Pain, loss and searching go on

Gaston- and Cleveland-area families are still searching for Jamie Fraley, Jennifer Rivkin and Mouy Tang – women missing for months; a brother is still looking for the killer who left his sister's body beside the Catawba River in Mount Holly; and Catawba County families are searching for Travis Baker and Wayne Conner.

The burden of unanswered questions grows even heavier during the holiday season.

“Holidays are awful for them,” said Joan Petruski, founder of the Charlotte-based Kristen Foundation, a national nonprofit that crusades for relatives of missing adults. “They want to crawl away and hide. But I tell them they have to go on with their lives, that there are people out there who can help them.”

“It's been horrible,” said Kim Fraley, mother of 22-year-old Jamie Fraley, who vanished from her apartment on April 9. “I can't get any relief.”

Jamie Fraley lived in an apartment complex on Lowell-Bethesda Road outside Gastonia. Police said a “person of interest” in her disappearance was Ricky Dale Simonds Sr., 49, who lived in the same complex. In early June, Simonds' body was found in the trunk of his ex-girlfriend's car. He had served prison time for killing a woman in the 1980s, police said.

According to authorities, Jamie Fraley was dating and living with Simonds' son, Ricky Dale Simonds Jr. He was not a suspect because he was in state prison when Fraley disappeared, police said.

Kim Fraley said her daughter was a student at Gaston College and planned a career as a drug counselor.

“She was very trusting – too trusting,” Fraley said. “I told her, ‘You can't save the world.' If someone needed a place to stay off drugs, she would let them in. She had the biggest heart. A heart of gold.”

Jamie Fraley's case was recently featured on the national TV show “America's Most Wanted.” The Kristen Foundation has placed a billboard with Fraley's photo and information about a $10,000 reward along Wilkinson Boulevard in Cramerton.

Quynh Tang teaches in an elementary school outside Orlando, Fla., and every Friday since early September, she has gotten in a car after class and traveled nine hours to Cleveland County, N.C.

Among the hills and woodlands, she searches for her sister-in-law, Mouy Tang, 46, who disappeared Sept. 3 from Unique Living, an adult day care home near Fallston. The state later shut down the troubled home.

A native of Cambodia, Tang has schizophrenia and requires insulin to control diabetes.

“We've done everything,” Quynh Tang said. “We've searched everywhere. I've walked every hill, every creek and everybody's backyard. Every weekend is so upsetting because we're back to square one.”

The last time Hilda Ramsey saw her daughter, Jennifer Rivkin of Kings Mountain, was May 4, when Rivkin stopped by her mom's home in Bessemer City.

On May 6, police found the BMW Rivkin was driving in west Gastonia near The Winner's Circle Bar & Grill. Her purse was still inside the car.

On May 4, Ramsey recalled that her daughter – a hairdresser and songwriter who once lived in Nashville, Tenn. – kissed her and showed concern for her mom's well-being.

“I had no idea when she walked out the door I'd never see her again,” Ramsey said. “If I'd had any inkling, I would have asked her to stay with me. I can't get her out of my mind. When I go somewhere, anywhere, I look for her. We've had no word, no indication of anything. But we keep praying.”

A graduate student at Duke University, Pavel Yarmolenko, 25, is dedicated to keeping the murder case before the public. He's still doing media interviews and has spoken to students at UNC Charlotte. He produced a Web site about his sister (www.irayarmolenko.com), organized a self-defense training class for women at Duke and wants to bring the class to Charlotte.

Also, Yarmolenko hopes in the near future to organize a Gaston County community forum about missing women.

The body of Irina “Ira” Yarmolenko, 20, was found in Mount Holly about 30 miles from UNC Charlotte, where she was a student. Police said she died of asphyxiation. They treated the case as a homicide.

Pavel Yarmolenko and other family members recently met with Mount Holly police. He said he thinks the department is doing “an incredible job with the investigation. I couldn't be more impressed.”

Catawba County authorities are still searching for Travis Baker of Millersville, missing since April 16, 2007.

Baker, then 20, missed a lunch appointment with his girlfriend in Catawba County and didn't report to work that evening.

His family has held benefits and placed billboard ads in hopes of getting information, but the efforts haven't produced any solid leads.

Baker's father, Dwayne Baker, said, “I hope that someone will call the authorities or the CUE Center (for Missing Persons) and end our nightmare. We are so worn out over all of this.”

Also in Catawba County, Wayne Conner has been missing for more than five years. Conner, a Claremont native, was 61 when he was last seen at the bar of the Boxcar Grille in his hometown.

I am posting this because, as some of you may know, I knew Ira Yarmolenko and have been very interested in her case, and have been posting feverishly about it.

Of course, the families and loved ones of all the victims mentioned in this story should be in our thoughts and prayers. Especially during the holiday season, when grief hits hardest.

If you want to learn more about the Ira Yarmolenko case, or just want to get to know Ira better, there is a website dedicated to her at www.irayarmolenko.com.

I have also written some of my own recollections in my blog, which you can read here.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and bumping my posts on this issue.

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