298 replies to this topic

[Kelly]

Yesterday, I went to visit your tree, Jason. It was cold and overcast. There was no one to be seen, and as I walked to the tree, the only sound I heard was the crunching of my steps on the ice and snow-covered path.

I was pleased to see that your tree looked strong against the backdrop of Winter's harsh landscape. All of the branches were intact, reaching toward the grey sky, ready for Spring to arrive. I wanted to see the granite stone that was laid on the ground in your honor, but I could not get through the ice and snow to even know if it is still there. I hope so.



Jason, this is the only place I have that represents you in some way, other than in precious memories and photographs. You're never far from my thoughts and prayers, and I will always remain hopeful for answers about you, even difficult ones. My wish for you is that you are in the best place you can be, and that you are happy.

I'll be back again, and when I do, the leaves of your tree will be large and beautiful, and the sound of children laughing and playing in the nearby park will be a stark contrast to the cold and silence of this day. Stay strong like your tree. I promise I will as well, and I won't stop trying for you.

There will always be a Springtime.

Love,
Mom

[Kelly]

http://www.ketv.com/...mv/-/index.html

Vivere il giubileo. Guida liturgica e storica

Project Jason connects parents of missing children
Mother keeps missing son's case alive by helping others

UPDATED 7:02 PM CDT May 07, 2013

OMAHA, Neb. —A mom found a way to connect with parents with missing children after her own son went missing 12 years ago.
Related

Kelly Jolkowski started “Project Jason” as a way to keep her missing son’s case alive and to connect with other parents living her same nightmare, which included the parents of Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry who escaped captivity in Cleveland, Ohio, after 10 years.

In June 2001, 19-year-old Jason Jolkowski left his house and headed a few blocks to meet a friend for a ride to work.

“Between here and Benson something happened, somebody saw something,” said Jim Jolkowski, Jason’s father.

Jason disappeared and his family has no answers as to where he could be.

“We rely on the people that are in the same situation that you lean on and help you to get by,” Jim said.

The Jolkowski’s started a support group led by Kelly. On the project’s website, she connected with the families of the missing Ohio girls. Kelly said the odds of finding the girls alive were slim given the circumstances.

“No matter how hard it was, they kept trying to find them,” Kelly said.

Monday afternoon, Amanda Berry called for help, freeing herself, her daughter and two other women who were all held captive for 10 years.

Kelly told KETV NewsWatch 7’s Melissa Fry in a Skype interview that she and Berry's mom, Louwana Miller, became close friends before Miller passed away. She wants Louwana to know that her miracle did come true.

“Louwanna, Amanda is a fighter just like you and she's going to continue to fight through this journey of recovery, and now you can truly, truly be at peace,” Kelly said.

[Kelly]

http://www.kmtv.com//206528161.html

Parents of Missing Son say Cleveland Rescues Give Them Hope

By Meghan Matthews
CREATED 9:09 PM

Jim and Kelly still don't know what happened to their son Jason Jolkowski. He was supposed to walk to Benson High School from his home, to meet a ride for work when he went missing in 2001.

His parents tell me the miracle in Cleveland gives them new hope.

"We always tell the families that we work with that there is hope no matter what. In this case that hope panned out in a very wonderful way."

Kelly Murphy knows how it feels when a child goes missing. She's still searching for her own son.
"12 years later, we're still at square one. It's as if it was that day since we don't know anything more today, than we did that day."

"He started walking and that's the last anyone saw of him."

In June of 2001, 19 year old Jason Jolkowski did his chores as usual. He planned to catch a ride for work but never made it.

"After that, no one saw him. So somewhere between our driveway and Benson High School something happened. We just don't know what happened."

Kelly now lives in Washington State. Through Skype, she told me the feeling of the unknown is still a nightmare.

That's why she started Project Jason, to help families like hers. She reached out to the families in Cleveland.

Jim Jolkowski calls it a miracle.

"Project Jason and Kelly has worked closely with the families and so for them to actually be found was renewed joy for everyone in the missing family community."

Jim still lives in Omaha. He calls the Cleveland rescues a miracle. It gives his family a new light, in a tunnel of darkness.

"It never gets any easier, we just ask for the public's help. Somebody knows something." 

"It definitely gives one hope. Hope for a good answer. That's what we all want, and that's what our family would certainly like to see as well."

[Kelly]

http://www.kfab.com/...-hope-11267255/

Cleveland News Gives Omaha Mom Hope

5/8/2013

Kelly Murphy is overjoyed by the freedom of three kidnapped women found this week in Cleveland.

Her son, Jason Jolkowski, went missing from their Omaha home in June 2001. Since then, she's worked thru her website, ProjectJason, to help track down missing people. In fact, she'd worked closely with the families of two of the Cleveland victims, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus.

"We had been in contact with Amanda's mom, who passed away in 2006... and with Georgina's family as well. So we've definitely had many conversations with both of the families."

Murphy says the good news from Cleveland gives others with missing loved ones hope.

[Kelly]

http://www.kimatv.co...-206693201.html

Yakima woman helps families of missing Cleveland women

By Ada Chong Published: May 8, 2013 at 6:36 PM PDT

YAKIMA, Wash. -- We're thousands of miles away from Cleveland. But, two families of the three missing women found this week got help from a woman here in Yakima. Kelly Murphy helped them deal with the stress.

It seemed like time was standing still. With little to no clues or leads for the families who were missing their loved ones.

For Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus's families, they never gave up hope despite every year that crept by.

"Sometimes I do see families after a number of years, they stop trying to get the media involved and so these families always continued to work to keep their names and not let them be forgotten," said Kelly Murphy.

Kelly Murphy's son went missing almost 12 years ago. His disappearance inspired her to help others. She's now worked with thousands of people. Project Jason counsels families who are missing a loved one and raises awareness to keep their name out there.

Amanda Berry's name had fallen out of the headlines by 2004. That was when Amanda's mom contacted Project Jason for support. A website and thousands of buttons were made in hopes to find Amanda. Louwanna Berry never stopped fighting to find her, but passed away a couple years later.

"So many of us feel that her heart was really broken and that's what killed her,” said Kelly. “I feel that if Amanda had been found sooner or had never disappeared that Louwanna will probably still be with us today."

Kelly said Amanda and Gina's families supported each other for years. Both families felt there would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

"The story of Amanda and Gina being found is that beacon of hope for all these families out here like ours that are still waiting and wondering and just hanging on to that hope that we'll have the good answer," said Kelly.

With hope, the fight to be found is a little brighter.

Project Jason had almost 100-thousand hits on its website the day the women were found.

[Kelly]

http://bigstory.ap.o...es-missing-kids

Hope can be painful for families of missing kids

By JESSE WASHINGTON
— May. 9 2:56 PM EDT

CLEVELAND (AP) — The miraculous rescue of three missing women has given hope to many families whose loved ones have vanished. Yet hope, when searching for a long-lost child, can be a dangerous thing.

Thousands of children are missing across the country. The longer they are gone, the smaller the chance they will be found alive. So when three women who had been missing for a decade or more emerged from the house where they had been held captive, it provided an extraordinarily rare happy ending.

"I would definitely say it was a miracle," said Kelly Murphy, who founded Project Jason, after her own son vanished, to help other such families.

Murphy had worked with two of the Cleveland families while their daughters were missing. After they were found, she heard from many others who are still searching.

"The general response is that it gives us all hope," Murphy said. "I'm in the situation, too, with my son almost missing for 12 years without a trace and without clues. It definitely gives us hope that there is a chance. If it happened to those girls, it can happen to us."

"To have hope helps you get through each day, hope that there's a good answer instead of the answer that nobody wants. It just helps you keep going, because it's very difficult to have to live with ambiguous loss."

But how much does it help to hope for a miracle, which by definition is almost impossible?

Some, like Murphy, need to keep that spark alive, however small. Others, like Jody Himebaugh, need to protect their emotions.

Himebaugh knows about what happened in Cleveland but has avoided the details. His son Mark disappeared in 1991 at age 11.

"Every time I watch this kind of stuff, it rekindles the last 23 years," he said. "All it does, it just gives us hope again."

For Himebaugh, hope hurts. Whether hope is more painful than saying a permanent goodbye — that's impossible to figure.

"For the past 23 years, I've been happy for the families over that time who have recovered their kids, dead or alive," he said. "At least they've got closure. My biggest fear is I'm going to go to my grave and never know what happened to Mark, and why."

The flip side of that fear is hope — and the loved ones of the missing hold tight to every glimmer. Advocates and others often speak of persistence, of keeping missing children's images in the public eye, of always working to make sure the public stays alert for the one tiny detail that could end a family's agony.

"What an amazing time to be talking about hope, with everything that's happening," Jaycee Dugard, who was missing for more than 18 years before being rescued, said this week at an awards ceremony where she urged the audience not to give up on missing children.

In Cleveland, several religious leaders spoke on that theme Wednesday. Catholic Bishop Richard Lennon posted a video message urging viewers to pray that missing people "may have the strength of the virtue of hope and that their families also may never give up hope."

After a prayer gathering on the block where the women were found, the Rev. Larry Harris of Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church said, "There's a hope that many, many more will be coming back home."

On the block where the three women were found, Tonia Adkins was wearing a T-shirt printed with the face of her missing sister, Christina Adkins. Cristina vanished in 1995 at age 17, four blocks from the house where the women were held captive.

The arrests of three brothers has given the Adkins family hope for Christina, but has also stoked the dread that has been part of their lives for 18 years.

"I do believe that they're gonna break open some cases," Tonia Adkins said. "I'm scared that I'm gonna get the news that my sister's not alive."

The space between hope and resignation is a difficult place.

"It's an absolutely terrible predicament to be in. I can't imagine what families go through wondering — just the lack of knowing," said Bob Hoever, director of special programs with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

He recommends hope and sees this as the powerful lesson of the Cleveland case.

"I believe this is a tremendous boost to families giving them hope, that we should never give up looking for their children," Hoever said. "The National Center never stops looking for a missing child. As long as they're missing, we will continue looking."

But Sherry Hamby, a psychology professor at Sewanee: The University of the South who studies the victimization of children, said some families can become frozen in time at the point their child disappeared.

"At some point, after so many years have gone by, there's a lot to be said for closure," Hamby said. "It's just not a natural state of being for humans to be frozen in this time, waiting. We can't stay in that kind of limbo forever."

The most difficult decisions, Hamby said, can involve what seem like mundane details.

"Are you going to pack up that child's things? Are you going to convert that room to another use?" she said. "I think the need for psychological closure just is necessary because of the concrete limitations that we are facing. It's just hard to go through life trying to not make any changes."

Murphy, of Project Jason, knows families who have chosen to believe their missing child is dead, and she does not begrudge them that choice.

But Murphy holds onto hope, "because it keeps us focused on the future."

"It's just unfortunate that in our case," she said, "we don't know what the future holds."

___

Online:

Project Jason: http://www.projectjason.org

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: http://www.missingkids.org

___

Associated Press writers Meghan Barr in Cleveland and Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

[Kelly]

http://www.stltoday....f0b7b2b2f2.html

For families of missing children, the pain is not knowing

May 13, 2013 6:00 am  •  By Todd C. Frankel

To her, he’s 9 years old. Brown hair and blue eyes, freckles along his nose. Small gap between his two front teeth.

“That’s what I remember, this little 9-year-old boy,” his mother, Peggy Kleeschulte, says.

Scott Kleeschulte disappeared in 1988. He walked out of his house in St. Charles on June 8, the start of summer vacation after first grade. A neighbor spotted him a few blocks away. Then Scott was gone. Vanished. No body. No clues. Among the missing. After 25 years, he’s still missing.

That’s all his mother knows.

She has suffered a quarter-century of worry and fear. Time has not dulled it. She still chokes up when talking about him. She still can’t bear to keep pictures of him up in her home, the same house on Leverenz Street where she and her husband raised Scott and his four siblings. She still thinks about him all the time.

She just wants to know what happened to her boy.

“That’s the main thing, to know one way or another,” Kleeschulte says. “It’s just hard to not have the closure.”

When any child goes missing — in those panic-soaked first moments — the ending is unknown.

In almost every case, the end comes quickly with the child returned home alive, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. Most often they are unharmed. That was what happened earlier this month in Bloomfield, Mo., where authorities found a 9-year-old boy who had simply lost track of time playing by a creek, terrifying his mother.

Sometimes, the resolution takes days. Some are runaways.

Kidnappings by strangers are uncommon. But learning what happened can take years, as it did in Cleveland with last week’s stunning rescue of three women about a decade after they were abducted.

But in the rarest of missing-children cases, the end never comes. Families are left to forever wonder, years unspooling without any idea whether their child is alive or dead, whether he or she suffered or went quickly. It is, many say, the worst possible outcome.

‘I WANT AN ANSWER’

Kelly Murphy knows what it feels like.

She runs Project Jason, a nonprofit in Yakima, Wash., that assists the families of missing people. She said every family she had helped was thankful for the resolution when it came, even in worst-case scenarios involving a brutal murder. It surprised her at first. But she came to understand.

“Because having an answer is better than not knowing,” Murphy said.

She started Project Jason after her son, Jason Jolkowski, disappeared. He was 19, on his way to work at a Fazio’s restaurant in Omaha, Neb. He left behind money in the bank, his car, his family. That was on June 13, 2001. Investigators and his family never turned up a clue. He just vanished.

“I want an answer,” Murphy said.

Murphy watched the recent news out of Cleveland and felt elated. It was a miracle. It gave hope to mothers like her. The families in Cleveland got their answer. They no longer needed to contend with the confused feelings of loss that often arise in missing-children cases, when it’s not yet known exactly what the grief is for.

“No one can really know what it’s like to have ambiguous loss,” she said, “until it’s happened to you.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children currently tracks about 3,500 cases of long-term missing children. There are probably many more cases the nonprofit does not know about, said its senior executive director, Robert Lowery.

In Missouri, the state highway patrol counted 494 adults and 206 children last year among its active missing-person cases stretching back to 1953. Some were missing for weeks and others, including John Wagner, for years.

Wagner disappeared in Monroe City, Mo., in the northeastern part of the state, in 1968. He was 16. He would be 61 today. But his family is still looking for answers, using the Feb. 18 anniversary of the day he vanished to try to raise awareness of his case.

The statistics are grim. The chance of a missing child’s returning home alive fades with the passing hours and days. But then there is the Cleveland case. Plus the rescues of kidnapped children such as Shawn Hornbeck, Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard.

These can’t be the only missing children out there alive, said Lowery. “There have to be other children in this peril.”

PUBLIC INTEREST

And the public is fascinated. Meaghan Good can’t trace the exact moment when her own deep interest began. But now Good, a resident of tiny Venedocia, Ohio, runs CharleyProject.org, which runs summaries of more than 9,000 unsolved missing adults and children from across the country. It is a comprehensive database.

Good said she was motivated by a desire to keep these cases in the public’s eye. The number of visitors to her website tripled and then surged even more after the rescue of the Cleveland kidnapping victims.

Good said she couldn’t imagine how it felt to be the parent of a missing child.

“That has got to be the worst thing that can happen to a parent, even worse than knowing they died,” she said.

But, Good said, she can take some small measure of the loss. Her brother died in a car accident when he was in high school. She saw what it did to her parents. “I know how it affected them,” she said.

Becky Perry Klino never discovered what happened to her son, Branson Perry. He was 20 when he disappeared on April 11, 2001, from Skidmore, Mo. Authorities suspected foul play.

Over the years, his mother tried to keep the public interested in the case. She paid for billboards. She set up a website. She pressed the police. She wanted an answer. She died from cancer in 2011, the case unsolved. Earlier this year, a new grave marker was installed next to hers. It was for her son, even though he is still considered missing.

Scott Kleeschulte’s mother has hope. It is not the hope that her 9-year-old Scott — who now would be 34 years old — will walk through the door of her home.

Peggy Kleeschulte hopes only for an answer.

She has struggled over the years. The emotions are hard for her to explain. “I am his mother and I am not there to protect him,” she says, her voice trembling. She drives past the scenes of the fruitless searches, and freshly recalls painful moments a quarter-century old. Her mind lapses into dark thoughts when she is alone. She takes comfort in her husband and her other children and her six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

But she wants an answer. She says it seems silly to mention it, but after her father died earlier this year, she imagined he was up in heaven and maybe he saw Scott up there. She hoped maybe her father could give her some sign of what he knew.

[Kelly]

http://www.huffingto..._n_3333298.html

Missing Person Searches: French Authorities Won't Look For Missing Adults Anymore

Posted: 05/25/2013 8:23 am EDT
By David Lohr

Missing in France? Don’t expect police to come looking.

Though the United States and Canada have bolstered their missing person organizations with the help of the Internet, France has suddenly taken a step in the opposite direction. Law enforcement agencies in the country have ended missing person's searches for adults.

The news came in the form of a press release that was posted earlier this week to a government website.

“Taking into account the development of means of telecommunications and in particular the Internet, the number of [requests] … in the interest of families has considerably dropped these last years, such that this [system has essentially devolved],” wrote Laurent Touvetthe, Director of Legal and Administrative Information for the Prime Minister’s office.

As a result of the change, authorities will no longer search for adults who have been reported missing by family members. The changes took effect on Friday.

The only exception to the rule is minors, individuals who have expressed a desire to commit suicide, and cases in which there is a clear indication that the victim disappeared as a result of foul play.

According to Cabinet Martin, a private detective agency in Cannes, approximately 15,000 people disappear each year without trace in France. The number of those recovered each year is not known, but with the new policy in effect the number of those recovered will likely decrease.

“It saddens me to learn that the authorities in France are taking a step backward in their work to resolve missing person cases,” Kelly Murphy, founder of the Omaha, Nebraska-based Project Jason, told The Huffington Post.

Project Jason offers resources to families of the missing and has successfully organized grassroots efforts to pass missing-persons legislation.

Murphy started Project Jason after her 19-year-old son, Jason Jolkowski, disappeared in June 2001. He remains missing today.

“We understand the difficulty in conducting a full and proper investigation with the number of cases, but I believe they're not looking at the whole picture,” said Murphy, who, in 2010, was presented with the Volunteer for Victims award in Washington, D.C. by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

“It's not always evident that a missing person may have been the victim of a crime,” Murphy continued. “When the case is not investigated and then solved, the perpetrator will likely go on to commit other crimes, creating even more work for law enforcement and impacting more lives. Besides that, families are suffering daily without answers. It's traumatic to deal with ambiguous loss, and this leaves those families with a huge gap in their ability to retain hope since this avenue of assistance has been closed to them.”

[Kelly]

For Immediate Release:

Could High-Tech Forensic Imagery Help Find Missing Teen?

June 13, 2013 – OMAHA, NE – Thursday, June 13, marks twelve years since the disappearance of Omaha teen Jason Jolkowski, and his family hopes a new age progression photo and revamped poster will help lead to his whereabouts.

Jason Jolkowski was 19 when he vanished during an eight-block walk in Omaha along 48th Street from his home to Benson High School the morning of June 13, 2001.  His bank account and cell phone remain untouched, his car was left in the repair shop and his last paycheck left at work. It is unlikely he ran away – he was excited about a new job and was close to his family. But there are still no clues as to what happened.

One in six missing persons is found as a result of a visual aid, such as a poster or photograph, so there is hope that an age progression created by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children will help.

"We have had over 1200 long term missing children recovered wherein an age progression image was done," stated Steve Loftin, supervisor of the Forensic Imaging Unit which created the image. "There have been some age progression images that have been directly attributable to a child's recovery and other age progression images that simply aided the investigator in determining whether they have found the missing child, especially if there have been a lot of years gone by since the child went missing." 

“We are confident that someone, somewhere, knows something that could bring our family the answers we desperately need,” said Kelly Murphy, Jason’s mother, and the founder of nonprofit, Project Jason, which has since helped thousands of other families with missing loved ones. “Enough time has now passed that perhaps someone will decide to do the right thing. Please help us by going to the authorities with what you know.”

Kelly Murphy was the recipient of the U.S. Justice Department’s 2010 Volunteer for Victims Award for her work helping other families of the missing. She also developed the only known annual coping skills retreat for families of both missing children and adults.

There is a reward offered for information that leads to finding Jason. If you have any information, no matter how insignificant you think it is, call the Omaha Police Department at (402) 444-5818 or you can call anonymously to the Omaha CrimeStoppers at 402-444-STOP or to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) 24-hours a day.

Printable Poster for Jason: http://projectjason....2YearPoster.pdf
Jason's information on the Project Jason website: http://projectjason....php?topic=131.0

                                                                                ###

[Kelly]

http://www.kmtv.com/.../211413271.html


Family of Missing Teen Releases Age Progressed Photo

By Marcus Cooper
CREATED 11:36 AM

Omaha - The family of a missing teen released an age progressed photo of their son on the 12th anniversary of his disappearance.

19-Year-Old Jason Jolkowski disappeared in June of 2001 while walking to work somewhere between 48th Street and Benson High School

Jolkowski's family says their son never touched his cell phone or bank account after his disappearance and his car remained in a repair shop and believe it's unlikely he ran away.

So far investigators haven't found any clues in his disappearance.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children say 1 in 6 missing persons is found as a result of a visual aid like a poster or photograph and hope the age progression photo will encourage someone to come forward with information.

If you have any information on the disappearance of Jason Jolkowski you can call the Omaha Police Department at (402) 444-5818 or make an anonymous call to CrimeStoppers at (402) 444-STOP.

You can find out more at the Project Jason website.

[Kelly]

http://www.wowt.com/...-211438871.html

12 Years Later- Jason Jolkowski Still Missing

By: LeAnne Morman
Posted: Thu 2:21 PM, Jun 13, 2013

Thursday marks 12 years since the disappearance of Omaha teenager, Jason Jolkowski.

Jason Jolkowski was 19 when he vanished and was last seen along 48th Street walking from his home to Benson High School the morning of June 13, 2001.

His bank account and cell phone remain untouched, his car was left in the repair shop and his last paycheck left at work.

His mother, Kelly Murphy has always said It is unlikely he ran away – he was excited about a new job and was close to his family.

What happened and where he is remains a mystery.

On the anniversary date, his mother released a new age progression picture of him in hopes that he would be the 1 and 6 missing persons cases usually solved because of a visual aid.

"We have had over 1200 long term missing children recovered wherein an age progression image was done," stated Steve Loftin, supervisor of the Forensic Imaging Unit which created the image. "There have been some age progression images that have been directly attributable to a child's recovery and other age progression images that simply aided the investigator in determining whether they have found the missing child, especially if there have been a lot of years gone by since the child went missing."

“We are confident that someone, somewhere, knows something that could bring our family the answers we desperately need,” said Kelly Murphy, Jason’s mother, and the founder of nonprofit, Project Jason, which has since helped thousands of other families with missing loved ones. “Enough time has now passed that perhaps someone will decide to do the right thing. Please help us by going to the authorities with what you know.”

[Kelly]

Doe Network Profile:  http://www.doenetwor...s/4727dmne.html

[Kelly]

http://www.huffingto...html?1374842908

Missing, Wandering Alzheimer's Patients A Growing Concern

Posted: 07/26/2013 8:48 am EDT  |  Updated: 07/26/2013 8:48 am EDT
By David Lohr

In some cities, there are so many homeless people wandering the streets that others barely notice anymore.

But while mental illness is frequently to blame for their situations, those suffering specifically from Alzheimer's disease may wander without knowing why they are there or where they've come from.

It's an unfortunately common problem for people with Alzheimer's to end up lost. But those who then vanish without a trace -– the people who cannot be located and are often never found –- constitute a rapidly growing crisis looming on the horizon for baby boomers and their loved ones.

"There should be more awareness," Darolyn Fagg told HuffPost. "When a patient is diagnosed, a doctor's office should be more proactive in sharing information about the available resources. We had no idea until my mother went missing."

Fagg's mother, Hellen Cook, 72, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2009. Her symptoms worsened and her ability to speak significantly diminished over time, according to her daughter.

Cook was last seen on July 13, near Warsaw, Mo., a small city about 100 miles southeast of Kansas City.

Cook and Fagg's father, Howard Cook, were at their second home in rural Benton County when she disappeared. Howard Cook said his wife of 51 years was sitting on a porch swing when he went to put his lawn mower away. When he returned, she was gone.

Despite multiple searches, Hellen Cook has never been found.

"These things can happen any given time. All it takes is a caregiver who's working really hard, to turn around for a second and the person can wander," said Beth Kallmyer, vice president of constituent services at the Alzheimer's Association.

Alzheimer's disease is fueling an increase in missing person cases worldwide and, without a cure, the problem could reach epidemic proportions by the year 2050. The disease, the most common form of dementia, is gradual, unbeatable so far and ultimately fatal. It afflicts 1 in 9 people older than 65, and according to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 6 of every 10 people with dementia will wander -- and some never to be found.

The growing number of reported cases has not gone unnoticed by organizations committed to raising awareness about missing persons. "I've seen a steady increase in our own cases in the past five years," Kelly Murphy, founder of the Omaha, Nebraska-based Project Jason, told The Huffington Post.

Project Jason offers resources to families of the missing and has successfully organized grassroots efforts to pass missing-persons legislation. Murphy started Project Jason after her son, Jason Jolkowski, disappeared in June 2001. He is still missing.

"There's approximately 125,000 search-and-rescue missions where volunteer teams are deployed ... for missing Alzheimer's patients every year," said Kimberly Kelly, founder and director of Project Far From Home, an Alzheimer's education program designed for law enforcement and search and rescue personnel.

The estimated number of reported cases is conservative, because not every department contributes to the reports, she said.

"With 5.5 million people with the disease, and 70 percent wandering away at least once, you can do the math," she said. "Even [if] it is a 10-minute wandering episode versus a 10-day episode, you're still looking at potentially 3 million people who would be walking away any given year. It's huge."

For many families, a lack of education about the disease fuels the problem.

Patricia Bryan has been looking for her father, Kenneth Lawson, since June 6. The 76-year-old was last seen at his home in Union Point, Ga. A number of exhaustive searches has been conducted, all to no avail.

"We have had no leads on the whereabouts of my father," Bryan said. "He was not always in a state of confusion. He would have moments were he would check out or not know where he was, but this was not all the time. Up till my father went missing, I didn't realize just how many people with dementia and Alzheimer's went missing on a daily basis. The media does not do them justice."

With each day, the odds of finding any missing person decrease, but when the missing person suffers from an impairment, the odds are worse. Alzheimer's patients do not wander without an actual cause; very few have hallucinations. They typically are going somewhere, looking for something, and don't actually consider themselves lost, so they don't reach out for help. The environment also can play a pivotal role

"In Virginia, if an Alzheimer's patient is not found in 24 hours, about 46 percent are found dead. In Nova Scotia, the mortality rate is 70 percent. In parts of California, we've never recovered a live Alzheimer's patient after 24 hours," Kelly said.

And it's a problem that will continue to grow. Unless a cure is found, an estimated 16.5 million people will suffer from Alzheimer's by the year 2050.

"In the next 20 years, it's going to bloom because of the baby boomer population," said Amanda Burstein, project manager of Alzheimer's Initiatives for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "That, in tandem with people using alert system's, we'll be seeing it more and it will be happening more because there are more of us at risk for it."

Earlier in 2013, the Obama administration dedicated an additional $100 million within President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 budget to the fight against Alzheimer's. A "National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease" was also implemented. The goal is to prevent and effectively treat the disease by 2025.

The success of the president’s initiative is difficult to predict. In the interim, better education for the families of Alzheimer's patients and members of law enforcement could help curb the problem.

"If someone does go missing, you need to call 911 immediately," said Kallmyer. "It's not a situation where you wait 24 hours, because they are vulnerable and can't necessarily find their way home or take care of themselves. It's always an emergency."

Thirty-two states in the United States have some form of public notification system -- sometimes referred to as a Silver Alert -- to broadcast information about missing seniors with Alzheimer's disease, dementia or other mental disabilities. The guidelines are governed on a state-by-state basis. The goal is to have an alert system in every state, but that has not been easy, according to Kelly, who said some of the opponents are members of abducted children's groups.

"They are afraid that equipment would be utilized for Silver Alerts and the [public's] attention would be diluted for Amber Alerts," she said. "The problem with that is that we're starting to see even more cases where you have an elderly grandparent who has custody of grandchildren. You see cases where grandma is going to take a baby for a walk and doesn't come back."

J. Todd Matthews, southeast regional director of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, which was created by the U.S. Department of Justice, said he is seeing an increase in general in missing persons cases.

Alzheimer's is a defining disease of a rapidly aging population and knowledge is key, he said.

"I think we will be very wise to put great thought into this issue as soon as possible," he said. "The population is growing and so will this issue without efforts to prevent it. Awareness is the first step. It's an investment in our own potential future. How would you want to be treated if it were you? It very well might be one day."

For more information on the disease or to learn how you can take steps to help prevent a loved one from wandering, call the Alzheimer's Association free 24-hour hotline at 800-272-3900.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.huffingto..._n_4004406.html

Help Find Shauntay Mayfield, Jason Jolkowski And Other Missing People
David Lohr
Posted: 09/27/2013 2:24 pm EDT  |  Updated: 09/27/2013 2:24 pm EDT

More than 600,000 men, women and children are reported missing in the United States each year.

Please take a few moments to read the stories of this week's missing people. If you recognize one of them, help end a family’s uncertainty by contacting the appropriate law enforcement agency.

Typically someone, somewhere knows or sees something that could help law enforcement recover a missing person. And whether you realize it or not, that someone could be you.

Michael Bayne
Authorities in South Boardman, Mich., are seeking the public's help in locating 45-year-old Michael Bayne. According to Project Jason, Bayne was last seen at his home on Aug. 26. His whereabouts and reason for his disappearance are unknown. His glasses, watch and wallet were all found inside his home. Family members told police it would be out of character for him to take off. Bayne is described as 6 feet 1 inches tall, 190 pounds. He has blond hair and blue eyes and noticeable freckles. He was last seen wearing a green flannel shirt, jeans or sweatpants and black tennis shoes. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Kalkaska County Sheriff's Department at (231) 258-3350.

Deserae "Des" Bedsworth
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports that Missouri police are trying to locate Deserae Bedsworth. The 17-year-old from Warrenton was last seen on Sept. 18, her birthday. No further details on her disappearance are available at this time. She is described as 110 pounds and 5 feet 4 inches tall. She has blonde hair and brown eyes. Her ears are pierced. Anyone with information on Bedsworth's whereabouts is asked to contact NCMEC at (800) 843-5678.

Taji Rakwaan Blackston
Taji Blackston, 17, of Virginia Beach, VA, was last seen on Sept. 21. Authorities have only said he is considered a runaway. No further details are available at this time. Blackston is described as African-American, 165 pounds and 5 feet 11 inches tall. He has black hair blonde hair and brown eyes. His hair is styled as a flat top and he has a goatee. Authorities also said the teen has tattoos, but no description of them has been provided. Anyone with information is asked to contact Virginia State Police at (804) 674-2000.

Kristine Bruce
Thirty-eight-year-old Kristine Bruce was last seen in Kissimmee, Fla., on Sept. 6. According to police, Bruce, who is a certified public accountant for Disney Cruise Lines, apparently wandered away from her home. Investigators said the woman recently underwent surgery and was being treated for depression. Her purse, identification and cell phone were all found inside her home. Bruce is described as 210 pounds and 5 feet 4 inches tall, with medium-length brown hair and brown eyes. She has several tattoos, including a large gothic rabbit on her right shoulder and arm. Anyone with information is asked to call the Osceola County Sheriff's Office Crimeline at (800) 423-8477.

Alexa Brianna Ikard
Eighteen-three-year-old Alexa Ikard, of Lincolnton, N.C., has not been seen since 10:30 a.m. Thursday, near East Highway 27 in Lincolnton. According to police, Ikard suffers from autism and may be lost and in a neighboring county. She is described as being 4 feet 8 inches tall and 150 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a gray shirt with a pink flower, black leggings, and earrings. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office at (704) 732-9050.

Mehria Mansury
Authorities in California are investigating the disappearance of 79-year-old Mehria Mansury. According to the San Diego Police Department, Mansury was last seen at about 8 a.m. Tuesday, at her home in the 2800 block of Amulet Street. Authorities said Mansury's family members are concerned about her whereabouts and suspect foul play in her disappearance. She is described as Middle Eastern, 140 pounds and 5 feet 1 inch tall, with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at (619) 531-2293.

Shauntay Mayfield
Shauntay Mayfield, 17, of Brooklyn, NY, has been missing since Thursday. She was last seen on East 102nd Street. Not further details on her disappearance have been released. Mayfield is described as African-American, 5 feet 8 inches tall and 225 lbs. Anyone with any information is asked to contact the NYPD Missing Persons Squad at (212) 694-7781.

Anarae Kristine Schunk
Police in Burnsville, Minn., are asking for the public's help locating Anarae Schunk, a missing University of Minnesota student. Schunk, 20, was last seen in the company of 31-year-old Shavelle Oscar Chavez-Nelson. According to Burnsville police, Nelson was charged Thursday with second-degree murder in the Sept. 22 shooting death of Palagor Jobi. Schunk was with Chavez-Nelson the night of the shooting and has not been seen since. Police have named Chavez-Nelson a "person of interest" in Schunk's disappearance. Schunk has green eyes, she is approximately 5 feet and 9 inches tall and weighs about 165. She was last seen wearing a white, zip-up jacket with a University of Minnesota logo on the chest. She had a camouflage backpack with her. Authorities said Schunk is not a suspect in the homicide investigation. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Burnsville Police Department at 952-895-4636. A Facebook page has also been set up to help find her.

Joseph Swett
Sept. 17 was the last time family members saw 20-year-old Joseph Swett, of Los Angeles, Calif. According to North Hollywood-Toluca Lake Patch, Swett, who has Autism, was last seen in the 8600 block of Sunland Boulevard. He is described as 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black sleeveless T-shirt, black pants, and white shoes. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Los Angeles Police Department at (213) 996-1800.

Gerald Paul VanDyke
Authorities in LeBoeuf Township, PA., are trying to locate 55-year-old Gerald VanDyke. The to Erie Times-News reports he was last seen on the morning of Sept. 14, when he left his Smith Road residence in his silver 2003 Dodge Dakota crew cab pickup truck with license plate YKW 4528. Rockdale Township resident Richard Houy, 68, has allegedly admitted to killing Vandyke and dumping his body in French Creek, police said. Houy has been charged with criminal homicide, criminal use of a communication facility, tampering with or fabricating evidence, and false reports to law enforcement. He is being held in the Crawford County jail without bond. According to The Meadville Tribune, the victim and Houy's daughter were in the process of ending a long term relationship. Multiple searches have been conducted for VanDyke, but he has not yet been located. Anyone with information is asked to contact Pennsylvania State Police at (814) 898-1641.

COLD CASE OF THE WEEK:
Jason Anthony Jolkowski
Jason Jolkowski, 19, of Omaha, Neb., has been missing since June 13, 2001. According to family members, Jolkowski, an employee at a restaurant in Omaha, received a call from his boss that morning and was asked to come in early. The teen's car was in the shop so he arranged to meet a coworker at Benson High School, only seven blocks from his home. It's believed that Jolkowski got dressed in his work uniform and then set off for the school. Somewhere along the way he vanished without a trace. Following Jolkowski's disappearance, his mother Kelly Murphy founded Project Jason, a nonprofit organization that works to increase public awareness of missing person cases. The organization's Web site can be found at www.projectjason.org. Anyone with information about this case should contact the Omaha Police Department at 402-444-5818.

Each and every missing person, regardless of age, race, gender and circumstance, deserves to be found. Please join us in our campaign to raise awareness by sharing the link to this story on your social media accounts.

[Kelly]

http://www.nbcnews.c...ul-limbo-n51221

Grieving the Unknown: Families of the Missing Face Painful Limbo

By Melissa Dahl
3/12/2014

We don’t know what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, which throws the families of the passengers of Flight 370 into a kind of painful in-between: Their loved ones aren’t here. But they’re also not certainly dead. They’re just … gone.

In the five days since the plane disappeared, these loved ones have been in anguished limbo — a state known as "ambiguous loss," coined by psychologist and author Pauline Boss.

“That is, when somebody is missing or has vanished without a trace, and you don’t know their fate, or the whereabouts of their body, and whether they’re dead or alive,” Boss says. “So it becomes so uncanny, and strange, for the families; they’re never quite sure if the person is truly dead.”

It’s a feeling that can apply to dozens of experiences, like losing a pregnancy, or losing a family member, small pieces at a time, to Alzheimer’s or dementia. And it also applies to the families of the missing: missing children, missing persons, or soldiers missing in action.

“It is the worst kind of loss to process — I don’t mean to say one kind of loss is worse than another. But this is the kind of loss that creates suffering without closure,” Boss said. “There is no closure, ever, if bodies can’t be found.”

One afternoon in Omaha, Kelly Murphy’s 19-year-old son, Jason Jolkowski, left their home to head to work. His little brother saw him leave the house, and neighbors saw him walking to his old high school, where a co-worker planned to meet him in order to give him a ride.

“And that was the last anyone ever saw him,” says Murphy. “He literally just disappeared off the face of the earth. It’s been 12 years and we really don’t know anything more than we did on day one.” She says that usually, families in this situation have something to work with: a violent boyfriend, an estranged parent, a missing jetliner. “But this one, there’s just absolutely nothing. And that makes it harder; you have nothing to go on.”

"You go through partial stages of grief but you can’t go through all the stages. You don’t know what you’re grieving for."

Part of the reason that ambiguous loss might be so taxing on a person is the fact that our brains crave information. Some scientists have posed the theory that humans are, innately, information-seeking creatures; we need answers, we need closure and we need an ending. “It becomes a problem of cognition. It’s actually difficult for the brain to process this loss because there is no information about it,” Boss says.

“You go through partial stages of grief but you can’t go through all the stages. You don’t know what you’re grieving for,” Murphy says. She’s been reading the stories of the families of the Malaysia Airlines passengers calling their loved ones’ cell phones; in the days and weeks after Jason disappeared, she did the same thing with Jason’s phone.

“So I can relate to what they’re going through. You want to cling to hope,” Murphy says. “But as the days pass, I’m sure that, in their logical minds, they know, this doesn’t look good. What I hope for them is that they find some answers that give them some sort of peace.”

Because after a death, there are a prescribed set of rituals, according to your culture: throwing a handful of dirt on the coffin, or spreading the ashes in a favorite place of the deceased. All of these rituals have a purpose, helping the person process the grief. But with the missing — when a person is simply, mysteriously gone — the people left behind are helpless. Any ritual or burial or memorial has to be purely symbolic.

This was Sue Scott’s life for 45 years, since Dec. 30, 1969, when her brother’s plane went missing in Laos.

“Even though the flame of hope is so minute after so many years, you never quite give that up,” Scott said. “I think you’re always hoping for them to walk through the door. I don’t think that ever goes away. Some miracle will happen and they will walk through the door.”

Little bits of information trickled in over the last four decades about Captain Doug Ferguson: Investigators found his crash site. They learned that he died holding off the enemy, while two pilots were rescued. Later, they found pieces of his plane. And then, confirmed just last week — they found him. Ferguson’s remains were finally found and identified, Scott said.

“Many had said that it was really gut-wrenching. So I didn’t know what to expect,” Scott said of when she heard the news last week. “But, actually, I felt a sense of peace as a result.

“For me, in some sense, it was a sense of relief, to finally be able to move forward. And I don’t mean ‘get on with my life.’ What I mean is to celebrate his life,” Scott said.

Scott got her answer, and Captain Doug Ferguson will finally be coming home to Tacoma, Wash., on May 1, to be buried. Her story has a concrete ending.

Murphy’s, after more than a decade, still doesn’t. So she’s learned to “live in the not-knowing,” as she calls it. It’s not something she’ll ever “get over,” and she’s not interested in that, anyway. She’s channeled her grief over Jason’s disappearance into the formation of Project Jason, a nonprofit that provides support for missing persons.

“They will grieve off and on for the rest of their lives, and this is normal,” Boss says. “There is no closure on ambiguous loss, and we need to acknowledge that. It’s OK to not get over it; that’s OK even with an ordinary death.”

[Kelly]

http://www.npr.org/2...wing-is-hardest

When A Family Member Goes Missing, 'Not Knowing' Is Hardest

March 19, 201412:01 PM

As the search continues for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, Kelly Murphy talks about her son who's been missing for 13 years. Click to listen.

[Kelly]

http://www.kansascit...icle679209.html

For parents of missing children, years pass but hope persists

By MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS

The Kansas City Star
07/06/2014 7:01 PM
07/06/2014 10:50 PM

It’s no longer Tammy Mack’s daily routine to spend her first waking hours online and on the phone trying to find her missing daughter.

She did that for several years. But it has been a decade now since Ashley Renee Martinez disappeared at age 15 from a public pool in St. Joseph. Searching the Web and calling police to see whether any new leads have surfaced is something Mack now does only once in a while.

Still, she hasn’t given up hope that someday she will find out what happened to Ashley.
Ashley Martinez was 15 when she disappeared 10 years ago.

For parents like Mack, the waiting, worrying and never knowing can take an immense emotional and physical toll. Often they channel their hope into planning events to keep their child’s name in front of the public.

“It’s also a family’s way of saying to the child, ‘I love you,’” said Kelly Murphy, director and founder of Project Jason, which helps families of missing persons learn to cope. “Their way of saying, ‘I will never stop looking for you.’”

Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the last time Mack saw her daughter, heading through the gated entrance to Krug Pool with her younger brother for a summer afternoon of swimming.

“When I came to pick them up later, her brother was there but she was gone,” Mack said.

She gathered with family and friends Sunday night for a candlelight vigil in the pool parking lot. Maybe, she said, shining a light on the case, even all these years later, will shake loose new leads that “finally bring us the closure we seek.”

Last week, she planted a sugar maple tree for Ashley across the street from the pool.

“I chose the sugar maple because in the autumn its leaves turn red, and red is her favorite color,” Mack said. “When I drive by I’ll see it.”

Donald Ross of Belton knows exactly what Mack is going through. His son Jesse “Opie” Ross disappeared in 2006 while on a college trip to Chicago.

“We keep pushing Jesse’s case, keep putting it out there,” said Ross, who has billboards with his son’s face staring out at motorists along Chicago highways and who still circulates fliers through the city’s downtown, where his son was last seen.

Ross’ Facebook page is covered with pictures and discussions about his continued search for answers to what happened to his son. He wrote a book, “Where’s Opie? Vanished in Chicago,” partly for “personal therapy” but also to help other parents of missing children.

“It’s frustrating,” Ross said. Police get new cases, and investigations into cold cases ease, he said.

“But you as a parent, every morning when you get up you see your child’s face just as it was when you last saw them. You realize it’s probably changed. You’ve missed years. But that feeling never goes away.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists 16 missing children in Kansas and 51 in Missouri, including Elizabeth Ann Gill, who disappeared in the summer of 1965 when she was 2 years old. She would be 51 today. Her family thinks she is still alive. For years they have held vigils, balloon launches and other events in her name.

Elizabeth Ann, the youngest of 10 children, was last seen playing in the front yard of her family’s Cape Girardeau home. Some thought she had wandered off and fallen into the Mississippi River. Her parents thought she had been kidnapped.

Four years ago, friends and family persuaded law enforcement officials to interview members of a transient group who had been in the area at the time the toddler disappeared. The FBI reclassified her case as a kidnapping and opened an investigation.

FBI spokeswoman Rebecca Wu said Thursday that all leads had been pursued, without resolution.

But the case remains open with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We never close a case until the answers are uncovered or the child is found,” said Lanae Holmes, senior family advocacy specialist for the center.

“We know that continued awareness brought to a case does bring children home. Children are found 10, 12, 20 years later,” Holmes said. “It some cases one tip can be the lead that brings a child home.”

That’s how Shawn Hornbeck was found, four years after he was kidnapped in 2002 when he was 11. The tip came from a teen who saw a pickup near a school bus stop where another boy was grabbed in January 2007. The description led police to a home in suburban St. Louis four days later. There they found the latest kidnapped child and Shawn.

For some families, the vigils, balloon launches, posters and billboards are about hoping that one tip will come. But often it’s also about “feeling in control of a control-less situation,” Murphy said.

She started the nonprofit Project Jason after her son Jason Jolkowski disappeared in Omaha, Neb., in 2001.

When a loved one disappears, she said, “it’s trauma that does not end. It’s like you have this gaping wound that never heals.”

“Trauma affects the brain and the body,” Murphy said. People can become physically ill. Consumed, even.

Some parents withdraw from the rest of their family or become so obsessed with searching for their lost child that they miss their other children growing up.

It’s common, too, Murphy said, for family members to have different views about what happened to their child. One parent may think the child is dead while the other is sure the child is alive and will come home.

Murphy recalled a family who moved from the only home their missing child had ever lived in with them. The couple got permission from the new homeowners to tack a plastic-sealed note to the door, so that if their child ever returned, he’d know where to find them.

“We never forget. And can’t, won’t, give up,” said Murphy, who has found herself staring into crowds or circling a block thinking that this time the familiar face she has seen is going to be her missing son. “There is always that glimmer of hope.”

Kara Kopetsky, another missing Kansas City area teen, disappeared in 2007. Last month her family held its seventh annual walk in her honor. At 17, Kara was last seen on a surveillance video leaving Belton High School; the last person she’d talked to was a boyfriend.

Mack thinks her daughter left the St. Joseph pool with a then-33-year-old convicted felon the teen had met in the neighborhood where they both lived.

Mack doesn’t know, but she thinks the man promised to take her daughter, who was on medication for bipolar disorder, away. “To her it was an adventure. I’m sure the picture was painted pretty,” she said.

Days after the girl disappeared, the man was arrested in a purse-snatching investigation in Olympia, Mo., but used a phony name and was released. Nearly two months later, after he failed to show up in court, he was arrested on a warrant.

Ashley wasn’t with him either time. He wouldn’t talk about the girl, but he remains a person of interest, said Sgt. Jennifer Protzman, the St. Joseph detective on the case. No arrest has ever been made in connection with the girl’s disappearance.

“Periodically I will get an email on a tip from another jurisdiction” that found a body matching Ashley’s age and gender, but then dental and DNA tests rule them out, Protzman said.

But police haven’t gotten any substantive information since Ashley disappeared, she said.

Tabitha Blohm Kretzer, who was Ashley’s best friend, was at the pool the day Ashley vanished.

“I thought she had gone to the convenience store, but she never came back,” Kretzer said. “I still think about her all the time.”

Mack said she knows her daughter didn’t stay away willingly. “One thing I know about Ashley, she wouldn’t just walk away from 15 years of life, never calling her family, her friends.”

“There’s always that thought,” she said, “that she is out there somewhere. Maybe like those girls who were kidnapped and found 10 years later in Cleveland. I’ve spent years getting her face out there. Maybe someone will come forward. I have her on every missing child website list.

“I want her to know, Ashley, you are not forgotten. I just want to bring her home, alive or dead. We’ve got to bring her home.”

[Kelly]

Omaha Teen Missing 14 Years

 

Omaha, NE, June 13. 2015 - As thousands of people gather for the College World Series, there is one Omaha native who won't be in attendance.

 

Jason Jolkowski has been missing for 14 years as of June 13, 2015. He was age 19 when he was last seen in the driveway of his Benson neighborhood home. No clues or solid leads have ever come to light in his case. 

 

His family asks that local media assist with awareness by at least a brief mention of his story and showing of his photograph. With all the visitors in town, it is possible this information may prompt new leads that may result in the answers his family so desperately needs.

 

Key Information:

 

Missing Since June 13, 2001 From Omaha, NE

Age Now: 33

Sex: Male

Race: White

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Height: 6'1"

Weight: 165 lbs

 

Jason was last seen leaving his home to walk to Benson High School, where he was supposed to meet a coworker for a ride to work. He never arrived at the school and has not been heard from since. Jason's nickname is J.J.

 

If you have any information about Jason, please call the Omaha Police at 402-444-5818 or 402-444-5690. You can also call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678.

 

Additional information and photos of Jason can be found at

http://projectjason....ki-ne-06132001/

 

A printable poster is located at http://projectjason....onJolkowski.pdf

[Kelly]

http://www.wowt.com/...-307303901.html

Mystery Still Unsolved After 14 Years

Posted: Sun 2:23 PM, Jun 14, 2015
By: WOWT 6 News

Saturday marked 14 years since the disappearance of Jason Jolkowski, last seen in the driveway of his Benson home walking to school on the morning of June 13, 2001.

No clues or solid leads have ever come to light in this case. His bank account and cell phone remain untouched, his car was left in the repair shop and his last paycheck was left at work.

His mother Kelly Murphy, who now lives in Seattle, has always said It is unlikely the 19-year-old ran away. "Omaha police consider it to be one of the most baffling cases. How can there just be no leads, no clues? It's just astonishing."

Anyone with information about Jason is asked to call the Omaha Police Department at 402-444-5818 or 402-444-5690. You can also call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678.

 

Note: Our thanks to WOWT for remembering Jason.

[Kelly]

http://wbay.com/2015...or-missing-mom/

Sisters Hope Teddy Bear Campaign Will Aid in Search for Missing Mom

by Sarah Thomsen Published: December 16, 2015, 6:05 pm Updated: December 16, 2015, 8:20 pm

The family of a missing Brown County woman is trying to draw national attention to her case in a unique new way.

They’re relying on the help of a travelling teddy bear to get their message out.

They’re doing it with the help of Miles, aka Miles for the Missing Superbear.

He’s travelled the United States this year, moving from coast to coast, covering more than 15,000 miles in 13 states and visiting 16 families.

His latest stop is in Brown County.

“It’s healing a little bit, you know. You wouldn’t think so, but it was amazing how uplifting it was to have him arrive here,” says Marsha Loritz.

She received the bear Monday night. It’s her latest effort to bring awareness and attention to her mom, Victoria Prokopovitz.

She disappeared without a trace from her Town of Pittsfield home in April of 2013.

For nearly three years, Marsha has become a voice for the missing, so when she stumbled across a Facebook page for the Superbear, she knew she had to chance it and asked to participate.

“It is a bear,” says Marsha, “but it’s something to make us smile. It’s something to be able to tell our loved one’s story.”

The travelling bear comes from Project Jason, a non-profit started by the mom of Jason Jolkowski, who disappeared in Nebraska in 2001.

Project Jason highlights missing persons cases and offers support for families.

With each visit from Miles, families share pictures and stories on Facebook, sharing a personal connection you simply can’t find on a missing person’s poster.

“Some will show where they worked or the last place they were seen,” says Marsha, describing the kinds of pictures families post. “We took him yesterday to Kroll’s and had dinner, my sister and I. Kroll’s is meaningful because my mom would take us there to celebrate any special birthdays.”

Marsha hopes this extra attention could help crack just one missing persons case.

In the meantime, she sees this project giving families a little hope.

“Just fun humor, and kind of makes you forget about what this really is about, a little bit, and just smile,” she says.

[Kelly]

Kelly Murphy, Project Jason founder, was honored by Deseret News as one of their 2015 heroes.

 

http://www.deseretne...ear.html?pg=all

Deseret News heroes of 2015: 7 people who made a difference this year

By Deseret News Staff
Published: Wednesday, Dec. 23 2015 6:30 a.m. MST
Updated: Friday, Dec. 25 2015 4:51 p.m. MST

Most heroes don't think of themselves as extraordinary people. If you were to ask any of the people on this list if they think of themselves as heroes, they'd probably say no. What they all have in common, however, is a desire to make a difference.

Most heroes don't think of themselves as extraordinary people.

In fact, if you were to ask any of the people on this list if they think of themselves as heroes, they'd probably say no.

What they all have in common, however, is a desire to make a difference.

This year's list includes a doctor who has dedicated much of his life's work to a subject many of us avoiding thinking about until it's too late: sickness, aging and death. Atul Gawande isn't just a doctor, he's a father and a journalist who has shined a light on subjects like the spread of Ebola and the the long-term impacts of the Affordable Care Act.

“Our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer," he said.

While Gawande is fairly well known, some of the heroes on this year's list are not. One of those is Kelly Murphy, a mom who helps families cope with loss. And then there's Amrita Ahuja. A native of Mumbai, India, Ahuju has a Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard, but her interests lie beyond simply understanding how markets work, or how companies can maximize profit. Instead, Ahuja wants to figure out how to do the most good with the least amount of money possible. Call it efficient charity. Ahuja and her team are working to bring clean water to millions in the developing world and slow the spread of HIV.

This year, the Deseret News has selected seven heroes, one for each of our areas of editorial emphasis. While these heroes come from all walks of life and all corners of the globe, each has found a way to make the world a better place. We hope their examples can inspire us all to do the same, in ways both big and small.

Family: Kelly Murphy

Her son’s disappearance on June 13, 2001, launched Kelly Murphy on a journey that has helped thousands of families figure out how to take the next step as they cope with the loss of a loved one.

Jason Jolkowski, then 19, was last seen taking the garbage cans to the curb of their home in Omaha, Nebraska. He then waited for a ride to his job. He never got there. He simply vanished, and no clues have ever been found.

Murphy coped with anguish and other emotions, some that may never completely resolve. But she didn’t stop moving. She launched Project Jason, an organization that helps families who have missing loved ones figure out their next step, whether it’s getting media attention to help in the search or learning to live a somewhat normal life in extraordinarily challenging circumstances.

There are a lot of people coping with such a loss. The FBI and the National Crime Information Center collect more than 800,000 missing person reports each year, with 105,000 annually that never get solved. Murphy also helped Jason’s Law get passed in Nebraska, establishing the state’s missing person clearinghouse.

Murphy lives in Renton, Washington, where she works full time for a company that sells outdoor gear and clothing, but as president and founder of Project Jason she is still fully engaged with the organization. It provides families with tips, private community boards, access to free online counseling with a qualified counselor and an annual “Keys to Healing” retreat that brings together loved ones of those who are missing to share ideas and help each other heal.

 

Read about the other heroes by clicking on the link above.

Deseret News is the leading newspaper in Utah, offering a rich perspective on faith and family issues as well as in-depth local coverage of education, politics, business, and, of course, sports.

DeseretNews.com is the leading newspaper website in Utah, with approximately 3 million unique visitors each month.

 

Project Jason thanks Deseret News and reporter Lois Collins for highlighting the cause of missing persons.

[Kelly]

http://www.huffingto...ime=y&te=Newser

Frustrated Father Says Cops Won't 'Do Anything' About Missing Daughter
"I don't care whether they are kidnapped or a runaway; they are still missing and may be in danger."

01/09/2016 12:06 pm ET

David Lohr
Senior Crime Reporter, The Huffington Post

A Louisiana man is frustrated with police, claiming they were insensitive and put forth little effort to locate his daughter and her best friend after they disappeared in Lafayette earlier this week.

"It's mind boggling," Marlon Mitchell told The Huffington Post. "They didn't care and it was all we could do to get them to do anything. We couldn't even get the television stations to report it."

Mitchell's 16-year-old daughter and her best friend, also 16, disappeared on Wednesday. They were last seen getting into a vehicle outside Lafayette High School.

Contacted by HuffPost on Friday morning, a spokesperson for the Lafayette Police Department confirmed officials had not launched a missing person investigation.

"We're not listing them as missing," said Sgt. Kyle Soriez, who appeared confused that HuffPost was interested in reporting the story. "In fact, our local media hasn't even covered them as missing. I believe one of the local media outlets has them just on their social network page just as an assistance to the parents, but currently they're runaways."

Natalie Wilson, co-founder and director of public relations for Black and Missing Foundation, Inc., said it endangers missing children when police simply label them as runaways, because investigators typically don't put the same amount of effort into locating them.

"A large number of children who run away end up being victims of sex trafficking," Wilson told HuffPost. "And when they are classified as runaways, they don't receive an amber alert or any media attention at all, which is what we saw in this case."

Mitchell said it was out of character for his daughter, whom he described as a good student with "great character and attitude," to be out of contact with his family.

"Just like any kid, you get rebellious spurts, but nothing like this," he said. "So we was upset when the police officer yesterday told us that there would have to be no contact within 48 hours for them to actually deal with this as a missing person."

Fortunately, Mitchell's family did not have to wait for that classification. Both girls were found safe Friday afternoon, after HuffPost spoke with police. Calls for comment to police following their safe recovery were not returned.

While there was a happy ending to the story -- in the sense that both girls are home safe -- Mitchell credits grassroots efforts and social media with getting the ball rolling on the case.

"After [the police] saw the posts on social media, they said, 'Well, I guess since you all done put it out there with this negative vibe, we're going to assign a detective to the case,'" Mitchell said. "Within two hours they found our daughter. We couldn't of done that without social media and you guys."

Kelly Murphy, president and founder of the Omaha, Nebraska-based nonprofit missing person assistance group Project Jason, said it is not uncommon to hear families of the missing complain of what they feel is a lack of sensitivity by law enforcement agencies.

"For the families, when you don't know where your loved one is, it's a critical and frightening experience," Murphy told HuffPost. "I don't care whether they are kidnapped or a runaway; they are still missing and may be in danger. The bottom line is you don't know where they are or if they are safe."

Project Jason offers resources to families of the missing and has successfully organized grassroots efforts to pass missing-persons legislation.

Murphy started Project Jason after her son, Jason Jolkowski (pictured below), disappeared in June 2001. He remains missing today.

"I think a lot of it is a numbers thing, especially in a large metropolitan area," Murphy said of how police often react when teenagers go missing. "On any given day, a large city can have dozens of runaways and some are a revolving door, so I can understand how they can be desensitized to numbers, but that still does not excuse not being sensitive to a family who is frightened and doesn't know where their loved one is."

Mitchell said he is not angry with any one person in particular, but is disturbed by what he perceives as a lack of effort and empathy by police while the girls were missing.

"I'm glad they're safe and what not, but this is not dead for me," the father said. "The things we had to deal with the last two days -- that kind of behavior needs to be silenced. All cases need to be looked into."

Wilson agrees.

"Law enforcement is supposed to be there as a vehicle to help families find their missing loved ones and to be just callous or just not take the case seriously is a disservice to the citizens," she said. "And it's not just happening in Lafayette, it's happening across the country."

[Deborah]

Jason has been missing 15 years, we continue to pray for leads in his case.

 

https://statepatrol....fa?in_archive=1

[Kelly]

http://kfab.iheart.c...years-14809603/

Jolkowski Missing For 15 Years

June 13th marks the fifteenth anniversary of the disappearance of then 19 year old Jason Jolkowski. His mother, Kelly Murphy says Omaha police are no closer to solving the case today than they were those many years ago.

Murphy says Jason's car was in the shop. He was called into work unexpectedly and arranged to meet a ride at Benson High School about seven blocks away. Murphy says Jason got ready for work and was seen by his brother and a neighbor leaving their home. His ride showed up at the high school but Jason has not been seen since. A review of the security videos from the high school shows that Jason didn't make it that far.

Murphy says Jason maybe had $60 in his pocket. He did not take money out of his savings account and the next day was his payday. Neither Omaha Police nor the family believes him to be a runaway.

Murphy says, "Months went by. A year went by and then two years and three years and no answers. Nothing really changes. It seems like nothing is different than on day one except learning coping skills. It seems incredible that someone knows the answers and we can't find that person. Someone knows."

Murphy says it is time those with information come forward. Persons with information are encouraged to call Omaha Police at 402-444-5818 or Crime Stoppers at 402-444-STOP.