Feeling Blue? More like Purple - sometimes Red Red Red - and what Willa Cather said
Why so much purple in my garden?
Julie's favorite color was purple. From April to October, I keep the purples coming: phox, iris, lilacs, asters, vervain...
Why so many dead girls turning up alive
in my fiction? It's a theme I don't abandon. One winter, from November 28, 1975, to March 18, 1976, my sister was missing. Of course she wasn't dead! She would pull a Nancy Drew and find her way home again, wherever she was. I'd watch out the living room window, expecting her on the driveway at any moment now.
She was found in a culvert under a gravel road only five miles south of our family farm.
In the old white shed the wagon our grandma painted for Julie and Lori still stands--and the tractor our grandpa was on in the sunset painting by my husband. #GoneButNotForgotten
We were not allowed to see her body, allegedly "badly decomposed." To me, that meant something else was in that coffin that went six feet under, and Julie was in Witness Protection somewhere, and we'd cross paths again someday.
After so many years turned into so many decades, I let go of that minsicule thread of hope. I started looking through her diary for clues as to who she knew--who had done this thing, stealing a daughter from her parents, stealing her life, disposing of her like roadside trash. All these years later, her killer(s) roam free, respected in the community, enjoying grandchildren, thinking "God is good. God let me get away with it." (The #1 Person of Interest is a pastor. Ugh.)
Every new scrap of information I get on my sister's cold case is in the Cloud, and all my lurkers and stalkers have no way of knowing how many other people know or who knows what. Not just #SomeoneKnowsSomething, but #EveryoneKnowsSomething. The pieces are coming together. To silence me, who else would have to be silenced?I know people who have never used a computer or gone online. Paper copies can be produced from various parts of the country, pointing to persons of interest should anyone working on this case go missing or die of mysterious "accidents."
I'm too old to care if someone tries to silence me.
Our parents are both past age 80 now. They were so young when Julie was ripped from their lives--their firstborn, the oldest of five daughters.
I don't care if anyone rots in jail
for this crime, because it won't change what happened.
I want my sister back.
Only in fiction
do I summon her to life again, in endless variations on the same old theme.
As Willa Cather said,
source
UPDATE: Thank You, Jousse Delphine,
for your kindness, compassion, attention, and support! From Twitter:
Jousse Delphine @DelphineJousse · Aug 20
You have no idea how "connected" I feel to Julie's story or even Lisa's.
Perhaps because we share the same passion for journalism, and the same courage to denounce injustice?
In any case, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of these two wonderful and inspiring young women.
My sister is not the only American
this French journalist calls attention to via Twitter.
WOW...How sad , heart breaking and waste of a beautiful sister this would have been a bit less painful if there was a closure to this but as they say in Buddhism the person responsible with be met by Karma. My heart goes out to you dear Carol.
Thank you - it would be one thing to lose her to cancer or a car wreck, but the knowledge that her killer lived half an hour away from me as a pastor (until last fall) was a thorn in my flesh--the way everyone in the community adores and respects the guy. He slipped back to Vegas. Two of his accomplices are dead, but others are still alive, and the number of people who know what happened but never speak up - well, there's a lot of karma going on, and maybe that's why the Midwest has been so heavily flooded in recent decades. :) (Thanks again for reading and commenting, everyone.)
I remember you posting about your sister before. It's stuck with me. It's such a gut-wrenching loss for you and your family, and as you say something that can never be set right. I'm so sorry.
Thank you. :) This week, a journalist has been contacting me, claiming he has interviews with people who "know something" and he wants to "compare notes" with me. For four years I've been listening to leads and "new information" and witnesses speaking up after forever, and it's always the same result: I sprint forward, take the leap, and crash into the brick wall. Over and over again. My dad and sister warned me just to leave it alone - the case will never be solved - but I took that as a challenge. I'm afraid they were right. Without DNA evidence, nobody is ever going to be ID'd as the killer. (Sorry. This all came up again, and minutes ago, I was emailing stuff to another journalist. Why. Why.) Thanks and no reply necessary. :)
This is a heartbreaking story. I am so sorry. I think only those who have missed loved ones in these sorts of circumstances can understand the particulars of this kind of pain. I worte some days ago about a niece, and there was an uncle who was found dead in an abandoned road, shot in the back, some 13 years ago. No clues so far.
People usually find solace in the alleged rule that what you do in this life you pay for in this life. I know of many who died peacefully of old age without ever paying for anything.
Hopefully, you and your family will have some closure.
Thanks, and I'm sorry about your niece (off to find that one!) and your uncle.
Thanks for sharing your heartbreaking loss of Julie. Lovely photo of her, Carol. Do you suspect anyone ? Did Carl have any idea about what happened? U&R
I have no idea what Carl may have known - twice, he crashed into a bridge and totaled a car. The second time, only two weeks after the first time, he was killed, but his front-seat passenger lived (injured, but alive to this day). As for the perp, there's no evidence--just hearsay. So, short of exhuming the body and finding a DNA match, there is no hope of closure here. Thanks for reading and commenting. :)
P.S. I should know what U&R is....
I’m not a psychic but was Carl looked at closely.
U & R means upvoted and resteemed.
Ahh, U&R - thank you!
Not Carl, but another classmate of theirs actually was a bartender at the place where my sister worked, but was it before she was killed? No records exist that I know of, before computers. Another classmate of Julie's, this one a woman, married a guy who also bartended at the place. The list of locals who might "know something" is endless. The perp is said to be a guy from Vegas who became a cop in the town where my sister was killed, and to this day, all the local LE are said to be either covering for the guy or duped by him ("no way could he be the killer! he's good people; he's such a great guy!"). I am confident that Carl never laid a hand on Julie and never would have harmed her. Then again, the one thing in this world I do know is that I know nothing. Nothing surprises me or shocks me, after a while. That said, I really would be surprised if our beloved Marianne turned out to be a Nazi prison guard back in the day, one who's aged really well. :) I'm at the stage where I'm saddened and disappointed, but no longer shocked by much of anything. Weary, emptied, drained of hope, but ... yeah. (Broken record.) The past few days have pressed down on me but I keep pressing back. Seeing my dad recently in his old haunts, and hearing from some journalist out of the blue, suggesting we "compare notes" on what he has from people... here's what would really shock me: if he uncovered the truth about what happened. Ha! I have not lost the capacity to be surprised. :)
Julie was such a pretty young girl. She may have rejected someone and it got out of hand. It would be difficult to know what really happened.
I thought Carl was acting strange as he seemed to be on a destructive path later with the car accidents.
Thanks - she did reject a creepy old tavern owner who had half a dozen mistresses already and kept trying for more, with offers of cash, a rent-free apartment, and all, but none of the guys who liked her were career criminals, least of all Carl (R.I.P.), but I appreciate your thoughts on the mystery. Julie's murder was well staged, with accomplices, and someone who knew how to remove evidence (no stained clothing, not even her jewelry anywhere to be found). The lone witness reported a scuffle in the coat room at work and more than one man driving her body to the culvert. Less than a year after Julie was found dead, a college student was killed in the same town, a journalism major, who was working on a story about a guy she'd help get imprisoned. Drug trafficking, sex crimes, the usual motives in TV shows and whodunnits. And perps who knew how to keep witnesses quiet.
I would be looking for answers too, Carol. All this brings back all the heartache of when it first happened. Blessings! 💕
Thanks. Only minutes ago, the journalist was asking me for the coroner's name (the guy has to be dead by now) and permission to exhume the body (if LE will agree to it) and what county etc to contact, hoo boy. All these years later. It's like yesterday once more. Thanks again for your understanding!
Julie was the shortest in her class, Carl the tallest. He died in a car wreck months after she was found dead in a ditch. They were like a comedy duo in school, ribbing each other relentlessly, and always in fun.
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