Tallahassee Fl

We survived another time change and even though this one worked against us and was a bit nerve racking, we still managed to arrived early. We have reached Florida! The next two days are going to be a whirlwind as we crisscross the state with 3 stops a day.

CUE volunteer Stephanie White was our host at Hurricane Grill and Wings in Tallahassee (10/8/13 3pm) in honor of Missing Jerry Michael Williams and Missing Pamela Biggers. Stephanie outdid herself with her attention to all the details. She had sponsors, a program, items to raffle off, and also served food at the stop.

The program began with Stephanie introducing CUE Florida State Outreach Coordinator Kelly Walker. Kelly told us about Pam Biggers, who was 52 years old when she went missing from Panama City Beach in 2008. She was there traveling on business from Alabama, and was last seen entering her motel room for the night at 7pm. Her car was found in the parking lot, and her cell phone and purse were found in her room. It is possible that she became disoriented and wandered away. Although she has no prior history of either memory loss or of going missing, she was acting strangely on the day of her disappearance. Her son was about to be deployed to Afghanistan, causing her to be stressed and she may have gone off to try to find him.  Foul play is not suspected but due to her mental condition there is grave concern for her safety. I can't help but think she COULD be alive, she could be homeless and unaware that she is a missing person!

Next up was Cheryl Williams, "Mike's" mom. Mike went missing in 2000 at the age of 31. He was last seen leaving his home in Tallahassee to go duck hunting at Lake Seminole, which was not something he normally did alone. His vehicle was discovered, (not parked at his usual location), and his boat was found in the lake running (though it should have been out of gas by then). Mike has not been seen or heard from since. His mom lamented how it took her three and a half years to get a criminal investigation started and by then the potential crime scene had been contaminated with evidence being both lost and destroyed. You see, law enforcement initially believed that he had accidentally drowned, even though searches never located him and 6 months after the alleged drowning (and days before his wife had him legally declared dead and collected 1.5 million in life insurance) some of his personal effects were found in areas previously searched. Law enforcement believes these items were planted after the searches had been conducted. Police NOW believe Mike is missing under suspicious circumstances and possibly met with foul play. I will never understand why Law Enforcement refuses to take the opinions of family more seriously. We are the ones who know what is normal for our loved ones, we are the ones who feel it in our hearts, and in our guts. Even if we have no "proof", we still have information that would benefit the police if they would JUST listen to us.

The rally ended with a family friend of the Williams reciting this; "A butterfly lights besides us like a sunbeam, and for a brief moment, it's glory and beauty belong to our world. But, then it flies on again, and although we wish it could have stayed, we feel blessed to have seen it". We then released butterflies and watched as they became aware of their surroundings and flew up and away. It turned out beautifully.

Elisa