Sunday, October 17, 2004
Amid the agony, parents cling to hope
BY JASON WOMACK
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Jack Wilkerson's favorite picture of his daughter Jennifer now adorns the hundreds of white paper fliers that dot the windows of truck stops, gas stations and restaurants in Lubbock and along highways that feed into the city. Emblazoned above the image is one word: missing.
The photograph shows his daughter, now 26, peering out from under a hood in the dim twilight hours of a Colorado evening. She balls her fists and holds them close to her face to fight off the cold. Although she is shrouded in white, her smile is the brightest thing in the picture.
Jennifer Wilkerson Her parents have not seen that smile or heard her voice since she vanished from her south Lubbock County home more than three months ago.
Jennifer Wilkerson's July 13 disappearance sparked the second missing person investigation by the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office in a year. Joanna Rogers, 17, also vanished from her family's home May 4.
"This is Lubbock. This isn't Dallas, Houston or Austin. We've had two girls disappear in 10 weeks," Joanna's father, Joe Bill Rogers said. "That shakes the community."
The disappearances of Jennifer and Joanna have sparked f ruitless foot searches of the areas surrounding the homes of both women. The Sheriff's Office, working with a team of forensic divers, even searched Buffalo Springs Lake to no avail.
Despite significant rewards being offered for information leading to the return of the women, the investigations have yet to turn up any solid information leading to their locations, said Sgt. Greg Parrott with the Sheriff's Office.
Parrott, who supervises both investigations, spends every hour of his workday in a concentrated effort to find the women.
"We've taken extraordinary measures to follow up on every lead and even the slightest hunch," he said. "We do feel these cases will be solved, and they will be solved soon."
The Sheriff's Office does not believe the disappearances are related.
The parents of both women said the Sheriff's Office is doing everything it can to locate their daughters. As the search for the women continues, the families are growing desperate for information and struggling to answer the questions that haunt their thoughts.
The Wilkersons live moment to moment. They continue to go to work and live their lives. However, every reminder of their daughter can summon a flood of emotion.
"I can't drive by a softball game without seeing her slide into third base," Jack Wilkerson said.
He and his daughter shared a love of books and music. During her visits to the Wilkersons' home in Hobbs, N.M., they would retreat to his library to play songs for one another.
During lightning storms, they would head to the country to listen to music and watch the flashes of light streak across the New Mexico sky.
"She is also my best friend," he said of his daughter, who he described as fiercely independent.
Jennifer is always in her parents' thoughts. She enters their minds in the morning and she's with them when they fall asleep.
"It's like a nightmare you can't wake up from" said Vikki Wilkerson, Jennifer's mother.
Vikki Wilkerson's most difficult days are Tuesdays, the day her daughter disappeared. She struggles through the others.
"I think I'm walking insanity," she said.
At times she feels fine, but a conversation or memory can destroy her. She remembers a talk with a co-worker where she inadvertently began imitating her daughter's "little heh heh heh" laugh. She fell apart, moving from laughter to tears.
Common rituals try both families. Trips to the grocery store are now complicated endeavors.
Vikki Wilkerson said she tells people she is "fine."
"But we won't be fine until Jennifer comes home," she said.
Joanna's mother, Kathryn Rogers, says people now withdraw from her family.
"We're a constant reminder that life is not always good or fair," she said.
She said they rarely go to restaurants or even watch television.
Both families pray for their daughters to return safely.
"All I have to hold on to is my faith, and until somebody gives me something else, I'm going to hold onto that," Jack Wilkerson said.
