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And then she'd gone

But only one person knew exactly where...


Published by: Dawn Murden and Jacki Leroux
Published on: 19 July 2012

Every parent struggles when their children fly the nest. I'd been no exception when we'd dropped off our youngest daughter Jamie at the University of Michigan, more than 2,000 miles away from us in California.
‘Here's some of my sweet and sour chicken,' I'd sobbed. ‘We could always stay in a hotel for a few days until you're settled...'
My husband Jimmy, 57, had hugged me tight.
‘I'm a big girl now,' Jamie had smiled. I'd known she was right, but she'd always be my baby.
Still, I needn't have worried. She'd called, text and emailed every day while she studied medicine. Now finally, the four years were over. We were at her graduation ceremony, and I couldn't wait for Jamie to come home.
The house hadn't been the same without her. Out of her and her sister Pat, 27, Jamie was the outgoing one. She'd always had
a huge circle of friends - they'd often all bundled around the TV to watch Michigan football games. I'd missed the hustle and bustle.
‘You can get a job at the hospital,' I suggested. ‘Become
a doctor, like you've always dreamed of.'
Jamie took my hand. ‘Mum, I've already been offered a job,' she smiled. ‘It's selling medical supplies for a big company in Arizona.'
My heart sank.
I was a nurse at San Gabriel Valley Medical Centre,
and every year she'd volunteered there. On her very first day, at the age of 12, she'd announced she wanted to be a doctor. I was disappointed she didn't want that any more. Still, she was 25 now, and knew her own mind.
‘And at least she's only 365 miles away this time,' I told Jimmy. But now we saw Jamie less than ever. When she'd been studying, she'd come home for holidays and weekends. Now she was always travelling around for work, or away with the local University of Michigan alumni club.
She still emailed all the time, though and, after a year of renting, Jamie bought her own place.
‘Our little girl's all grown up,' I smiled proudly. Excited to see her new pad, me, Jimmy and Pat went to surprise her. We knocked on the door and a man answered! ‘Oh, er, we're looking for Jamie,' I frowned. ‘We're her parents.'
‘Maybe she has a boyfriend,' Pat whispered.
I shrugged. It was possible. Jamie was always shy when it came to talking about boys.
‘You're her parents!' the man beamed. ‘I recognise you from her pictures. She's out, but come in.'
‘I'm Bryan Stewart, a friend of Jamie's,' he went on. ‘She had some trouble with ants, so I came over to let the exterminator in.'
Jimmy butted in on his smooth chatter. ‘So, how do you know Jamie?' he asked.
‘Oh, we met at a Michigan football game with the alumni group,' Bryan smiled. ‘I graduated from there, too.' Just then, Jamie came home. ‘What a nice surprise!' she beamed, awkwardly eyeing Bryan. Hmm, he was more than just a friend!
‘Well, I'd better be going,' he said. ‘Nice meeting you both.'
Well, if he was her boyfriend, he seemed very polite. Quite charming, really.
‘So... Bryan seems nice,' I smiled over dinner later. ‘He is,' she said coyly. ‘He graduated from Michigan the year before me.'
‘So, how long have you been dating?' I asked. ‘No, Mum,' she groaned. ‘We're just friends.'
I nodded and quickly changed the subject. Jamie had always had tons of male friends. When she was 16, and I'd decided to do up the bathroom, she'd persuaded
10 lads to help!
But over the next few months, Jamie became quite distant. Instead of speaking every day, she'd barely email us once a week.
I'm fine. Just working hard,
she typed when I asked her if everything was okay. So clearly her new fella was keeping her busy, even if she still wouldn't admit they were dating! I bet he was whisking her off on romantic dates, treating her to meals... Ah, young love! Whenever we popped round, he was always there.
One day, I was in the supermarket when I bumped into Julie, 29, one of Jamie's old school friends. ‘How is she?' she asked.
‘I haven't heard from her in ages.'
‘Oh, fine,' I smiled.
But suddenly I felt anxious. She was losing contact with everyone. Maybe I needed to make more of an effort to include Bryan in the family.
Next time we visited her, for her 30th birthday, I put my plan into action. ‘Why doesn't your boyfriend come for dinner with us?' I asked Jamie. ‘He's not my boyfriend,' she snapped.
Tears pricked my eyes. Why couldn't she be honest with me? My little girl was growing up and didn't need or want me any more.
Over the next few months, her emails became shorter and shorter. Still, I knew she was really swamped - she was preparing to go back to college to do her master's degree.
I'm so busy
with everything,
she wrote one day. Speak soon.
I missed my little girl so much, but I didn't want to bother her. So I didn't contact her. But soon five weeks had passed.
‘Have you heard from your sister?' I worried to Pat one day.
‘A couple of weeks ago,' she shrugged. ‘She's still manic.'
But when 10 weeks had
passed without an email, text or phone call, I really started fretting.
One day while I was at work, Jimmy called. ‘I've had a call from Penny, the manager of Jamie's alumni club,' he said. ‘Bryan's told her Jamie's moved to Colorado for a new job. He says he's not heard from her for weeks.'
‘What?' I gasped. Jamie wouldn't leave, not without telling me, surely.
‘Penny says Bryan's still using Jamie's car,' Jimmy croaked. ‘She told him he should call the police if he's not heard from
her. He says he tried but they wouldn't take a missing persons report from someone who's not family.'
My head was spinning. Nothing made sense. Jamie had moved, nobody had heard from her, Bryan was living in her house... Hands shaking, I dialled her mobile number. It went straight to voicemail. ‘Hello, darling,' I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘I'm really worried. Please give me a call when you get this.'
I rushed home, and had barely got my foot in the door when the phone rang. Jimmy answered, and put it on loudspeaker.
It was Bryan. ‘I know Penny's called you. Don't worry about Jamie,' he said. ‘I know you don't know, but I am her boyfriend. She's moved to Colorado - she got a new job.'
‘She would have told us,' Jimmy snapped. ‘Do you have keys to Jamie's flat?'
‘Er, no,' he mumbled. ‘I might be able to get in the garage, though.' ‘Meet us there in a few hours,' Jimmy said.
Before we left for Arizona, though, we called the police to report our daughter missing. All the way there, I kept ringing her phone. Nothing. ‘I'm sure she's okay,' Jimmy croaked. He was as worried as me.
At Jamie's house, there was no sign of Bryan. His phone was switched off. ‘He's got something to do with this,' I cried.
Yes, he'd seemed charming and polite, but what did we really know about him? Nothing!
Another call to the police, another drive, another sleepless night back at home. At 3am, the phone rang. ‘We've arrested a man called Bryan Stewart. Do you know him?' a detective asked.
‘That's who we were meant to meet at Jamie's house,' I said.
‘One of our cops spotted him,' he said. ‘We've been looking for him because of an outstanding traffic ticket.'
‘So?' I said. What did his ticket have to do with my daughter?
‘We did a computer check of the registration on his car - it's Jamie's,' he explained. ‘He's saying she moved away, broke up with him, and left him the car.'
‘It doesn't add up,' I said. ‘She was going back to university.'
‘We've got a warrant to search his flat,' he said. ‘Hopefully, we'll find something.'
Please let it be something good. Don't let my fears come true.
Next day, the police came to the house. ‘I think you should sit down,' the detective said. Jimmy clutched my hand. ‘We think Jamie's dead.'
I screamed - even though in my heart I'd known it already. ‘What did he do to my baby?' I sobbed.
‘We don't know. We didn't find Jamie, but we found her purse, mobile phone, passport, laptop,' he explained. Things she wouldn't leave without.
Then he cleared his throat.
‘His name isn't even Bryan Stewart. It's Rick Valentini,' he said. ‘He's wanted for a string of other offences, including fraud.'
What?! Bryan wasn't the lovely fella he'd seemed. He was actually a con man with three ex-wives and two children. While Jamie was possibly lying dead in a ditch somewhere, he'd been driving her car and maxing out her credit cards. He'd even used them to register on adult dating websites.
I felt sick.
‘We should have asked more questions,' Jimmy sobbed. ‘You can't blame yourselves,' the detective said. ‘Jamie had suspicions, she hired a private investigator last year after Bryan was arrested for burglary. But the report on Bryan Stewart was clean. He'd been using that identity for eight years. No one knew.'
‘I just want to know where my baby is,' I cried. But they didn't know, and it ripped my heart apart.
Rick Valentini was charged with credit card theft, forgery and weapon possession. But they needed more evidence to charge him with murder. ‘Without a body, it's so hard,' the police told us.
Me and Jimmy blamed ourselves. ‘If we'd asked more questions, maybe she'd have confided in us,' I wept again. ‘We could've prevented this.' But even Jamie's friends said they thought Bryan was lovely.
‘She disappeared over the last months, though,' they said. ‘We just assumed she was loved up.' Me, too.
Five months after Jamie's disappearance, we staged a candlelit vigil outside her local police station. We handed out flyers, put up posters and prayed for Jamie to get justice.
Finally, in April last year, 18 months after Jamie went missing, Rick Valentini, 34,
was charged with second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty, so every day I had to listen to his lies.
He'd said his parents had died in a car crash, yet they were still alive. He'd boasted of a military medal - truth was, he was discharged and spent two years in prison after stabbing two military officers.
‘How could we not have seen through him?' I whispered to Jimmy. He shook his head sadly.
Valentini had never even gone to the University of Michigan, and had forged a PhD. Ever the pathological liar, he then claimed Jamie had been mean to him.
My blood boiled. ‘He lived off her!' I hissed. ‘She'd earned about $100,000 (£64,000), and he'd taken everything, including the most important thing... her life.'
The prosecution was brilliant, though. ‘While you were detained, you told cellmates you killed Jamie with a sawn-off shotgun and disposed of her body where no one would find it,' the lawyer said. Apparently, he'd told them he'd fed her to the pigs, then said he was lying.
But still, Valentini refused to tell the truth in court. ‘I love Jamie,' he wept. God, he came over as so innocent, so charming, I could see why Jamie had fallen for his lies. Thankfully, the jury saw through him, though, and found him guilty.
He was sentenced to 22 years for Jamie's murder, but with other charges, he would spend 54 years in prison. Nothing, however, would bring my Jamie back.
The hardest thing has been not being able to say goodbye. With no body, we've had no funeral. We've no closure, nowhere to go to remember her.
Instead of celebrating Jamie's 34th birthday this year, I'll be begging the police to let me visit her killer in prison to ask him where my daughter is. I know he'll never tell me, but I have to try. I couldn't save my baby, but
I can try to bring her home. How I wish we'd done that all those years ago.
Vunnee Laiaddee, 65, San Gabriel, California, USA