Bohemian
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Im My Brothers Keeper: NamUs Helps Texas Family Find Missing Man
forensicmag.com
Seth Augenstein
01/12/2018 - 1:15pm
The picture of those shoes, those bright shoes found years before in the desert, nearly stopped her heart.
Zaira Marina Gonzalez had never given up on her brother Christian, missing six years before in a rural part of Texas and trying to make his way back home. He disappeared without a trace, after his last tearful phone call with his parents on Sept. 6, 2012.
They waited for the 23-year-olds call that never came. They never had any answers at all. But that changed when Gonzalez found the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, last July. The database is available to the publicincluding grieving families with mysteries yet to solve.
Here, she thought, was a way to do something.
She combed through hundreds of cases of the unidentified people found dead in and around Brooks County, starting in 2012. It was like an obsession, entry after entry, picture after picture, sketch after sketch, and clothing item after clothing.
And late one night last summer, after hours of searching, she was ready to stop for the night. But she told herself she would try just one more case, just one more click.
It was case #14039-0383, and it was different than all the ones that had come before.
I started feeling pressure on my chest, Gonzalez recalls. I knew something was not right. They had a picture and description of the shoes that were found.
They were Nike blue-black shoes with a silver swoosh. They were the exact kind that she had bought for him, shortly before he disappeared in summer 2012.
I remember actually going myself to the store and buying them and him telling me, make sure they are blue, she recalls. I sent him multiple pictures via messenger to make sure he would like them.
There was also the belt, which looked identical to the one his mother had brought for him for a wedding months before his disappearance. The jeans brand, and size, matched. So too did the Nintendo Pokemon games.
Although it was 3 a.m., the sister sent an email to the people listed on the NamUs entry, explaining her hunch, complete with a picture of Christian Gonzalez in life wearing the very same kind of sneakers.
Two days later, an investigator responded and started asking questions. After officially declaring him missing with the local Palestine (Tx.) Police Department, the family submitted a full set of DNA samples.
Five months later, on Jan. 5, 2018, the Gonzalez family got the resultsand something approximating closure.
Christian Gonzalez was the body found on Sept. 14, 2012 at La India Ranch, and buried without a name in Brooks County, near the Mexican border, 400 miles from home.
Read more at:
https://www.forensicmag.com/news/20...per-namus-helps-texas-family-find-missing-man
forensicmag.com
Seth Augenstein
01/12/2018 - 1:15pm
The picture of those shoes, those bright shoes found years before in the desert, nearly stopped her heart.
Zaira Marina Gonzalez had never given up on her brother Christian, missing six years before in a rural part of Texas and trying to make his way back home. He disappeared without a trace, after his last tearful phone call with his parents on Sept. 6, 2012.
They waited for the 23-year-olds call that never came. They never had any answers at all. But that changed when Gonzalez found the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, last July. The database is available to the publicincluding grieving families with mysteries yet to solve.
Here, she thought, was a way to do something.
She combed through hundreds of cases of the unidentified people found dead in and around Brooks County, starting in 2012. It was like an obsession, entry after entry, picture after picture, sketch after sketch, and clothing item after clothing.
And late one night last summer, after hours of searching, she was ready to stop for the night. But she told herself she would try just one more case, just one more click.
It was case #14039-0383, and it was different than all the ones that had come before.
I started feeling pressure on my chest, Gonzalez recalls. I knew something was not right. They had a picture and description of the shoes that were found.
They were Nike blue-black shoes with a silver swoosh. They were the exact kind that she had bought for him, shortly before he disappeared in summer 2012.
I remember actually going myself to the store and buying them and him telling me, make sure they are blue, she recalls. I sent him multiple pictures via messenger to make sure he would like them.
There was also the belt, which looked identical to the one his mother had brought for him for a wedding months before his disappearance. The jeans brand, and size, matched. So too did the Nintendo Pokemon games.
Although it was 3 a.m., the sister sent an email to the people listed on the NamUs entry, explaining her hunch, complete with a picture of Christian Gonzalez in life wearing the very same kind of sneakers.
Two days later, an investigator responded and started asking questions. After officially declaring him missing with the local Palestine (Tx.) Police Department, the family submitted a full set of DNA samples.
Five months later, on Jan. 5, 2018, the Gonzalez family got the resultsand something approximating closure.
Christian Gonzalez was the body found on Sept. 14, 2012 at La India Ranch, and buried without a name in Brooks County, near the Mexican border, 400 miles from home.
Read more at:
https://www.forensicmag.com/news/20...per-namus-helps-texas-family-find-missing-man