case of Shirley Mac Hunt of Henderson, whose family is hosting the East Texas event, according to CUE's press release. Hunt, who would be 74 now and suffered from Alzheimer's disease, disappeared around 3 p.m. June 19, 2007, after she walked away from her home on CR 454 south of Henderson.
Other missing East Texans include:
— Kelly Dae Wilson, a teen who was last seen around 8:30 p.m. Jan. 5, 1992, in Gilmer when she left her job at a downtown video store. Her disappearance turned the little city upside down, with rumors of satanic cults and the arrest of a local police detective. But charges were dropped against all when the "cult" was later found to be nonexistent.
— Brandi Ellen Wells, of Brownsboro, was 23 years old when she was last seen on Aug. 3, 2006 at Graham Central Station nightclub in Longview. Her car was later found abandoned along I-20 West, near FM 2087.
Thousands — actually hundreds of thousands — of Americans are reported missing each year. Some show up and others are never seen again.
In Texas, the Department of Public Safety created a Missing Persons Clearinghouse in 1986 "to serve as a central repository for information on missing and unidentified persons in Texas" and to assist in locating missing children and adults. For more information visit
www.txdps.state.tx.us/mpch.
For more information about the tour and CUE, visit
www.ncmissngpersons.org and
www.roadtoremembertour.com.
