By Daily Universe
- Mon, 06/01/2009 - 21:54
By HEATHER WHITTLE and EMILY HUDSON
When James and Marian Hudson came home one Saturday night they found an empty home where their 5-year-old son and his babysitter should have been. There was no note and no sign of a struggle, just dark rooms and no child.
They were supposed to go to a friend’s party that night, but their regular babysitter was unavailable. Reluctantly they left their son, Todd, in the hands of the 14-year-old daughter of a family friend and drove away, not knowing it could have been the last time they saw their child.
The house was dark when they pulled into the driveway, and when they got inside there wasn’t a sound. They quickly realized no one was home.
“Apparently the girl got scared while she was there alone,” James Hudson said. “We found out later that she had called the police a few times reporting an attempted break-in, and the police had been kind of monitoring our house all night. We had no idea this was going on.”
The Hudsons waited around their home for a while, thinking perhaps the girl had just left for a moment and would soon return. But as the minutes turned to hours the fear of what could have happened settled into their minds.
“We started getting nervous,” Hudson said. “We went to the police, but unless it’s been 24 hours they can’t treat it as a missing persons case. Thankfully since Todd was so young, and since the babysitter was a minor, they started looking into it.”
But the police process was slow, and there weren’t any leads. The girl’s mother had no idea where she could be; she was supposed to be home hours ago. It was as if the two of them had been erased. No one knew what could have happened to the Hudson’s little boy.
When a person goes missing, those who are left behind often experience a range of emotions, said Tom Golightly, an assistant clinical professor at BYU’s Counseling and Career Center.
“Everyone handles it differently,” he said. “Some people deal with it in healthy ways and some don’t.”
In 1969, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published “On Death and Dying,” where she described five discrete stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance.
Not all agree with these stages, but it seems reasonable these emotions are experienced in different ways and different circumstances when a person goes missing.
Abby Potash of Philadelphia spent almost nine months frantically searching for her 10-year-old son after he was kidnapped by his noncustodial father in 1997. He was found in Texas.
“At first I was in panic and shock, total disbelief,” Potash said. “Parents are traumatized and it continues until the child comes home.”
But she turned her experience into something beneficial. She is now the program manager of Team HOPE (Help Offering Parents Empowerment), a program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that helps family and friends cope when a person goes missing.
“There are a lot of non-constructive ways that people deal with the trauma,” she said. “Some turn to drugs or alcohol. Some are paralyzed by their emotions and not able to cope with life at all. It’s difficult if people don’t have a special network they can turn to.”
Duane T. Bowers, a licensed professional counselor, wrote a guide about providing support for the families of missing persons titled “A Child is Missing.”
In it, he explores the emotional and physical shock people go through when dealing with a missing person. He said people can experience hormonal reactions affecting their ability to concentrate as well as their short-term memory and the shock can lead to erratic daily routines for sleeping, eating, resting and exercising.
“The parent simply does not know what to do,” he said. “Support comes through assisting the parent in establishing physical and emotional guidelines for his or her thoughts, feelings and behavior.”
Golightly said experiencing these feelings is a good way to cope.
“The biggest thing is to allow time and space to feel the emotions,” he said.
One of the best supports for those dealing with a missing person is to have someone listen and just be there for them, Potash said.
“Let them talk,” she said. “Let them cry. Be with them. Let the family take the lead in what they need from those around them.”
When a person goes missing, those left behind often feel very isolated. It is good for others to offer support and comfort, but they must be sensitive.
“People should be very sensitive to people with missing people,” Potash said. “Things can be very painful. Don’t tell them to get on with their life. This is their life now. What they hear is, ‘Forget about your child.’”
On the other end, law enforcement is often involved as people help loved ones deal with a missing person.
Lt. Ralph Crabb has been a detective with the Orem Police Department for 18 years. As a detective in the juvenile division, he said he has dealt with a lot of runaways whose families often file missing persons reports.
“We are responsive … but it’s tough,” he said about reaching out to the families involved in the cases.
“As a police officer, I see that side of it,” he said. “I can only imagine what it’s like from the other side. You always wonder if there’s more you could be doing. I think it’s tough from their angle to look and see that … there’s just nothing else we can do sometimes.”
When discussing the stress that comes with a missing person, one of the most frequently mentioned words was “hope.”
“There’s always a hope in most families — where they can’t give up on their child,” Potash said. “They need to hold on to that hope. That’s something that helps them immensely — the hope.”
She said the pain of a missing person may never go away completely, but hope becomes stronger as time goes on and is essential, along with a good support system.
“The pain always stays with you, but you learn to make it part of your life,” she said. “Your perspective changes how you view the world; your priorities change. It’s a taste of when someone you love passes away. You change.”
The St. Charles Police Department was diligent in their efforts to find the Hudson’s son. One officer in particular, Officer Jerry Cox, stayed up the whole time Todd was missing, devoting all of his energy to bringing the child safely home.
After 24 hours had passed the FBI got involved, searching telephone records and license plates. They found out the babysitter, who had been afraid, called one of her friends to come keep her company and the friend brought her boyfriend.
This boyfriend was a wounded Vietnam veteran who was both physically and mentally affected by the war. It was this man who, on a drive out to get pizza, decided he was going home to Kentucky, taking his girlfriend, the babysitter and Todd with him.
“When we found out who might’ve had Todd and that he was unstable and driving a fast car, our fears became more focused and we were afraid that he was going to kill Todd in a car crash,” Hudson said.
But, the FBI apprehended their suspect in Kentucky the following Monday and found Todd, shaken up and a little bruised, but alive.
“We got the call that they’d found him and to come pick him up from the police station and I flew down there,” Hudson said.
After a few months of “smothering” their son, Hudson said, life returned to normal.
For the hundreds of families who never find their loved ones, this resolution is what they continue to hope and pray for.
According to Potash, for those who are still searching, the pain and hope are intertwined and will always be there.
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