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[Lori Davis]

http://galvestondail...0ec74076f768062

Sikes’ abductor could be paroled

By Scott E. Williams
The Daily News
Published January 12, 2007

TEXAS CITY — One of Shelley Sikes’ abductors could do something this year that Sikes has not in more than 20 years — come home.

Sikes was 19 and on her way home from work on May 25, 1986, when John Robert King ran her off the road.

Her abandoned vehicle was later found on the shoulder of Interstate 45, where witnesses told investigators that King and Gerald Zwarst had forced her into their pickup truck.

Sikes was never seen again.

King and Zwarst in 1988 were convicted of aggravated kidnapping, the most serious charge prosecutors could seek without a body, and sentenced to life.

In Texas, however, life is not always life.

Shelley Sikes’ father was among those who received letters from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The letter, dated Dec. 27, alerted him that officials were reviewing King’s case for possible parole.

Eddie Sikes said he would take the agency up on its offer to comment on King’s release.

“We need to be keeping these kinds of people in jail,” he said. “We’re always talking about cracking down on sex offenders; well, that’s what these guys are.”

Galveston County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Tommy Hansen, who investigated Shelley Sikes’ disappearance, said he would also oppose King’s release.

Contrition is something parole board members consider, and Hansen said King’s refusal to tell anyone the location of Shelley Sikes’ body showed he had none.

“We’ve repeatedly asked Mr. King to tell us where that girl is, and we’ve gotten no answer,” Hansen said.

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo agreed, saying having Sikes’ remains would allow her family to achieve a measure of closure.

“From a purely humanitarian point of view, the family needs the chance to say goodbye, to give what they consider a proper farewell,” he said.

Eddie Sikes said all he wanted was “a chance to give my daughter a Christian burial.”

Parole review is a process that takes about six months. After reviewing the original case and records of the subject’s behavior in prison, as well as letters from both the victim’s and inmate’s sides, a panel votes. An inmate needs to get two votes from the three-member board to be released.

Under state law at the time of King’s conviction, prisoners had to serve at least 20 years before becoming eligible for parole. Nearly a decade ago, legislators changed that minimum number to 30.

+++

How To Help

Anyone who knew John Robert King, Shelley Sikes or anything about Sikes’ disappearance and would like to voice an opinion on King’s parole can send a letter to Raven Kazen, director of victim services for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The address is P.O. Box 13401, Austin, TX, 78711-3401, and e-mail is victim.svc(at)state.tx.us.

Shelley Sikes’ family and the officials who investigated her case asked anyone with information on her whereabouts to call the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office tip line, at 866-248-8477. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.khou.com/...s.1f9f31f3.html

Letters keep Texas City woman's abductor in prison

07:35 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 29, 2007
By Scott E. Williams / Galveston County Daily News

TEXAS CITY — The state parole board has denied Gerald Zwarst’s bid for early release from life in prison after a community letter-writing campaign.

In 1988, a jury convicted both Zwarst and John Robert King of aggravated kidnapping in the 1986 disappearance of Texas City resident Shelley Sikes.

Her parents led a letter-writing campaign to keep both King and Zwarst in prison.

Lt. Tommy Hansen, the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office detective in charge of investigating the case, said the board’s decision to deny Zwarst’s petition for parole showed the value of input from the public.

“The amount of letters and e-mails they got was overwhelming,” he said.

“There’s strength in numbers and I think a lot of people tend to forget that.”

Although investigators believe Sikes was killed after King and Zwarst abducted her, her body was never recovered.

The kidnapping charge was the most serious that prosecutors could seek without a body.

At the time, state law required a person sentenced to life to spend 20 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. About a decade ago, the law changed, requiring inmates with life sentences to complete 30 years before parole eligibility.

More than 20 years after Sikes vanished while on her way home in Texas City from work at Gaido’s restaurant in Galveston, her family still has no body and no way to lay her to rest.

Zwarst will next appear before the parole board in 2012. King is also up for parole, but the board has yet to rule on his case.

This story is available through KHOU, Ch. 11's partnership with The Galveston County Daily News.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.doenetwor...es/297dftx.html
Doe Network profile for Shelley Sikes

[Lori Davis]

http://www.khou.com/...y.67af1fa5.html
09:02 AM CST on Monday, January 28, 2008
By Scott E. Williams / The Daily News

May 1986 — Shelley Sikes, 19, left her summer job at Gaido’s restaurant for her Texas City home but never made it. Her car was found on Interstate 45’s northbound feeder road about a mile north of the causeway. Her body was never recovered, but Bayview resident John Robert King and El Lago resident Gerald Peter Zwarst were later convicted of aggravated kidnapping, the most severe charge prosecutors could pursue without a body.

[Jenn]

Charley Project Profile: http://www.charleypr...es_shelley.html

[Jenn]

http://thepolicenews...l/gcpnapr07.pdf

POLICE NEWS VOLUME IV, NUMBER 4 GULFCOASTPOLICENEWS.COM April 2

King, Dad Killed Sikes; Zwarst
By Breck Porter, The Police News

HUNTSVILLE – One of the two men serving a life sentence for the 1986 abduction of Galveston student and waitress Shelley Sikes, says co-defendant John King and his dad were the one’s that probably killed her and disposed of her body. Her remains have never been
recovered. In an interview with The Police News inside The Walls Unit in Huntsville, the gray haired Gerald Pieter Zwarst, still maintains that on May 24, 1986, when 19-year old Shelley Kathleen Sikes, was forcibly pulled from her car, beaten and hauled away in his truck, that he was so knocked out on drugs and booze that he was hardly cognizant of what was going on.

“It was my truck and King was driving,” said Zwarst. “I couldn’t see, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t even stand up because of the condition I was in. King said that the first time he saw her was on the causeway. I don’t really know what’s going on, but he yelled something out the drivers side window to her and she take’s off,” Zwarst says describing how he and King first came in contact with Sikes.

According to the investigators from the Galveston County’s Office, the two men were harassing the girl as she drove home from work around midnight. On the north side of the causeway, she quickly took the frontage road exit, apparently hoping they would miss the exit and continue on down the freeway.

Zwarst continues, “She speeds up and gets in front of the truck and then tries to go to the, ah uh, see, I didn’t look at this
how it happened, but apparently she went off to the right on the feeder road near Dimitri’s Seafood Place. It had been raining that night and what happened is, she turned off and he missed the feeder road. King missed the feeder road and the driver behind us later said that he went over a culvert and hit a barrel. He drives down the embankment to the feeder and parks a long ways away. “Now check this out. King gets out of the truck, and we’ve got witnesses in court that says this, and he walks back to her car because it spun out on the wet pavement and landed in a ditch. A lot of this I remember from court. I don’t have the first hand knowledge of what happened but the witnesses said they saw him go to her car and apparently she had the windows rolled up so he busted the window out.”

All during the interview Zwarst refers to copies of newspaper clippings from The Houston Post and The Houston Chronicle on which he had highlighted paragraphs on points he wanted to be sure were made. Throughout the interview he criticizes investigators as well as the polygraph operator who gave both he and King lie-detector tests, and in one case, a newspaper reporter who he claims took some of his statements out of context.

It was determined that after King dragged Sikes from her small Ford Pinto, he was dragging her towards the truck when a passerby stopped to render aid. King motioned to him as if he had a gun and told the witness to the commotion it was a family matter and for him to get
lost or he would shoot him. “There was no weapon in this whole thing,” said Zwarst. “The only weapon was the
truck,” he said but didn’t explain.“So he drags her to the truck. When he slammed the door I woke up and saw what was going on. He said that this girl was hurt and we needed to take her to the hospital. I said okay and I helped her in the truck. I told the police this, that I helped her in, I’m trying to help, I don’t know what’s going on. We’re supposed to be going to the hospital but instead he goes to his house in Bayview

“I briefly waked up again at his house and ah, I see movement in his house. He goes in the house and he tells me to wait outside. He doesn’t want me to come in so I say awright, so I take a leak outside and I get back in the truck.”

Interviewer: Was the girl still in the truck?

Zwarst: “Well I don’t know. I’m not even thinking about what’s going on, you see, because of the condition I’m in, you see.”

Interviewer: Do you mean you don’t remember whether or not there was someone in the cab of the truck when you got back in from taking a leak?

Zwarst: I had no idea what was going on. This is what I’ve been saying all along. Here I am, we’ve been smoking crack on the beach, I’m on Valium and pain killers, I’ve been smoking weed and I’ve been drinking whiskey and beer all day.” “I had gone over to Galveston that day to have my hand straightened out. I had a broken hand. I had a cast on my hand at the time. See, they never mention that either. How am I suppose to do anything when I’m on pain medication and I’ve got a cast on my hand and King is saying I did everything. It doesn’t’ make any sense. I had just got out of John Sealy Hospital that morning. I was an out patient with an orthopedic doctor.”

Zwarst says that before encountering Sikes on the causeway, the two men had been in the Pizza Hut on 61st Street. “He (King) made a scene in there and the waitress was going to call the law. See, I remember that,” he tells the interviewer. “Michael Guarino, the DA, said I have selective memory, but I remember that because she chased us out and was gonna call the law. King threatened her in the pizza place.”

All during the interview Zwarst is critical of many aspects of the investigation. He claimed that prosecutors conveniently left out critical testimony that would have been helpful in his defense, although he was represented by a defense attorney.

“The investigation was very poorly done. When they found her car, all they did was take an accident report. No blood was taken, no fingerprints were initially taken and the blood splatter expert testimony at my trial said that there was blood splattered all over her car. Shelley Sikes had A-Positive blood and so do I.  John King has O-Negative blood and that’s what they found all over her car,” he claimed. “It was proven by the testimony of the doctor at John Sealy that they stitched his hand up from where he cut it when he busted her window. That
was his blood. I was never at the car.”

Interviewer: We don’t care about all of that. We know what happened at the scene. We want to know what happened to Shelley Sikes body. What happened to it? Where is it?
“The fact is,” he said, “that King turned himself into the El Paso authorities because of the enormous guilt he felt. Now, during these 13 months after the abduction and before he turned himself in, there were two suicide notes. And while he called his father from El Paso, they listened to the conversation over the phone and John King asked about a bag with garbage and where it was put. The prosecutor knew what was going on and they deliberately did not put it on trial because they didn’t have him in custody,” referring to King’s father. They
never investigated him. They never interviewed him or gave him a polygraph.

“Two months after the abduction his mom tells him that something smelled really foul behind their house. This is the thing see. While I was in the truck during the night, him and his dad more than likely took the body out and did something with her. I couldn’t have known beans about it because I wasn’t awake.”
“I remember that the National Guard and people went out there searching one summer and they never found nothing,” Zwarst continues. “But there was a lot of speculation about his house. His driveway was under construction at the time. Now I don’t know if they buried her up underneath the driveway or if it was underneath his house or in the woods,
but they did something with her, and I
believe that his dad knows but I can’t prove it.”

In summary, Gerald Zwarst insists that he was not a party to the death of Shelley Sikes and that he had nothing to do with the disposal of her body nor does he know for sure where or how it was disposed of. Much of what he said to us in this interview is in direct conflict with
what investigators and prosecutors maintain and what the juries believed in their trials, as evidenced by the life sentences handed down to both defendants.
It is difficult to believe many of the things that Zwarst told us in this interview. He presented himself as sincere and sympathetic to the Sikes family and insisted that if he knew what happened to the girl’s remains, he would reveal it. He has been given immunity to any further prosecution in the case in a written agreement signed by Judge HenryDalhite, then District Attorney Mike Guarino and supported by current District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk._

So, if Gerald Zwarst knows where ShelleySikes is, why isn’t he telling?

[Jenn]

http://galvestondail...0f8fbf234b2e613

Cops seek leads on mystery torso from 1971

By Scott E. Williams
The Daily News

Published January 28, 2008

GALVESTON — In 1971, the disappearance of two Webster girls last seen on 61st Street in Galveston launched an investigation that ended in an arrest and the discovery of a skeletal torso in a Pasadena bayou.

More than 36 years later, investigators say they believe the wrong man was convicted, and the torso did not belong to the missing kid police had identified.

Sharon Shaw and Rhonda Johnson, both 14, had come from Webster to Galveston in summer 1971 to surf. The pair was last seen alive Aug. 4, 1971, waiting for a friend to pick them up on 61st Street. The friend later told investigators the girls were gone when she arrived.

In early 1972, police found the girls’ skulls in Turner Bayou, a month apart. However, months earlier, in the same area, a torso had turned up. Police ascribed the remains as belonging to Phillip Manning, a 13-year-old boy from Pasadena who had gone missing weeks earlier.

A few months ago, police learned that Manning, now 49, was alive and well. At 13, he had left home with a trucker, who had offered to make him an apprentice, of sorts. However, months later, Manning abandoned the truck driver, who was abusive.

At 14, Manning joined the U.S. Army, even though he was four years below the age requirement. When his true age was discovered more than a year later, he was discharged and sent home, although he ended up in Louisiana. After a lifetime of moves and brushes with the law, Manning now lives in Austin.

Galveston police detective Fred Paige said that Manning’s life prompts the question, “Whose bones were those?”

Paige said he and other investigators with a variety of agencies believed that the torso likely belonged to Sharon Shaw or Rhonda Johnson. However, he also said detectives wanted to be certain. He asked that anyone with information on the remains call the police at 409-765-3702.

Webster resident Michael Self ultimately received a life sentence in the girls’ killings, but police now believe he was innocent. Self died in prison more than 20 years ago.

The Webster investigator in the case that led to Self’s conviction was Tommy Deal, who would later be sentenced to federal prison for bank robbery.

+++

Mysteries along I-45

Anniversaries of disappearances and unsolved killings can be trying times, not only for the families of the victims, but for others who lost loved ones similarly. Among the unsolved cases of missing and murdered girls and women in Galveston County are:

• July 1, 1971 — Brenda Jones, 14, was last seen in Galveston, saying she was on her way to visit a relative in the hospital. She never made it there. Brenda’s body was later found floating in Galveston Bay, about 500 yards west of the Pelican Island Bridge, with a head wound and a piece of cloth stuffed into her mouth.

• Nov. 9, 1971 — Allison Craven, 12, vanished from her Galveston home. About three months later, her dismembered remains were found buried in two separate places — in a field near her family’s home and in another field in Pearland, about 13 miles southeast of Houston.

• Nov. 19, 1971 — The half-nude bodies of Ball High School students Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson, both 15, were found in Turner’s Bayou in Texas City four days after they had gone missing. Both had been shot to death.

• Sept. 6, 1974 — Brooks Bracewell, 12, and Georgia Geer, 14, were last seen at a payphone outside a Dickinson convenience store. Their remains were later found in an Alvin marsh.

• Oct. 10, 1983 — Sondra Romber, 14, left her Santa Fe home for school but never arrived there. Her father reported her missing the day after he returned home to find his daughter gone and his house unlocked.

• Oct. 26, 1985 — Michelle Doherty Thomas, 17, disappeared after leaving her Alta Loma home with a group of friends. Investigators believe she may have been kidnapped and killed because she had served as a police informant in a drug bust.

• May 1986 — Shelley Sikes, 19, left her summer job at Gaido’s restaurant for her Texas City home but never made it. Her car was found on Interstate 45’s northbound feeder road about a mile north of the causeway. Her body was never recovered, but Bayview resident John Robert King and El Lago resident Gerald Peter Zwarst were later convicted of aggravated kidnapping, the most severe charge prosecutors could pursue without a body.

• Oct. 1988 — Suzanne Rene Richerson, 22, disappeared from the lobby of the Casa Del Mar Condominiums on Galveston’s Seawall Boulevard. One of her shoes was found, but no one has been able to turn up any other trace of her.

• Sept. 1991 — The remains of an unidentified woman, known as “Janet Doe,” were found in a Calder Road field, just east of Interstate 45. Her body was the fourth found in the field since 1984. Heidi Villareal Fye, 25, disappeared in 1983 and Laura Miller, 16, disappeared in 1984, both from the same convenience store. The bodies of Fye and Miller later turned up in the field, as did another unidentified woman, known only as “Jane Doe.”

• March 5, 1996 — Krystal Jean Baker, 13, was reported missing after being seen last walking in the 4500 block of FM 1765. Her body was later found near Interstate 10 and the Trinity River in Chambers County.

• April 1997 — Laura Kate Smither, 12, disappeared while jogging near her Friendswood home. Her body was found weeks later in a Pasadena retention pond. Friendswood Crime Stoppers, at 281-480-8477, is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and indictment of anyone involved in the child’s death.

• Aug. 17 1997 — Jessica Lee Cain, 17, disappeared on her way home from a Bennigan’s restaurant in Webster. Her father found her tan 1992 Ford extended-cab pickup on the shoulder of southbound Interstate 45 between exits 7 and 8 in La Marque. Her wallet and keys were inside. The Cains have established a $50,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts, or to the arrest and indictment of anyone involved in her disappearance. Anyone with information can call the Laura Recovery Center at 281-482-5723.

• July 12, 2001 — Tot “Totsy” Harriman, 57, was visiting family in League City when she left for a planned trip up state Highway 35 looking for property to buy. Neither she nor her 1995 Lincoln Continental have been seen since.

• July 12, 2002 — Sarah Trusty, 23, was last seen riding her bicycle near Algoa Baptist Church. Fifteen days later, two fishermen found her decomposed body on the Texas City Dike. Her death was ruled a homicide, and doctors determined she had been dead more than a week when her body was found.

• Nov. 3 — A man on a motorcycle found the body of Terresa Vanegas, 16, at the edge of a Dickinson High School practice field. Vanegas had last been seen three days earlier at a Halloween party on California Avenue. Her death was ruled a homicide, with police saying she had suffered various types of injuries.

• Nov. 10 — A passerby found the body of Amanda Nicole Kellum, 27, lying facedown at the eastern edge of Omega Bay, just north of the neighborhood bearing the same name. She had been beaten and stabbed to death.

• July 15 — Beach campers found the body of Bridgette Gearen, 28, on Crystal Beach. Gearen, a single mother who worked at a Beaumont law firm, had been raped, beaten and strangled. Gearen vanished one Saturday night from outside a beach house at the corner of Redfish and Crystal Beach roads that she was renting along with a dozen friends.

+++

How To Help

Anyone with information in any of these cases can call his or her respective law-enforcement agency:

• Dickinson Police Department: 281-337-4700

• Friendswood Police Department: 281-996-3300

• Galveston County Sheriff’s Office tip line: 866-248-8477

• Galveston Police Department: 409-765-3760

• Hitchcock Police Department: 409-986-5559

• Jamaica Beach Police Department: 409-737-1143

• Kemah Police Department: 281-334-5414

• La Marque Police Department: 409-938-9269

• League City Police Department: 281-332-2566

• Santa Fe Police Department: 409-925-2000

• Texas City Police Department: 409-643-5760

• Texas Department of Public Safety, Galveston County office: 409-933-1125

[Jenn]

Older article:

http://galvestondail...asso?wcd=108144

Shelley Sikes’ abductor parole request denied

By Scott E. Williams
The Daily News

Published October 13, 2007
GALVESTON — Shelley Sikes has not been home in 20 years. Her abductors will not be going home anytime soon, either.

The state parole board has rejected John Robert King’s parole. King, serving a life sentence for aggravated kidnapping, became eligible for early release this year, after serving 20 years of his sentence.

In 1988, a jury convicted both King and Gerald Zwarst of aggravated kidnapping in Sikes’ 1986 disappearance. In May, the parole board rejected parole for Zwarst.

In both men’s cases, heaps of letters were among the considerations parole members took. Sikes’ parents led a letter-writing campaign to keep both King and Zwarst in prison.

Sikes’ family has said it would oppose parole for the men unless they said where her body was so it could be recovered for a proper burial.

Lt. Tommy Hansen, the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office detective in charge of investigating the case, said the board’s decision to deny King’s petition for parole showed that officials would listen to the public.

“This shows that there’s strength in numbers,” Hansen said. “I couldn’t tell you exactly how many letters were sent, but I know from talking to the parole office that when they came in after the weekend that the parole news hit the media, it took them days to get all the messages sorted out.”

The kidnapping charge was the most serious that prosecutors could seek without a body.

Both King and Zwarst will be able to petition the parole board again in 2012.

[Jenn]

Older Article:

http://galvestondail...lasso?wcd=95549

Keep King in prison until Shelley comes home

By Tommy Hansen The Daily News

Published January 14, 2007

On May 25, 1986, life in Galveston County changed. On that day, Shelley Sikes was abducted from her vehicle on Interstate Highway 45, just north of the Galveston causeway.

Shelley was a college student from Texas City and was a shining star of the community.

However, on that dreadful night on her way home from her job at Gaido’s on a holiday weekend, that star was extinguished.

Shelley vanished, and for a long, long year her family and friends were in complete dismay.

During that time, investigators from the sheriff’s office worked countless hours trying to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, this case was part of a string of similar, yet unrelated cases in Galveston County.

Part of that mystery came to an end in June of 1987 when John Robert King attempted to commit suicide in a motel room in El Paso.

Thanks to an alert investigator who pieced together writings of King found in his room, the investigation took a turn.

Investigators from the Galveston County sheriff’s office immediately flew to El Paso to start the process of making a case.

As a result of this intense and lengthy investigation, Gerald Zwarst was identified as a partner in this crime with King.

In 1988, the pair was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison, thanks to the great work of Criminal District Attorney Mike Guarino and his staff.

Unfortunately, Shelley’s remains have never been recovered.

Through the years, investigators and members of the district attorney’s office have attempted to talk to King and his family in an effort to locate Shelley’s body and give her family closure. This effort has fallen on deaf ears.

On Dec. 27, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice sent a letter to Eddie Sikes, Shelley’s father, that King was being placed in parole review by the parole board.

Therefore, I am seeking the support of the community in Galveston County to please send your letters or e-mails to the parole board requesting that John Robert King, TDCJ No. 00479010, be denied parole.

Since Shelley never made it home, why should King be given that opportunity?

Please contact TDCJ Victim Services Division, 8712 Shoal Creek Blvd., Suite 265, P.O. Box 13401, Austin, Texas 78711-3401, or e-mail the department at victim.svc(at)tdcj.state.tx.us.

Lt. Tommy Hansen is a Galveston County sheriff’s officer with the Criminal Investigation Division.

[Jenn]

Older article:

http://galvestondail...asso?wcd=101701

Overwhelming letters keep Zwarst behind bars

By Scott E. Williams  The Daily News

Published May 29, 2007

TEXAS CITY — The state parole board has denied Gerald Zwarst’s bid for early release from life in prison after a community letter-writing campaign.

In 1988, a jury convicted both Zwarst and John Robert King of aggravated kidnapping in the 1986 disappearance of Texas City resident Shelley Sikes.

Her parents led a letter-writing campaign to keep both King and Zwarst in prison.

Lt. Tommy Hansen, the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office detective in charge of investigating the case, said the board’s decision to deny Zwarst’s petition for parole showed the value of input from the public.

“The amount of letters and e-mails they got was overwhelming,” he said.

“There’s strength in numbers and I think a lot of people tend to forget that.”

Although investigators believe Sikes was killed after King and Zwarst abducted her, her body was never recovered.

The kidnapping charge was the most serious that prosecutors could seek without a body.

At the time, state law required a person sentenced to life to spend 20 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. About a decade ago, the law changed, requiring inmates with life sentences to complete 30 years before parole eligibility.

More than 20 years after Sikes vanished while on her way home in Texas City from work at Gaido’s restaurant in Galveston, her family still has no body and no way to lay her to rest.

Zwarst will next appear before the parole board in 2012. King is also up for parole, but the board has yet to rule on his case.

[Lori Davis]

https://www.findthem...n/cases/8604/0/
NamUs profile for Shelley Sikes - Case 8604

[Lori Davis]

http://www.yourhoust...c88f7e0888.html

 

26 years after her disappearance, relatives of Shelley Sikes still fighting to keep kidnappers locked up

 

Posted: Wednesday, February 8, 2012 3:30 pm | Updated: 9:42 am, Tue Feb 14, 2012.

By FLORIAN MARTIN

 

It has been 26 years since Shelley Sikes of Texas City was abducted and never returned.

 

It is a long time, but her family hasn’t had the luxury of moving on as one of Sikes’ kidnappers is again eligible for parole, five years after his last hearing.

 

On May 24, 1986, a day of drinking at the beach ended when John Robert King, driving Gerald Zwarst’s car, ran Sikes off the road as she drove home from working at Gaido’s restaurant along the Galveston Seawall.

 

Sikes’ car was found the next morning along Interstate 45 near Dickinson, and the 19-year-old college student was never seen alive again. Sikes is presumed dead but her body was never found.

 

In 1987, King called El Paso police from a motel room there and confessed to the crime, but without a body, police could not charge him or Zwarst with murder.

The men were convicted of aggravated kidnapping in separate trials in 1988, and both were sentenced to life in prison.

 

Although they were not ruling on murder charges, former Galveston County Sheriff Gene Leonard said when interviewed in 2007 that jurors in both trials were convinced that King and Zwarst killed Sikes.

 

Zwarst had his first parole hearing in June 2007, 20 years after his conviction. The parole board denied his request and ordered that he become eligible again after five years – the maximum period under Texas law.

 

The same happened for King later that year and he is eligible again in April with the parole decision in October.

 

Back then, Sikes’ family had mobilized all their friends and acquaintances to write to the parole board and tell them to deny parole for Zwarst, and later for King.

 

As one of the criteria for their decisions, parole board members look at public comments regarding a possible parole for an inmate, according to Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. People can send their comments to the board up to 30 days before the set date for the decision, which in Zwarst’s case is June 22, she said. The decision could be made any time within that 30-day period.

 

This time around, thanks to increased significance of social media, Sikes’ family has more options to spread the word. Five years ago, Facebook wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today and Sikes’ sister, Dana Wild, her mother, Erin Sikes, Wild’s husband Stephen and his sister Stephanie Wild Rothfuchs are taking full advantage of it.

 

Rothfuchs started a Facebook group dedicated to Sikes, “We Miss You, Shelley,” and she and the other family members have been posting messages on their Facebook profiles encouraging people to write to the parole board and to tell others to do the same.

 

While Dana Wild is glad to have the opportunity to inform so many people about her sister’s abductors and what they can do to help keep them in prison, the parole proceedings bring back bad memories for her and her family.

 

They already miss Sikes every year on her birthday and the anniversary of her disappearance, Wild said.

 

The time during the men’s parole eligibility “makes it even worse because we do have to relive that horrible night when we realized she was gone and that

someone must have taken her, and then the year that we didn’t know what happened to her, then finding out that she was dead and that these two men had murdered her and then going through the trial.”

 

Wild said it’s hard to get closure, not only because her sister’s body was never found but also because the family will have to fight to keep the two men in prison at least every five years.

 

“Even if he gets denied parole this time and gets put up for five more years, I know that in five more years we’re going to be doing this again. Every time that the sore begins to heal, then something scratches the surface off and it’s bleeding all over again.”

 

If the board denies parole, it has to decide if the inmate is eligible again after one year or up to five years later.

 

If at least Sikes’ body was recovered, then they would be able to say goodbye, Wild said. She still holds her breath every time she hears on the news that skeletal remains were found somewhere, thinking that it could be her sister’s.

 

Both King and Zwarst were offered immunity from further charges if they reveal Sikes’ location, but they either don’t know where she is or refuse to say.

Wild lists that as one reason why they shouldn’t be released. In addition, she said, there are still many people living in the area who don’t want Zwarst there.

 

Zwarst is from El Lago. Nor does Wild think Zwarst, who she said has both U.S. and Dutch citizenship, should be able to just move to the Netherlands.

 

“He shouldn’t be able to go somewhere else where no one knows him and live his life out free and do whatever he wants,” she said.

 

Both King and Zwarst need to stay in prison for the remainder of their life sentences, Wild said. Asked if she would wish the death penalty on them, she said, “If you would have asked me that when they were going through the trial, I would have said yes.

 

“At this point, I don’t know. I basically just would like to have my sister’s body back, so that we could at least have a burial for her and have a place to go visit if we wanted to. And if they stayed the rest of their lives in jail, that would be fine with me.”