Posted on 09/15/2002 3:27:19 PM PDT by ResistorSister
WOOSTER: Investigators looking for a missing 14-year-old Wayne County girl said Sunday morning they had found a severed head and limbs that they believe are hers.
Wayne County Sheriff Thomas G. Maurer called the discovery late Saturday afternoon a "harrowing development'' in the case, but said he could not provide the location or other details.
"The area of the recovery has been secured and guarded overnight," he said in a prepared statement. "Over 50 law-enforcement officials assembled this morning and were briefed and continue to search for additional evidence related to this heinous crime"
Authorities have arrested Joel Yockey, 46, who has lived with his parents since March, when he was released from prison after serving 15 years for kidnapping and raping a Wooster teen-ager. He lives just one block away from the missing girl, Kristen Jackson.
Maurer had said Saturday that Yockey, a registered sex offender, was being held on an unspecified parole violation. He has not been charged in connection with Kristen's disappearance.
But on Saturday morning, Yockey's mother, Denna, left a sob-choked phone message for her next-door neighbor and good friend, Etta Carney:
"Etta, I suppose you know by now that Joel confessed. We're sorry about this whole thing," she said.
Denna Yockey told Carney that she had tried to persuade her son to say where the body was for Kristen's family's sake, but he had refused to say anything else until he talked to a lawyer, Carney said.
On Saturday, hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officers -- including 40 FBI agents -- searched the woods, creeks and cornfields around Kristen's neighborhood, using helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, horses and dogs.
The task capped a week of hopeful hearts, open wallets and well-worn shoes since Kristen disappeared from the Wayne County Fair on Monday night. Thousands of fliers were posted; more than $40,000 in reward money was pledged, and no one can account for all the petitions, bargains and pleas addressed heavenward.
Kristen's mother, Sharon Jackson, knew something was wrong the moment her daughter didn't show up on Monday night. The family knew many people at the fair, so she walked around for 20 to 30 minutes asking people if they'd seen her.
But nobody had seen her recently, so she went to the sheriff's booth, convinced her daughter was in danger.
"When I tried talking to the sheriff's (deputy) the first time, he told me to go sit back on the bench (near the main gate)," Jackson said earlier this week. "I'm abiding by his wishes because I thought he obviously knows what he's doing. And I said, at this point, I'd really like to give you a picture and I'd also like to give you a description because this isn't Kristen. And he said, "Oh, no, it's far too early to do this"‚
The deputy assured her that Kristen was still at the fairgrounds, probably hanging out with friends. She had probably just lost track of time, the deputy said. Monday was kids' day at the fair, a school holiday.
She asked if the deputy could at least take Kristen's name and announce it over the public address system.
"He said we can't start paging people until 11 o'clock, until the fair closes," Jackson said.
The nervous mother waited by the main gate and called her husband, Mark, who had been watching the New England Patriots beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on television at home.
Kristen's friends last saw her inside the fair between 8:45 and 9 Monday night. She was due at the main gate at 9:30 p.m. to meet her mother.
However, a 14-year-old student at Northwestern High School, where Jackson attended, told authorities that he saw her sometime after 9 p.m., walking alone along state Route 302.
"I saw Kristen Jackson wearing a purple shirt with a (book) bag," Jake Hastings said. "She was right on the road"
He said she appeared to be walking toward the fence that surrounds the fairgrounds and he thought she was re-entering.
At 11 p.m., Kristen's name was read over the loudspeakers at the fairgrounds. The Jacksons then searched the area with deputies and filled out a missing-person report until about 1:30 a.m., when they were sent home.
They had begun an excruciating process that tested how well they knew their daughter. The questions from investigators and reporters were personal and direct.
Did she have any boyfriends? Was she sexually active? Could she be pregnant and afraid to tell? Had she ever run away before? Did she use illegal drugs? Was she upset about something at home or at school? Did she use Internet chat rooms to talk with strangers?
In short, did she have a secret life that her parents had no idea about?
Sharon and Mark understood that investigators had to rule out common explanations for missing children.
Most missing teens are runaways. But their daughter enjoyed her church youth group. She played clarinet and recently learned to play bass drum in the marching band. She was happy with friends, but shy around strangers.
Friends and neighbors confirmed the Jacksons weren't deluding themselves. If Kristen had a secret life, she kept it hidden unusually well.
On Tuesday, volunteers from Kristen's youth group at Parkview Church of Christ and other friends distributed fliers and combed the roads that she might have taken if she tried to walk home.
On Wednesday, FBI agents joined the investigation and searched Kristen's home, her computer and the fairgrounds.
The FBI began asking questions about Yockey as early as that day. "(An agent) just asked me if I thought maybe (Yockey) had anything to do with it and I told him no because I didn't," Etta Carney said. "He's been nice to us. He goes up the street and he'll wave or speak to us"
On Friday, Yockey's mother told Carney that agents had picked up her son and questioned him from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"She said, "I figured that when something happened around here, Joel would be the first person they thought had done something. But he didn't do it," Carney said.
She said the FBI was at the Yockey house until at least midnight on Friday. Yockey told Carney that neither she nor her son could eat all day.
The next morning, Carney wasn't home when Yockey's mother left the phone message, saying her son had confessed.
With Kristen presumed dead, the search turned grim Saturday.
The family's church had been taking names and numbers all week of people willing to help with a massive search. The volunteers were dispatched in teams of 10 to 20, looking west of the fairgrounds and south of her home, which is about 4 miles from the fairgrounds.
Their numbers were impressive in the church parking lot, but once they dispersed into the rural landscape it became clear that each had a lot of country to cover before nightfall.
Those searching just off Jefferson Road, south of Kristen's house, poked through thickets, peered over barbed wire and pushed aside underbrush.
Kim Tanner stopped at a trash heap at the edge of a harvested cornfield near the woods.
She scanned the pile, which included playing cards, rusted mechanical parts and fading paper and plastic bags. She found nothing. She shook her head and continued following the tree line.
"I have no idea who (Kristen) is," said Tanner, 30, of West Salem. "I've been worried sick all week long about somebody I don't even know."
Kristen's youth group was summoned to the church at noon Saturday to receive the news that she was presumed dead.
While they were at church Sunday morning, the sheriff was telling the news media about the discovery of what they believed to be her.
Sheriff Maurer ended his brief Sunday morning news conference with a word to Kristen's parents:
"Just a note to Mark and Sharon Jackson: God loves little children."
Here is the complete text of Maurer's statement. He took no questions:
"Today it is our unfortunate duty to report to you a harrowing development in the Kristen Jackson investigation. Let me begin by saying the investigation of this case has reached a critical point, at which comments and information provided by law enforcement officials must be guarded to ensure the successful prosecution of the suspect in this case.
"I recognize, however, the right of the public to know what is going (on) and to be informed through the media.
"Therefore, while I'm at liberty to discuss the following, I will be unable to answer any additional questions.
"Late yesterday afternoon, as a result of an intensive search, we recovered the severed limbs and head of a young girl.
"We believe these to be that of Kristen Jackson.
"The area of the recovery has been secured and guarded overnight.
"Over 50 law-enforcement officials assembled this morning and were briefed and continue to search for additional evidence related to this heinous crime.
"We are very appreciative of the overwhelming support from those volunteers who spent countless hours assisting with these searches.
"The outpouring of compassionate support and commitment for Kristen's family and friends has helped unite our community through this tragic event."
The neighbors said they had no idea that a sex offender was living in their neighborhood.
Yeah, it is unbelievable.
and...He was released - just to kill that little girl.
We can start by rounding up anyone in their forties who lives at home with his parents.
Any time anybody for any rerason (parole, short sentence, etc.)decides that a sexual predator is safe to be back on the streets, they have just guaranted there will be at least one more victim.
I'm sure you're not the only one who feels that way.
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