It Has Been Five Years

Five years ago today, Rachel Cooke disappeared from her semi-rural subdivision outside of Georgetown, Texas.

http://www.rachelcookesearch.org/

From the link:

"January 10, 2002

Rachel, an accomplished cross-country runner, left her home in the Northlake development on FM 3405 northwest of Georgetown, Texas (north of Austin) on the morning of Thursday, January 10, 2002, to go on her usual 3-4 mile morning jog around the neighborhood. Sometime around 11 AM, near the end of her run and possibly within 200 yards of home, she disappeared."

Recently, a very creepy guy called Michael Moore (not THAT Michael Moore), who had been tried and convicted of killing a pregnant woman handcuffed in her closet (he picked the victim because she had the same last name, and he could steal and use her checks and credit cards), confessed to the murder of Rachel. When push came to shove and he was hauled into court and asked, "How do you plead," the words "Not Guilty" came out of his mouth. His confession repudiated, he is now back in jail while the DA tries to build a case. They seem fairly sure that the confession was legitimate, and the sheriff said he confessed to things that only the killer could know.

I'm not sure why he didn't get the death penalty for the murder of Christina Moore, except that he may not have known she was pregnant, as she wasn't showing yet. She was not sexually assaulted.

Five years since my friend Janet's older daughter, a trim, athletic 19-year-old with a pixie face and an irrepressible sense of humour disappeared off the face of the earth.

It was Thursday morning when she vanished, and not until Saturday did the sheriff's department come out to the Cooke residence and treat the situation like a crime. The police were convinced Rachel had run off. In her jogging clothes. Without taking anything, even her cell phone. Right.

If you go to the site linked above, be sure to read the journal written by Robert, Rachel's father. It is an awesome document of what the families of missing people go through.

As Rachel was 19, there could be no Amber Alert, that's just for children. Adults have the right to take off whenever they want to, and it can be very difficult and frustrating trying to convince the authorities that a crime has actually occurred.

Robert has spent the last five years advocating for missing adults and organizing self-defense classes for women.

I have frequently stopped my car and spoken to women I see jogging alone, with music in their ears and totally oblivious to the world around them. I tell them about Rachel, out jogging with her Walkman in broad daylight, in a "safe" neighbourhood, never to be seen again.