Chapter 33

A Time of Farewells

In the new century for the parents of Amber Swartz-Garcia, Michaela Garecht, Ilene Misheloff and Jaycee Lee Dugard, there were no final farewells, only open wounds that never quite healed. Jaycee Lee Dugard’s mother, Terry Probyn, could no longer stand the strain of missing her daughter in the familiar setting of South Lake Tahoe. She moved to another area far away. She left behind a practical memorial to her daughter—a video called A Child’s Life, with local self-defense expert and friend Ken Bowers. On the tape, available to the public, he put together a comprehensive instructional video for the prevention of child abduction. It taught simple but effective techniques for children to evade or fight back against abductors. The video is dedicated to Jaycee Lee Dugard.

In the introduction Terry Probyn faces the camera, looking sad but determined to tell her story so that others might escape Jaycee Lee’s fate. She says, “My message to you today is to empower your child. I think, reflecting back, and I know it’s Monday morning quarterbacking, that if I would have given her [Jaycee Lee] the knowledge to help herself, she would be with me today. Jaycee was caught off guard. She wasn’t expecting someone to come up behind her and cut off her path. She froze. I’d have given her knowledge to run the other way or possibly help herself find an avenue out after she had been taken. If I’d have done this, she’d be home.”

Then in words echoing Michela Garecht’s mom, she says, “All I can think about is not being able to hold her, hug her and kiss her. I’ll never give up looking for her. Ever.”

Sergeant Randy Peshon, too, has never given up looking for Jaycee Lee Dugard. As he told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter in the waning days of 1999, “You name it, we’ve tried it. Just here in my office are twelve working binders and there’s 150 to 160 volumes of paperwork stored at the FBI in Sacramento. It eats at you and it never goes away. Even now deputies talk among themselves about it at work, speculating, trading theories, looking for things we might have missed. For her family, the community, those of us who worked on the case, there is no closure. People used to feel safe sending their kids to the bus stop and now they take them there. The community lost its innocence.”

For four other families and friends, the tributes and farewells had already come and gone, still resonating like distant echoes by the time James Daveggio and Michelle Michaud faced their day in court in Alameda County. For the family of Tina Faelz there still was no hard evidence as to who had killed their daughter and the case was like an open wound that would not heal. For the parents of Kellie Poppleton, the one key clue linking her death to the killer was still missing. But at least the friends and family of Lisa Ann Monzo could get some closure knowing that her murderer, Michael Ihde, was paying the ultimate price for her death with his own life. And the parents and friends of Vanessa Samson knew that someday the killers of Vanessa would also pay a terrible price.

Vanessa Samson’s funeral had been a large one; more than 800 people from Pleasanton came to say good-bye to her. A memorial was conducted by her priest, Father Daniel Davidson, at St. Augustine Catholic Church. He said to the gathered throng, “Evil will not ultimately overcome.” He chose to speak of the goodness in her life rather than the terror of her death.

Then with an escort of police motorcycles and an honor guard, including Police Chief Bill Eastman of Pleasanton, Vanessa’s body had been transported to her final resting place.

“This is how ’Nessa would have liked it,” her brother, Vincent, said. “She was always smiling and laughing. She had a lot to give to people. We are especially thankful for the motorist who found her. If he didn’t happen to be there that day, we wouldn’t be able to do any of this today.”

So the young woman who had always been smiling and laughing was buried not far down the hill from pioneer Charles Garthwaite, the old ’49er who had chosen Pleasanton over any other place he could have picked in California. He had known it as a place of goodness and light, and so had she. The dark shadows that were cast by others remained there for a while, and then they faded with the morning sun.

In a subtle way the smiling and effervescent Vanessa Samson was now a sister to the sad and lonely Kellie Poppleton who had inhabited the other, darker side of Pleasanton. Though they died years apart and were interred miles apart, there was a common thread of friends and family who remembered the girls with love and promises never to forget. In the years that followed, they kept their promises.

A stranger visiting Kellie Poppleton’s and Vanessa Samson’s final resting places will notice that fresh flowers keep appearing at their graves. No matter the day of the week or time of the year, the bright petals add an array of color to an otherwise somber scene. It’s an unspoken testimony that friends and family have indeed not forgotten these girls and still surround them with memories and love.