The Last Place You'd Look

by Carole Moore

  Despite many searches in and around the area near where the two students disappeared, no trace of either has ever been found or at least acknowledged by law enforcement. Authorities located most of their clothes and belongings in Keith’s abandoned car, along with evidence that makes some believe that the person or persons who abducted the students might have pretended to be law enforcement officers or were indeed connected to some type of police agency. Similar evidence was reportedly found in at least one of the other cases.

  The six murders and the abductions of Keith and Cassandra grew cold. Although the victims’ families have stayed active in urging officials to continue to investigate the murders and disappearances, other cases have pressed to the front of the line. While all of the victims’ families want justice for their children, Joyce says their continuing pain comes from not having brought her brother home again. While finding Keith’s remains won’t end their tragedy, it would allow the Calls the opportunity to refocus their anger and energy.

  “We’ve never even had the experience to have closure. What do I want? I would like some accountability,” Joyce says.

  She and the families of the other victims saw their cases make headlines again when some of the original crime scene photographs surfaced and were made public—very public. In addition to being handed around to strangers not connected with the investigation, they were leaked to the media. The families were outraged. An internal investigation conducted by the FBI found the crime scene photographer, who had since retired from the federal agency and died, had retained copies of the photos. Although the victims’ families were furious at their release, something positive did come out of this act: the incident brought fresh attention to the case. Joyce and other family members hope that the renewed interest will help solve the cases, as well as bring them the news they have anticipated for more than two decades: the whereabouts of the bodies of Keith and Cassandra.

  “It’s difficult,” Joyce says. “We went for many, many years without any response. Now I’m glad new agents have taken it over and they have been more receptive.”

  Still, even with new investigators on the case, information sifts through official channels at a slow pace. The Calls, like the other families, are often told they can’t climb into the loop. “We want to know what happened to him and I don’t understand; it’s not like it’s a fresh case. We get very frustrated that they cannot give us more information,” Joyce says.

  Some have theorized that the Colonial Parkway murderer, or murderers, have died, relocated, or were incarcerated, bringing the local killing spree to an end. Whatever happened to those responsible for so much heartache, the Call family has come to terms with the knowledge Keith will never walk back into their lives again. Unlike cases where a disappearance could have a happy ending, the evidence suggests that will not be the result with Keith and Cassandra. And after more than twenty years, the Calls wish for something they have long been denied: the chance to bury their loved one.

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  The name Jodi Huisentruit may ring a bell for many, even if most can’t quite place the name or face. Back when she disappeared on June 27, 1995, the attractive blond television personality was all over the news—and not just in the local Mason City, Iowa, market where she worked.

  Jodi, an angelic-looking twenty-seven-year-old Minnesota native, anchored the morning news for KIMT-TV when she went missing. The morning Jodi disappeared, she had overslept and was running late to work. Official accounts say Jodi went to work around 3:00 a.m., but that day she was awakened by her producer at a quarter to four in the morning. From the evidence found at the scene, it appeared that Jodi grabbed her things and was trying to open the door of her car, a red Mazda Miata, in the parking lot of her apartment complex when she was attacked. Investigating officers found a bent car key in the door of the vehicle and blood at the scene. Personal articles—a pair of red shoes, a hair dryer, her purse, and other items—were found scattered, as if dropped during a struggle. A palm print, which remains unidentified, was also located during the initial investigation.

  Police canvassed the area and found someone who reported hearing screams around 4:30 a.m. but did not contact police. A man told investigators he had seen a light-colored van in the area at the time, but thus far the van has failed to materialize.

  According to reporter Josh Benson and death investigator Gary Peterson, two veteran investigative reporters who maintain a Web site dedicated to Jodi (www.findjodi.com) and have kept pressure on officials to solve the case, hundreds have been interviewed in connection with the missing anchorwoman. Dozens of searches have taken place, but unless investigators are playing their hands close to their chests, little information of value has resulted.

  The courts declared Jodi Huisentruit dead in 2001. The declaration follows what most believe: that she was abducted and killed. Who did it and where they left Jodi’s body is a mystery that Benson and Peterson, as well as Jodi’s family and friends, want to see resolved.

  The fate of the independent and high-profile young career woman remains the Mason City area’s most puzzling case.

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  Sometimes when an individual goes missing, it is apparent that foul play is involved, as in the cases of Keith Call, Cassandra Hailey, and Jodi Huisentruit. Law enforcement classifies those cases as “missing, endangered.” The press sums it up with “foul play is suspected.” But despite the impression offered by the occasional sensationalized case in the media, the vast majority of disappearances are not sinister: kids become lost; people grow unhappy and walk away from their lives; the mentally disabled quit taking their medications or do not receive adequate treatment and join the throngs who live on this nation’s streets; and some fall prey to accidents.

  In 2009, 719,558 persons were reported as missing to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Of those, 22,993 children younger than the age of twenty-one were classified as “endangered,” while 59,571 adults received the same classification. Another 10,055 persons younger than twenty-one were recorded as “involuntary.” Of those twenty-one and older, 10,136 also received an “involuntary” classification.

  “Endangered,” for purposes of the NCIC report, is defined as a person who is missing under the types of circumstances that would indicate that he or she might be in physical danger. The NCIC definition for “involuntary” is that the person appears missing under circumstances that indicate the disappearance may not have been voluntary, as in a parental abduction, although these types of abductions can also be classified as “endangered.”

  Another 41,272 persons received an NCIC classification of “other,” which means that the known circumstances do not meet the criteria for “endangered” or “involuntary” but there is reason to be concerned about that person’s safety. The “other” statistics for 2009 break down as follows: 9,496 younger than age twenty-one, with the remainder of 31,776 being twenty-one and older.

  It is worth noting that the majority of these cases are cleared, most with positive results: often, the person is found, alive and well, and the case is closed. However, because NCIC has no category for cases opened and closed in the same reporting period, it is impossible to say how many of 2009’s cases originated and closed in that year. Many cases from previous years are often included in the “closed” statistics. So, hypothetically, the case of a seventeen-year-old whose 2005 disappearance is classified as “endangered” but is found and whose case cleared in 2009 would play out like this: her disappearance would appear in the 2005 statistics and her recovery in the 2009 numbers. Because there is this overlap in national statistics, under the current system, it is impossible to tell what percentage of cases that originate in a given year are cleared. However, local agencies may keep running accounts of clearances and may be able to better correlate the years of origination and clearance.

  Also worth noting is that some missing persons cases are never recorded. Either the person disappears and no one knows or cares enough to report him or her missing or offi
cials decline to report the individual missing. Official numbers reflect the cases that are reported—not the true numbers of missing in this country. Outpost for Hope founder Libba Phillips calls these missing persons the “missing missing” and estimates their numbers in excess of a million people—maybe even twice that. She believes the overwhelming majority who fit into this category would also by official definition be considered “endangered.” No one will ever know how many are deceased and never found or are recovered and kept in a morgue or buried in an unmarked grave.

  Since the airwaves and newspapers often carry headline-grabbing stories about missing persons, it’s easy to come away with the misconception that police are quick to label a disappearance “suspicious.” This is not true. Police are taught to deal in concrete evidence and leads, not supposition. Even when evidence tends to support a darker reason for a victim’s vanishing, law enforcement leans toward conservative conclusions—at least for the record. They do not like to speculate aloud because it can hurt the families of the missing, and very often those speculations impede the investigation. But a cautious approach can also have a negative effect on a missing persons case because it can hold back the initiation of the investigatory process. Time is a precious commodity in these kinds of investigations. When too much time elapses before a probe gets rolling, evidence—and even the opportunity to find the missing person—can be lost forever. Preventing this lag was the guiding principle behind the enactment of Suzanne’s Law.

  Suzanne’s Law amended section 3701(a) of the Crime Control Act of 1990. It requires originating law enforcement agencies to enter into NCIC anyone who goes missing between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. A law requiring the entry of children up to age eighteen already existed (the National Child Search Assistance Act of 1990).

  The law was named after Suzanne Lyall, a nineteen-year-old student enrolled at the State University of New York at Albany, who disappeared in 1998. When Suzanne, who was last spotted taking a bus following her shift at a local mall, disappeared, police reportedly waited almost two full days before they launched an investigation. The petite student has not been seen since, despite her parents’ continuing and unwavering advocacy for their daughter and, indeed, for the rights of all missing persons. Passage of the law named after their daughter is hoped to speed investigatory efforts into the disappearance of college-age students.

  Teenagers in general are often lumped into the runaway, or “throwaway” (also called “thrownaway”), category even when little evidence exists to support the child leaving of his or her own free will. A throwaway is a child who is not wanted by the family or guardians and is forced or encouraged to leave the home.

  In decades past, most law enforcement agencies considered a missing teen, without any evidence to the contrary, to be a runaway. Many times this turned out to be true, but not always, as the Clark County (Washington) Sheriff’s Department discovered in 1971 when a high school student named Jamie Rochelle Grissim vanished.

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  There is no doubt that something terrible started in the Vancouver, Washington, area in the winter of 1971. Vancouver’s Decembers are so cold they drive all but the heartiest indoors. Even inside, the damp chill has a way of penetrating all attempts to ward it off. But for sisters Jamie and Starr Grissim, the frozen December weather was a small thing: the two young teens were thrilled to be in a warm and loving household. It had not always been that way. The girls had lived in at least fifteen foster homes by the end of 1971 and were used to being moved around. This time, fate had been kind to them: their foster mom, an elderly woman named Grace Stilts, treated them as if they were her own. They felt loved and were happy in her home.

  Starr and Jamie came from a large family of ten, but Starr—whose last name is now Lara—says there were many problems in her family situation. “There were very different age groups, and some of us had different fathers,” Starr says. “My mother lost her previous children [to child welfare officials] and then had us four, and we were taken away, too.”

  Two younger siblings were adopted, but Starr and Jamie found themselves consigned to foster homes until their mother’s parental rights were terminated when they were grade-schoolers. By then, Starr says, they were too old for most adoptive parents. They spent the next few years shuttling from one foster home to the next. “Some of them were so temporary, I can’t even remember them,” Starr admits.

  But of all of their foster moms, Grace was their favorite. Although much older than the rest and in ill health, she wanted the girls to feel as though her home was also theirs, and she went out of her way to try to make them happy. She succeeded.

  At that time, Jamie attended Fort Vancouver High School. She was sixteen years old, outgoing, and personable. Jamie didn’t hesitate to try new things, like horseback riding. She also had an artistic streak as wide as her frequent smile and loved both drawing and writing poetry. In fact, she had already decided on an art career and had landed a small scholarship as a result of her artwork.

  Jamie Grissim. Courtesy of Starr Grissim Lara.

  Her good heart brought her many friends, but she also drew animals to her with her abundant empathy. From horses to dogs to the chickens on the farm where they once lived, Jamie loved them all, and they also took to her. Starr remembers the roosters following Jamie around like a band of paparazzi. Still, no one inspired Jamie’s loyalty and love more than her own little sister. Starr says they made a pact to always stick together and defend one another, no matter what.

  “We had an agreement we wouldn’t be separated, even if it meant one of us might [have to pass up being] adopted,” Starr says.

  When it came to adoption, Jamie knew the kind of person with whom she didn’t want to live. The girls were once placed with wealthy potential adoptive parents, but when Jamie saw their prospective father beating one of the horses, “she said, ‘We’re out of here,’” Starr relates. Jamie didn’t care about the money. She said she didn’t want to live in a place where they would do that to a horse.

  Jamie had a boyfriend, but he had already graduated from high school and was serving in the navy on the other side of the continent. Smart and capable of excellent schoolwork even with her sometimes volatile and always changing home situation, Jamie was on track to graduate a year early and excited about her prospects of studying graphic design in college.

  In every way, Jamie Grissim learned to make the most of what life dealt her. Despite early years that would have broken the spirits of most kids and a proliferation of foster situations—some good, some bad—Jamie knew one constant: her close bond with Starr wouldn’t change, no matter what happened. Despite the passage of decades, that bond remains even though Starr has not seen her sister since that cold, damp December in late 1971.

  “It was a Tuesday and I was sitting at our kitchen table, and Jamie had to wait for the bus,” remembers Starr. Her sister had gone to the school bus stop outside their door but was soon driven back inside by the chilly weather. Jamie checked in on their foster mom, who suffered from heart problems, then spoke to her sister before returning to the bus stop, reminding Starr to tell Grace, their foster mother, that she would walk home from school because she had a couple of classes that day. Jamie said she would return home around 1:30 p.m. Starr, who was in junior high school at the time, wasn’t released until two hours later.

  When Starr returned from school, she noted Jamie had not yet returned home, which she thought odd because her sister had been very specific that she would be out of school early that day. Hour after hour passed, but still no Jamie. As darkness fell, Starr says she knew something was very wrong. At last, Grace called the police to report her dependable, good-natured foster daughter missing.

  “She didn’t come home that night. The next day I went to school and it was snowing, and I kept calling home and calling all of her friends,” says Starr.

  The girls’ caseworker, Jeannine Gillas, from child protective services, knew Jamie didn’t vanish on her own, even if po
lice did not. Starr says law enforcement dismissed her disappearance because she was a teenage foster kid. They thought she had run away, but the caseworker pressed them to take a report. They filed a missing persons report after thirty days—on January 7, 1972.

  “Our caseworker was furious. She went to the school and questioned people and looked for her, but she never did find Jamie,” says Starr, today a resident of Hillsboro, Oregon.

  Five months later, in May 1972, Jamie’s purse and identification, along with some of her other belongings, were discovered “up in the hills,” in a wooded area northwest of Vancouver, according to Starr. It was a desolate area, far from their home, a place where Jamie would never have ventured by herself. But there was even worse news for Jamie’s family: authorities had found the bodies of other missing teenage girls. In fact, two of those bodies would be discovered within one hundred yards of Jamie’s belongings.

  As the investigation into Jamie’s disappearance continued over the years, the authorities asked Starr repeatedly for Jamie’s dental records. Each request cut her to the heart. “Haven’t you kept them?” she would inquire each time, adding, “I’ve given them many times, and none of the girls turned out to be her.”

  The truth of it is that authorities lost some of the evidence in Jamie’s case. Her pocketbook vanished from police custody. Her savings account, containing $80 was confiscated by the state. “That was a lot of money back then,” Starr notes. The state refunded the money to Starr in 2009 after a medical examiner issued a death certificate for Jamie.