Located deceased.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061005/NEWS/610050363/-1/Saundersmurder
In heart-rending twist, family learns murder victim was their son
October 5, 2006
BARRE James Saunders, the victim of a brutal May homicide, had spun a compelling tale of childhood woe to his friends in the Granite City.
His parents, Saunders said, died behind bars when he was a young child. Reared in a foster home in a rough urban neighborhood, he was left to fend for himself on the streets of Philadelphia.
But to add one more twist to the unfolding tragedy of his beating death and the criminal charges that have now snared seven people, James Saunders in fact is the missing son and brother of a Virginia family that has been searching for their lost relative since 1990. Family members scattered now across the country say they're still struggling to believe that the little boy they called "Jamie" is dead.
"He was gentle. He was sweet. He was always smiling and laughing," says Saunders' mother, who will travel to Vermont to pick up her son's body and have him cremated. "He was my youngest. He was my only son. And I feel like I've lost a piece of my heart."
Saunders' mother, Donna, who asked that her last name and state residence not be used, contacted Vermont State Police after her daughter, Sheila Strong, read an online version of a newspaper article about Saunders' murder.
Sgt. Russ Robinson says police confirmed his identity using birth certificates and other information provided by Donna.
"We were led to believe there was no family," Robinson says. "But yes, it appears this is his family."
Strong says she's been searching in earnest for Saunders for 10 years. Though she never reported him missing, she says, she's used Internet databases to call countless other James Saunders who she believed may have been her brother. When a Google Alert on her computer alerted her to a James Saunders gone missing in Vermont in May, she refused to believe it was him.
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