7 replies to this topic

[Kelly]

Project Jason Profile:

 

Name: Lynn Messer

 

 

Date of Birth: 06/04/1962

Date Missing: 07/08/2014

Age at time of disappearance: 52

City Missing From: St. Genevieve County

State Missing From: Missouri

Gender: Female

Race: White

Height: 5 ft 2 in

Weight: 160 lbs

Hair Color: Graying

Eye Color: Green

Complexion: Fair

Identifying Characteristics: Lynn wears glasses for nearsightedness, has ear piercings only, and no tattoos.

Clothing: It is not known what she was wearing at the time of her disappearance.

 

Circumstances of Disappearance: Lynn walked away from her rural farm residence sometime between 12 midnight and 4 am. She did not take a vehicle and has no ID, cell phone, cash or other possessions with her.

Medical Conditions: She suffers from chronic hip pain and has some grass and pollen allergies. There is no history of depression or dementia. Lynn has a very strong and driven personality and despite the hip pain, will walk for miles or hours even when in pain. Ask for for Detective Austin Clark when calling with tips.

Investigative Agency: St. Genevieve County Sheriff

Agency Phone: (573) 883-5820

Link To Poster: http://www.projectja..._LynnMesser.pdf

[Kelly]

http://themissouriti...ed-lynn-messer/

What happened to Lynn Messer?

August 25, 2014

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. — For the small group of Missourians whose life revolves around the 5-month legislative session in Jefferson City, there has been a nagging question on the back of the mind.

For 49 days, lawmakers, staffers, lobbyists, activists and more have been asking the same question, publicly and privately: What happened to Lynn Messer?

Every theory on the table

49 days ago Lynn — the wife of prominent conservative lobbyist Kerry Messer — vanished in the middle of the night. Her husband awoke to find Lynn was not in bed. Her personal effects were all where she had left them, as was the walking boot she’d recently been given for a minor injury.

Lynn Messer was simply gone.

49 days later, the Messer farm has been the subject of massive searches coordinated both by the Messer family and local law enforcement. The farm, approximately 250 acres, has seen no stone unturned.

Soon after word of Lynn’s disappearance began to make the rounds, rumors began to swirl. Early news reports, fueled also by speculation on social media, said Lynn was perhaps suffering from depression, a charge Kerry Messer has flatly denied.

And of course, there were darker whispers. When a wife is missing or suspected to have been harmed, it’s not uncommon for law enforcement and the community to turn their eyes to a single party: the husband.

Kerry didn’t want to discuss whether or not the Ste. Genevieve Sherriff’s Department had questioned him as a suspect, but as of right now, local law enforcement does not suspect foul play. And after all, how could they? There is so little evidence available.

What may be even more troubling for Kerry Messer than the judgmental gaze of suspicion is that law enforcement does not suspect much of anything in Lynn’s disappearance. Nearly every theory is currently on the table because there simply have been no leads, no tips leading to fruitful information, no rumors leading to better rumors, no nothing.

Lynn Messer appears to have simply vanished.

“We have no viable working scenario,” Kerry Messer told The Missouri Times. “As a result we have every theory imaginable on the table. We have no indication as to which direction to focus on. We have to keep our focus on all possibilities.”


Pain

Kerry did share his own personal theory about what may have happened to his wife, one he admits he has little evidence for, but one that he says is the closest thing resembling a workable possibility. And it begins 11 years ago.

Lynn Messer struggled for more than a decade with pain. For a decade, Lynn suffered severe pain in both of her hips as the result of a condition that could only be properly fixed by way of hip replacement. Unfortunately, it was a hip replacement doctors would not perform until Lynn was older.

“For years, it was all about pain management,” Kerry Messer said. “And that’s a very difficult thing – anyone can tell you that pain management can also be very difficult emotionally as well.”

As her surgery drew near, Lynn was in a car accident that injured her shoulder. Fearing that doctors would postpone her hip surgery until her upper body could bear more weight during rehabilitation, Lynn concealed the injury and went through her hip rehabilitation with a damaged shoulder. According to Kerry, she exceeded doctor’s wildest expectations for her recovery, and did so while concealing the pain of her shoulder.

After rehab and a surgery to repair her shoulder, Kerry says Lynn was “ecstatic” for a time.

“She’d been planning for the better part of 11 years what she would do, how her activities would change, once she was pain-free again,” Messer said. “She was very much looking forward to 20 years without pain after 11 years with pain.”

This, he says, is at least one indicator that Lynn had no intentions to hurt herself. She was too busy, he says, looking forward to a newer day-to-day life.

It wasn’t long before pain returned. And when Lynn returned to her doctor, the news was simply heartbreaking. The pain was in her hips in part of the bone that could not be replaced. It could not be cured. It was back to pain management for Lynn Messer – forever.

The doctor gave Lynn new pain medications, something she’d never taken before. Kerry says these pain pills were the only “new” thing in her life.

“I believe there may have been an adverse mental reaction to those pills,” Kerry said. “I’ve had some folks say that it would be flushed out of her system by now, but based on some of the research I’ve done, that’s not necessarily a guarantee. I think it’s possible that there’s a long term mental reaction here and that she may be in a very confused state.”

“I just want to find my wife.”

Tips come in with some frequency. People see someone that looks like Lynn and they call. Most of the time, they’ve been able to trace the lead to an honest mistaken identity.

“If someone is going to call the hotline because they see someone that looks like Lynn please, please, take a picture with your cell phone,” Kerry said. “The time it takes to track down some security footage or something like that and working with local law enforcement on the scene – it would all go much faster if people would do that.”

Lynn’s disappearance is not a local issue, as far as he and the local sheriff’s office is concerned. She could be anywhere.
Law enforcement in the early days of the search

Law enforcement in the early days of the search

“The whole world is the haystack. We’re trying to find a needle in here,” Kerry said. “I just want to find my wife, and the idea that she could be hundreds of miles from here even – that’s a very daunting thought.”

The general pubic isn’t aware of it, but the Ste. Genevieve Sheriff’s department is still working very hard on the investigation, Messer said. Official search parties are less frequent, because police are busy running down tips from the hotline.

In fact, organizing searches of the untamed woods stretching for miles on the edge of the Messer property is still a challenge, and Kerry Messer welcomes anyone who can organize a group willing to spend their day looking.

He also asks that anyone looking to chip in to download and print the official Missing Persons flyer and post it somewhere public. The police haven’t ruled anything out yet, and Kerry says the more exposure her photo gets, the better.

“If she is in a confused state, then she’s likely to become paranoid,” Messer said. “And when you’re paranoid, you don’t ask for help because the same people who are in a position to help you are the same people you’re afraid of. If she’s somewhere where people don’t realize she’s a missing person, the only thing we can do is try to get her picture and her story out there.”

Reality, faith, and optimism

Messer says the outpouring of support from those who know him through his work in the Capitol has been uplifting. House Speaker Tim Jones and Senate Pro Tem Tom Dempsey both sent letters out to their members urging them to link to relevant news stories about Lynn Messer’s disappearance in their regular reports to constituents.

“I just want to say to those folks in our world, the Jefferson City world, that I know you don’t know what to say, and that’s okay,” Messer said. “If the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn’t know what to say. I just want you to know it’s okay and that it’s easier to receive concern than it is to answer questions, and the outpouring of support has been very moving.”

Kerry Messer hides the deep emotional toll the entire ordeal has placed on him very well. The toll is perhaps most visible through Kerry’s writing, either in his letter to his church or in his frequent updates of the Facebook page setup shortly after Lynn’s disappearance.

Messer has spent more than one evening alone in front of the computer writing and, in his words, talking with God.

“Throughout all of this, I know He is strong enough to guide her and protect her,” Messer said. “I just want to make sure I’m learning whatever it is He wants me to learn, and trying to see if there’s something more He is trying to teach me.”

There’s a strain, of course. Kerry can’t lead the searches into the thick woods because the searches are just as much for clues as they are for a corpse, and he’s not prepared to handle that.

His son, Abram, who works alongside him in Jefferson City, has done much of the legwork in mapping out searches.

“I got so angry the other day at Abe over something so little with the truck,” Messer said. “And it wasn’t until later when I was trying to figure out why on earth I was so mad when I realized I wasn’t mad at him or the truck. It’s just a toll that this takes on you.”

There is perhaps no “right” or “wrong” way to cope with a situation like Kerry Messer’s. For him, prayer is about the only method that seems to work. So he says he’ll continue to pray, to have faith in God and in his wife and in law enforcement.

And he’ll take it one day at a time.

[Kelly]

http://www.people.co...souri-farm-wife

Eight Months Later, Mystery of Missing Missouri Farm Wife Continues

By Jeff Truesdel
03/19/2015 AT 09:45 PM EDT

Lynn Messer appears vibrantly alive and active on a Facebook page where her husband, Kerry, a Missouri lobbyist for a conservative Christian agenda, chronicles the passions and activities of the wife he calls "Ma."

"As you can see in the attached photos, Ma cannot take a nap without someone piling on top to join with her," Kerry Messer wrote March 16 in a 3,100-word post under the heading "Lynn's Dogs." Ten days earlier, on March 6, he wrote: "Ma's gardening can be quite impressive! Just ask those who have seen her in action!"

In between those upbeat posts, however, is another that's more reflective, hopeful and worried, where Messer wrote his bride of 35 years simply vanished in the middle of the night July 8 from their rural farmstead.

"We still do not know where Lynn is at," he wrote March 7 on the page titled "Find Lynn Messer." "We still do not know what Ma's condition may be. There are so many confusions over life right now, emotions that I never expected and just don't understand or know how to handle, and decisions that seem to just hang in the air with no answers – and often no way to even comprehend how to word many of the questions."

Questions that are also being asked by investigators: Did Lynn, as her husband reported, rise sometime before 4 a.m. and just walk off, leaving behind her wallet, cell phone, car keys and the passport she carried on church missions to South America? Are there clues undiscovered on the couple's 270-acre property and in the century-old farmhouse that serves as the base of the Missouri Family Network, Kerry Messer's small lobbying organization? Are they looking at a murder?

"Anything's an option at this point, but right now it's still classified as a missing-persons case," Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff's Det. Austin Clark, the lead investigator, tells PEOPLE. "We're looking at it from all angles. There's nothing beyond the realm of possibilities."

Kerry Messer says he's been questioned like a suspect but appreciates the thorough role of law enforcement, while noting the accusations from others that crop up on social media.

"They say things like, 'Oh, come on Kerry. You know where the body is,' and other stuff like that," Messer told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Law enforcement is very satisfied Lynn is not here."

Says Clark: "We've searched thoroughly. If she is on the property, we certainly haven't found her."

Another sheriff's officer, Maj. Jason Schott, told the newspaper: "At this point everyone is a suspect."

Eight Months Later, Mystery of Missing Missouri Farm Wife Continues| True Crime, Real People Stories

Police search farm property for Lynn Messer

Kerry Messer confronted the whispers head-on with an open letter Jan. 15 in the newspaper The Missouri Times, which covers the state capitol in Jefferson City, where Messer and his son, Abram, lobby legislators on behalf of what he's described as the "traditionally conservative pro-family community."

"On one hand we would prefer to have an open conversation rather than leaving you feeling inhibited about expressing your thoughts," said their letter. "Do not be concerned about offending in any way. In the long run it would be better for us to talk openly rather than to pretend things are 'normal.' "

Lynn Messer, 52, met her husband when both were teens, Kerry Messer told the Post-Dispatch, and after he convinced her to accept Jesus Christ, she dropped out of high school so they could marry when she was 16. She homeschooled their two sons and went on church missions to Ecuador. But she loved their farm life, making the mystery of her disappearance that much harder for him to grasp.

He told authorities that he awoke around 4 a.m. July 8 and, after discovering his wife missing from their bed, searched the house, the outbuildings, and the surrounding gravel and paved roads. After he called police, the search grew as sheriff's investigators eventually enlisted the state highway patrol, the FBI, and K-9 patrols aided by a plane and helicopters.

"The immediate area of the house where you think she would logically be has been searched thoroughly over and over and over," Ste. Genevieve Sheriff Gary Stolzer tells PEOPLE.

Are they getting closer to resolving the case? "I guess we'll know the answer to that the day we resolve it," he says.

Det. Clark says the passage of time only adds to the challenge as the number of volunteer searchers and possible leads decrease.

"It's unusual because it's not every day that someone just leaves without a trace or without a reason and they're not found within a reasonable time after the incident," says Clark. "In cases like this, you would assume you would figure everything out within a few days. As much time has passed, I think it does make it difficult."

Asked if he believes Lynn Messer walked off, he says, "I don't know the answer to that. That's why we're investigating from every angle we can."

In an interview with The Missouri Times, Kerry Messer offered a theory: A decade of severe pain in his wife's hips had led to surgery, but returning pain caused her doctor to say that more surgery was no longer a cure, and she was given new medication. "I believe there may have been an adverse mental reaction to those pills," Kerry Messer said. "I think it's possible that there's a long-term mental reaction here and that she may be in a very confused state."

On his Facebook posts, Kerry Messer dwells on the couple's deep religious faith, their long and loving history together, their routines and playful asides. "I just discovered this evening that today is 'National Short Girl Appreciation Day!,' " he posted on Feb. 3. "At the grand stature of 5'2", Lynn has always qualified to be recognized on such a day."

Noting snow in that day's forecast, he added: "Snow has always meant good times and fun 'adventures' for Ma! … Any time there is snow on the ground, you can see it in her eyes. She is planning. She is plotting. And if you don't go outside to let her get it out of her system, she will bring the snowballs inside!"

"Dear Lord," he concluded. "Thank You for a fun filled life and marriage where maturity does not always equate to growing up! Thank You for a Bride who is always planning, and always plotting! Thank You for putting so much love and 'adventure' into such a short package! …"

"Yet during this current season of life, the fun and the adventure are missing. Please return the joy and the adventure as You see fit. … However – because of Your grace during the past many years … I worship You knowing that Your plan is better than my short-sighted requests for the obvious. I trust You with the rest of today and tomorrow. I trust You with my Bride."

The sheriff's office asks that tips be called in to 573-883-5820, option 27463.
 

[Kelly]

NamUs Profile: https://www.findthem.../cases/26108/0/

[Kelly]

http://www.kfvs12.co...Ie3QAM.facebook

MO deer hunters asked to look for clues in missing woman case

Posted: Nov 10, 2015 5:42 PM PST
Updated: Nov 10, 2015 6:04 PM PST
Written by Allison Twaits

STE. GENEVIEVE, MO (KFVS) -

More than a year ago, a Ste. Genevieve woman disappeared from her home.

On Tuesday, her husband asked for help in finding her from an unlikely source.

Lynn Messer vanished in the middle of the night 16 months ago and her husband, Kerry asked the thousands of deer hunters who will make their way in to the woods over the weekend for the start of the season, to keep an eye out for any clues.

“I wake up in the middle of the night and quite often I reach across the bed and it’s still empty,” said Kerry Messer.

When his then 52-year-old wife, Lynn Messer, went missing in July of 2014, hundreds of volunteers searched thousands of acres in the weeks following her disappearance without any clues turning up.

But he said there’s still hope.

“The half-million hunters that go out in the woods during this deer season, if they would all hear the message and if they would all pay attention and report the odd items, someone’s loved one is going to be found,” he said.

This weekend marks the start of deer hunting season, which means the largest group of hunters will head out into the woods.

While out hunting for deer, Messer hopes they keep an eye out for any evidence about his wife’s disappearance.

“There is no scenario that will give us closure, but if it could at least give us some resolve, that would be better than nothing,” said Messer.

Messer stresses the search method has worked in the past. This year, he hopes it works for his family.

“I just want to beg hunters and outdoors folks to, please, don’t ignore the strange things you see in the woods, they are important to somebody,” he said.

[Kelly]

http://www.ozarksfir...-missing-people

New Bill To Help Families of Missing People

By Collin Lingo
Published 03/30 2016 09:51PM
Updated 03/30 2016 09:51PM

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.-- Almost two years ago, Lynn Messer, like so many other Missourians, disappeared."My wife was not there. And I began looking for her. And 21 months later we are still looking for her," said her husband Kerry Messer, who is still trying to learn how to handle the search alone.

"There is this whole world of people who live this life and no one can relate to it. No one knows what to say to them, no one can comfort them. No one knows how to help them," he said.

But now, in the wake of Lynn's disappearance, Kerry who is also the founder of the Missouri Family Network and a state lobbyist says he is supporting Senate Bill 1087.

"It starts the process of creating a state office to help the grieving family members, to navigate the world of the missing."

The bill would create a new job in the state of Missouri.

According to the bill, the person holding the new position would be able "to mediate between family members of missing persons and state and local law enforcement agencies, county coroners and medical examiners."

Messer says missing person cases like this need a middle man.

"People don't know what to do and law enforcement doesn't know how to handle that. Law enforcement typically has no concept of what to do with those family members. And its not their job," said Messer.

Messer says, if nothing else, the bill would relieve family members by eliminating their need to search, giving them time to properly grieve.

"The vast majority of people shrink into the woodwork especially the spouses. But some of them focus on the grieving by reaching out to help one another. And that's part of what I am doing."

[Kelly]

http://www.missourin...lp-close-cases/
 
Bill would create Missouri Missing Persons Advocate, database to help close cases
 
March 29, 2016
By Mike Lear

The state legislature is being asked to create a new state government position and new requirements aimed at helping families cope when loved ones go missing. The idea is backed by a lobbyist who says he knows firsthand what those families face.

Lynn Messer, the wife of lobbyist Kerry Messer, went missing in July, 2014. Kerry Messer is pushing for passage of a bill aimed at helping the families of missing persons, and at creating a system to compare information on missing persons with that on unidentified persons.

Kerry Messer is a lobbyist for Missouri Family Network. On July 8, 2014, he reported his wife Lynn missing. There was no sign of a struggle, she took nothing with her, and no trace of her has ever been found.

Messer told Missourinet he has learned what families of missing persons go through.

“Particularly on the front end of a tragedy there are no social service agencies, there’s nowhere for them to turn. They’re at their wit’s end and they don’t know nothing. They just try to muddle through,” said Messer.

The legislation, Senate Bill 1078 sponsored by Senator Gary Romine (R-Farmington), would create the “Office of Missing Persons Advocate,” within the Missouri Office of Adminstration. The Advocate and a deputy would be appointed by the governor and face confirmation by the state Senate.

Part of that office’s responsibility, said Messer, would be to help families deal with the disappearance of a loved one.

“Someone that can help them understand the potential resources that are available to them and also to help them just to understand why they’re not hearing anything after a season of time from their local law enforcement,” said Messer.

The bill also aims to increase communication among agencies investigating missing person cases.

“Half of the missing people in this country – between 40,000 and 60,000 – are in government agency control. They are unidentified bodies that have been buried in paupers’ graves, laying in morgues, medical examiner offices. DNA has been collected, not necessarily run in a lab to have a report, but the case files on these missing persons are scattered throughout the country, county by county, with no funding source to have all these people all across the country entering this information into a searchable database, nor is this information available to the general public,” said Messer.

Messer said the bill would attempt to create a system for entering into a system and comparing data on unidentified persons with that on missing persons.

“No other state has done this,” said Messer. “There is a federal law proposed called ‘Billy’s Law’ that would create a federal system, create funding for a federal system, and if we created a missing persons advocate we would be the first state to get plugged into that but otherwise we could operate on our own.”

There is no fiscal note on the bill but Messer said the goal is for it not to cost local governments or law enforcement agencies anything, meaning it would have to be paid for by the state.

He said the Advocate should also not interfere with investigations.

“The local law enforcement agency of an unresolved missing person case is in total control of that case and we do not want to try to upset that balance,” said Messer.

The bill will be heard by a Senate Committee next week.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.stltoday....c86f6f304f.html

 

Missing woman case tears apart Jefferson City lobbying team

By Nancy Cambria St. Louis Post-Dispatch

07/15/2016

 

The conservative father-and-son lobbying team of Kerry and Abram Messer was a fixture in Jefferson City.

 

Under the moniker of the Missouri Family Network, the pair often approached lawmakers through their fundamentalist “ministry” to fight abortion rights, same-sex marriage and other issues they view as government intrusions on parental rights.

 

Sometimes they brought their wives along. When he wasn’t with his wife, Kerry Messer, 57, made a point of never going alone in an elevator with another woman as part of his creed to always remain accountable to God.

 

Standing together as two generations of a rural family working the farm was an important image to project as they sought the support of private donors.

 

They lived a half-mile apart on the same property near Festus on a farm with cattle, dogs and cats. The son’s ranch house sat on the top of a hill near the main road, the father’s aging and cluttered farmhouse and buildings were down a dirt and gravel road in a hollow.

 

But a shadow has hung over the Messers’ pro-family message for two years, dating back to the July 8, 2014, disappearance of Lynn Messer, the family matriarch and Kerry Messer’s wife of more than 30 years.

 

In the months after, Kerry Messer said publicly that his wife, 52 at the time, walked away from the farm in the middle of a moonless rainy night while he slept, possibly met up with trouble and disappearedwithout a trace.

 

He has continued to lobby in Jefferson City, initially with his son Abram at his side, as police searched in vain for his wife, whom he at times called “Ma.” He was so respected, he was invited by conservative Republicans to open the 2015 legislative session partly in honor of his missing wife. Prior to that, he and his son posted an open letter in a small political newspaper inviting those with questions about Lynn’s disappearance to ask them.

 

But now that partnership has been shattered amid a very public family feud.

 

Both of Kerry Messer’s sons, Abram and Aarron, now doubt aspects of their father’s accounting of events relating to the disappearance of their mother.

 

The brothers say they are particularly disturbed by their father’s changing narrative. Recently, Kerry Messer speculated on a local radio show that his wife may have walked eight or nine miles to the Mississippi River to take her life — a direct contradiction to his initial claims on social media and in various media interviews that his wife was not depressed nor suicidal.

 

The discord runs even deeper.

 

Abram Messer said his father never disclosed to the public that the morning his wife disappeared he had found a vague note of affection, apology and regret seemingly written by Lynn. Kerry Messer had maintained that his wife had vanished without a clue.

 

Moreover, the sons are bitter over Kerry Messer’s decision to begin what their father describes as a romantic, but chaste, relationship with another woman — a decision that they say raises questions and sullies the reputation of the Missouri Family Network.

 

The brothers tried, but failed, to persuade their father to resign from his lobbying position. Then, two months ago, Kerry Messer fired Abram.

 

The two say they haven’t spoken to each other since Christmas — and even have wound up on opposite sides of the same legislation.

 

More recently, Abram Messer said he has moved his family off the farm to an undisclosed location.

 

Kerry Messer calls it all a misunderstanding. He said there is nothing unusual about his changing views about what happened to his wife. Given the passage of time, he said, there is a very likely possibility that she is dead and that her disappearance may have been a suicide, and that he overlooked signs of depression.

 

“Everything is being blown out of proportion by everyone,” he said. “It’s gut-wrenching.

 

Maj. Jason Schott of the Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff’s Department, which is leading the inquiry into Lynn Messer’s disappearance, said the ongoing investigation continues to be one of the most bizarre situations he has ever encountered. Everyone, he said, remains a suspect.

 

“We still don’t have a clue where she’s at or what happened to her, or if this is something she’s done on her own, or if it was something that happened to her,” Schott said.

 

Disputing the facts

 

Aarron Messer refuses to speculate on what happened to his mother. In the aftermath of a divorce, he is currently living in an apartment on his parents’ farm.

But he has made it clear in an interview and on his Facebook posts that he is estranged from his father.

 

“I don’t have any physical proof he has done anything to my mother,” he said in an interview. “I do know he has certainly put himself in the most terrible of light.”

 

Abram Messer has said he believes his father knows what happened the morning his mother disappeared.

 

He told KMOX radio that his dad either hid the evidence of a suicide or was more actively involved in her disappearance. He reiterated those theories to the Post-Dispatch. He said there is no way his mother was physically capable of walking off the 250-acre property to the Mississippi River as his father only recently has suggested.

 

Both brothers dispute some details of their father’s account of the first few hours after Kerry Messer informed Abram before dawn that Lynn was missing.

 

They say their father also appeared angry and uncomfortable when he learned Aarron had called 911 and that investigators were on their way to the farm. They say Kerry Messer then inexplicably ordered the sons away.

 

The sons are frustrated by their father’s initial insistence both in the press and on his Facebook posts that their mother was not depressed. Abram Messer said his mother confided to him six months prior to her disappearance that she went to the barn on the property to shoot herself but then turned the firearm on some cats. Kerry Messer said in an interview that he was unaware of the incident.

 

Aarron Messer and Kerry Messer both said that Lynn had been dealing with persistent hip pain and had been disturbed to learn that hip surgery had not resolved the problem.

 

Last week, authorities confirmed the existence of a note possibly left by Lynn Messer before her disappearance — a note police retrieved the morning of her disappearance. They say they do not consider it a suicide note.

 

Kerry Messer said last week he sidestepped many questions from the media about whether his wife left a note because authorities asked him to keep it quiet.

 

The sons say that for many months their dad kept them from knowing the note’s true content and asked the local sheriff’s department to keep the note from them.

 

Kerry Messer said he did so because a middle section of the note referenced a recent family squabble between Lynn and Abram. That section was written in different ink, said Abram Messer, who was first given a copy of the note by police last year.

 

“I tried to protect (Abram) from that note because I feared if something bad had happened, that seeing that note would cause him to take on all the blame and all of the guilt,” Kerry Messer said.

 

Abram Messer isn’t buying his father’s explanation. He said his father’s handling of the note was intentionally meant to cast his son as a suspect in his mother’s disappearance.

 

Kerry Messer said authorities had previously questioned him for nine hours about the note, alleging he had written it and not his wife — an allegation he denies. Police say the FBI has not been able to conclude whether Lynn Messer wrote the letter.

 

A ‘cautious relationship’

 

In months of lengthy, often passionate posts on a Facebook page entitled “Find Lynn Messer,” Kerry Messer espouses great love, devotion and longing for his missing wife.

 

He also has acknowledged a “wholesome” relationship with a woman from Wildwood named Spring Thomas, a family friend.

 

“For the first time in 39 years I kissed someone other than my wife, Lynn. If you want to call that an affair, then you call it that term. But this is not an affair,” Messer said in an interview. “This is a very cautious relationship that’s in a holding pattern while we wait to find out about Lynn. I’m a married man.”

 

Thomas could not be reached for comment.

 

In an interview last week, Kerry Messer said his relationship with Thomas began around Christmas 2014 — about five months after his wife disappeared.

 

But Schott, of the Sheriff’s Department, said detectives had confirmed a relationship between Kerry Messer and Thomas months earlier — about eight weeks after Lynn Messer disappeared.

 

Messer said in an interview that he disclosed the relationship to police voluntarily and upon advice from pastors.

 

However, police say Messer first told them about Thomas only after authorities already had learned of the relationship from her, while visiting her farm. Hours later, police say, Messer called them to disclose the relationship.

 

Schott said Thomas was seen by police among search parties organized soon after Lynn’s disappearance. Police said she has refused further questioning.

 

Thomas was a longtime friend of the Messer family. Indeed, according to various family accounts, Lynn Messer had for several years told both her husband and sons that Kerry Messer should marry Thomas if she were to die before him.

 

Abram Messer said the day before his mother disappeared, she made a point of talking to his own wife in private. In that conversation, Abram Messer claims his mother reiterated her wish for her husband to end up with Thomas if something ever happened to her. Kerry Messer said he only learned of the timing of this conversation 11 months later during a family meeting.

 

Torn apart

 

Abram and Aarron Messer said they believe their father’s relationship with Thomas has cast more suspicion on Kerry Messer and put the moral foundation of the Missouri Family Network in jeopardy.

 

“I’ve had state reps come to me with a great deal of concern about what’s going on with my father,” Abram Messer said. “When everything is said and done, that could potentially destroy something he spent so many years working on.”

 

Abram Messer even found himself battling his father last legislative session over the merits of a bill.

 

Kerry Messer testified in favor of the legislation, which concerned missing persons. One provision in the bill would restrict the use of any voluntary DNA samples provided for a missing-person case solely for locating or identifying the person and not for any other purpose.

 

Abram Messer said the bill, if approved, would have protected his dad from having his previously collected DNA used against him in an investigation. Kerry Messer called that absurd and said the provision in no way would deter police from collecting DNA as evidence.

 

Lawmakers later dropped the bill.

 

Associates of Kerry Messer say his lobbying efforts have suffered in the two years since his wife went missing.

 

“Kerry has always been valuable to the pro-family movement. In the first year after her disappearance, he sort of disengaged,” said longtime Jefferson City lobbyist Samuel Lee, who describes himself as a dear friend of Kerry Messer. “In the second year, the strain between him and his son was visible.”

 

Kerry Messer, for his part, says he is trying to be as morally accountable as possible to the ministry, which he said is fully functioning. He said advisers agreed with him last year that the Missouri Family Network should not be handed over to his son, and that he should remain at its helm.

 

“I have visited with our key funding people and those who support us financially,” Kerry Messer said. “I have sat down with boards and leadership of those organizations and I have been forthright, and done everything I can to be transparent with everyone.”

 

There appears to be just one thing all three Messer men can agree upon. The family is torn apart — something that would have pained Lynn Messer deeply.

 

“For the first anniversary of Lynn’s disappearance I had to sit and deal with her loss. And now on this anniversary I have to sit through the loss of my sons, and I don’t know what to do with that,” Kerry Messer said.

 

Abram Messer said a reconciliation is not likely.

 

“I love my mother, and she deserves more than this,” he said. “And I truly in my heart of hearts believe that the truth will absolutely come out, and if I have to wait my whole life, I will wait.”