Chaper One

Chapter One

Trinie's Gone

When my daughter ranaway I saw something on someone's page that sparked me into using the following phase on the page that I started my journal on, "Ask the angels to watch over Trinie and guide her home safely". Since then I have used the angel theme for this section of my site. Please read on for the gripping daily journal that I wrote when my daughter ranaway for two weeks.

Tuesday June 17, 1997 This day started out being a normal day for both my 13 year old daughter Trinie and I. After spending most of the day with the kids next door she asked if she could go visit a friend of hers a couple of blocks away, I said yes and told her she needed to be back by 5:00 p.m. because my husband and I had plans and were leaving at 5:30 p.m. I received a phone call from her at 5:00 p.m. and she was letting me know that she was in Stockton with the friend of hers she went to go visit. I got upset with her because we had spent all week going though the rules and making sure she understood them. One of the rules was to call or page me and get my permission before leaving town. I reminded her that she did not follow this rule and she needed to get her but home now and when she got home she would be on restriction.

Her dad and I went on with our plans thinking that she would be home by the time we got back. When we returned at around 7:30 p.m. Trinie still was not home. I figured that since she knew she was in trouble she was going to get the most out of this as she could.

As time went on that night I didn't know if I should call the police or not. I had already reported her missing twice and as a runaway once. In all these cases she came home that night or early the following morning and I didn't know if this was one of these cases or not.

Wednesday June 18, 1997 I ended up calling the police at around 8:45 a.m. The lady officer who came, took a report asking her name and description. As the day wore on I couldn't think of anything else but Trinie and what she could be doing or what could have happened to her. I started to feel as if the police were not going to help me find my daughter and I started searching her room for clues, and found that some of the things that I have suspected my daughter of being involved with are probably true.

Thursday June 19, 1997 My mind is now so full of possibilities, more of the worse kind then any other. I tried to contact the police to see if they could answer a few of my questions. The main one I had was why is she being considered a runaway when it could possibaly be a disappearance under suspicious circumstances. I did find out that a friend of hers gave her a ride to Lockeford, which is a small neighboring town of Lodi. The ride was given to her before she called me. O.K., then what my mind is running with now is that she got a ride to Lockeford and when she called me had either decided to go to Stockton with someone other then the person she claims to have gone with since I can find no such person or was with some new friends she meet in Lockeford. She had intended to come home sometime that night but for whatever reason never showed up.

I left two messages with the detective who handles missing persons and runaways with no response, I even e-mailed the chief or police. I really wanted the police to have as much information as they could and time could be the element, so I finally got frustrated enough and called the watch commander and told him about her getting a ride out to Lockeford. He told me that he would send an officer out to take a report.

I told the officer about my information and asked him why she is being considered a runaway when she did not take anything, and she has a babysitting job she just loves and has not even called in sick there or anything. He informed me that there is a certain guideline in which they take in to consideration which is: is the child a straight A student, does the child go to school all the time, has the child ever runaway before, is there any sign of forced entry, ect... It seemed like this officer knew who my daughter was, for what reasons I do not know. If she was involved with illegal activities then I would imagine that I would have been informed someway, so I'm really confused now. It seems to me that since she has runaway in the past then they have to assume this is a runaway situation also since I do not have any major factors for them to consider otherwise. I even asked him what do they do with runaway reports, his response was that they enter the information provided in the National Police Database. THAT'S IT!! He explained to me that it is my responsibility as a parent to control my child and since it is my responsibility, not their's, they are not going to expend the resources to look for her. I also asked - then what he is trying to tell me is that because of her background she could be, god-forbid, dumped somewhere and no one will find out until someone stumbles across her, his response was yes.

To read the e-mail message I sent the police department click here.

Friday June 20, 1997 It's my husbands birthday today and I just don't have it in me to celebrate. I think he doesn't feel up to celebrating either. Today I've been trying to go on with my life, but it is so hard. Ever since this started I've had this deep down feeling that something is wrong and I can't seem to get anyone to help me. I even called one of the missing children's foundations here in California (I have chosen not to mention which one at this present time because they do so much good work and I don't want to discredit them) yesterday, I haven't even heard back from them, they could at least call and let me know that they can't do anything either. The more time that goes by the more I think that something bad happened.

My husband remembers a couple of instances that have happened the last couple of months, #%@&!!!! I wish I would of remembered them from the start, maybe the police would take a different look at this. One of the instances is that my daughter had this friend that became an enemy and one day a couple of months ago they got in a fight, Trinie calls the police on this other girl and the police go talk to her. A couple of days later this girl spends the night at her friends house across the street and when this girls mom sees Trinie she calls her over to the car and explains to her that if she has problems with her daughter that she is to talk to her, not go to the police. If she goes to the police again she will kill her. I heard this story from my daughter and I feel that she is telling me the truth because we mentioned to Trinie that maybe we should have this mom come over and maybe us adults could straighten out another problem that arose a couple of weeks ago. When we mentioned this girls mom she almost had a nervous breakdown right there, she was terrified. The other incident I don't know to much about and believe that there is something more to it then what I was being told by my daughter. But, it has something to due with this one girl being upset at Trinie and threatening her by saying stuff like, next time you walk out your door there is going to be a drive by shooting. The night before my daughter disappeared the girl called and threatened her again.

I called and left a message on the detectives voice mail about this two incidents, by now they probability think I'm a stressed out, paranoid mother.

I did get one very good suggestion today from a friend of mine. She mentioned that I should put out flyers around town that way if anyone has seen her or anything suspicious then I will have more information to go on. I'm going to start working on flyers this weekend. At least this way I feel like I'm doing something.

Saturday June 21, 1997 I've had a migraine all day today and it has been very difficult to think of anything but getting rid of the pain. I have so much to do!! I just can't sit here in pain. Every time the phone would ring I would hope that it's Trinie or even the police to say that they have her and all is well. We got a lot of phone calls, but they were all from people wanting to know if we have heard anything.

Sunday June 22, 1997 I still had a headache today, but it wasn't as bad. I really missed Trinie today. Made up a flyer and was all ready to go get it copied when we received a phone call from one of her friends in Lockeford asking for her. We explained that we haven't seen her since Tuesday and he explained to us that he saw her a couple of days ago and that she was planning on getting a ride home today. So far (10:00 p.m.) no Trinie, I'm starting to think that whatever she is doing is fun to her and she may not want to come home for awhile longer. At least someone says they have seen her. I'm still very worried about her, but at least now I don't have to think about all those other possibilities.

Monday June 23, 1997 It's been almost a week now! I still can't stop wondering what she is doing out there, hoping she didn't become prey to some sicko. I did get a call from the detective who handles missing persons and runaways. He explained that he has been away at school and was still there and planning on being there for a couple more weeks. He checked his voicemail and heard the desperation in my voice and decided to call and talk to me. It made me feel a little better that he was at least a little more sympathetic to what I was going thru, and explained things with that sympathy while getting the same end result as the others I have talked to. I think that if someone took ten minutes of their time to explain how and why things work and at the same time being sympathetic to what I was feeling and going thru, I may have been less confused and upset.

Tuesday June 23, 1997 Today is the first day that I have felt like I'm getting anywhere. One of the first things that has made me feel better is all the cyber-support I'm getting, thanks everybody. I received an e-mail from Linda who works for the CHP (check out her site at http://geocities.datacellar.net/~gryeyes) and she helped me understand some things that I would like to include here.

"Regarding Lodi PD's placing Trinie into the NCIC database, please don't think that's a "nothing" effort! Believe me, whenever a law enforcement officer encounters a kid that doesn't have a good explanation for why he/she is where he/she is, and even THEN, many officers will automatically request that the dispatcher make an inquiry into NCIC about that individual. It's accessed thousands of times daily, and the law says that information on a missing juvenile must be entered into this database within 4 hours.

Also, in addition to placing her information into that database, PD's will also broadcast information to other law enforcement agencies to announce a missing child, so they can keep and eye peeled out for them. They really ARE doing what they can, trust me.

That officer's comment about doing more, given your daughter's history of being a runaway, while sounding unhelpful to YOU, really means that the agency cannot expend resources to activate bloodhounds and search teams and stuff like that, not that they aren't doing what they can.

Unfortunately, what you've described about the circumstances of Trinie's disappearance is ALL TO OFTEN exactly why kids run away; they don't like a parent's rule or restrictions or something in a conversation sets them off to 'not come home until they are good and ready.'

The GOOD thing, if anything that can be said positive about this situation, is that it's Summer, and Trinie may very well be hanging out with folks in a relatively safe environment until she decides to return."

Thanks again Linda for all the clarification on my areas of concern.

I also heard from a detective today. Since the one is out of town, they assigned him to the case. He came over to talk to me and he is going to following up on some leads and when I get the information on a few more he will also follow up on them. It's been a long week, but my frustration leave has gone down a lot in the last two days.

I'm going to take off my site, for now, the choice to e-mail the Lodi Police Dept. since they have started to take some action on this matter.

Wednesday June 25, 1997 I'm getting really tired, eight days now! I don't even feel like updating this today, will wait till tomorrow night and update it with tomorrow's news. Starting to believe that my daughter does not want to come home. Where is she getting clothes to wear, where is see eating, sleeping? These questions go through my mind all the time. Trinie is suppose to start school Monday (We have year round school here), she is suppose to start 8th grade, I wonder if she will come back by then, knowing kids, probably not. I just wish she would realize what she is doing to her life, it may seem like fun now, but in the long run it's gonna cost her and there is nothing I can do, helpless? yes!

Thursday June 26, 1997 Today I felt a little better. I had three detectives searching Trinie's room today for any leads, they even took some phone bills to call people and hopefully run into someone who knows something. The detective did call me this afternoon to let me know that he had talked to someone that Trinie had called a couple of days ago, now she says she's in the foothills. The only thing that I can think of is that she either found a way to find her biological father or is looking for him. I e-mailed a lot of people with that name to see if I might run into him here on the net. If anybody knows a guy by the name of Ronald Allen James, who used to live in Sonora, CA and worked with the U.S. Forest Service Hot Shot crew please forward any information on to me. I don't care about anything from the past, I just want my daughter to come home safe and sound.

Friday June, 27, 1997 Still no word. What was really nice was that the phone hardly rang. I have been getting tired of answering the phone all the time. Sometimes it rings continuously. It's really nice to get on the internet just to get a break from the phone at times.

Saturday June 28, 1997 11 days now and still not much to go on, haven't heard nothing the last couple of days. My husband and I went ahead and went on with what plans we had for today, we had planned this a couple of months ago. These are the things that are really hard to do, you ask yourself "should I really leave town right now, maybe I should stay home just in case". These plans were a little easier to decide since we were only going to be gone for a day, but in about 10 day we have planned to go on vacation to Oregon, now this one is harder. I keep telling myself that it is ok to go ahead and go because my mom will be staying at our house to dog-sit, so if the police find her then we would just have to turn around and come home, maybe a little earlier then we had planned, but at least we are going on with our lives, I don't think that I should have to stop my life for this situation, but thinking it and doing it are two different things with me sometime.

Sunday June 19, 1997 I'm getting to a point where I'm really tired of thinking about Trinie all the time, everything I do or everywhere I go I think of her. One of the boys that she saw in the beginning of all this in Lockeford called for her and I was able to get his address (he said that they just moved and he isn't allowed to give out there new number), so I'm going to pass this on to the detective tommorrow. Hopefully he will follow-up and ask more questions that my help them find her. I don't know what other questions may be helpful other then have you seen Trinie? when? where? ect...

Monday June 30, 1997 During the evening my neighbor came over and said that Trinie had called her and left a message on her answering machine, she *69'd her and talk to her for a few minutes. She didn't really find out anything so I asked if she would *69 her again, but after she gets her on the phone let me talk to her. We did this and when I talked to Trinie she was really positive that she did not want to come home, she liked it where she was. I asked to talk to the mother where she was staying. When we talked it was a different story, she was under the impression that Trinie had been kicked out of her house and was dropped off there in Lockeford to live on the street and she just couldn't she her living on the streets. She also could not keep her there, she was just trying to help her out. We went out to Lockeford to get Trinie, she still did not want to come home, the only reasons for this is that she hates being the only child and the kids in our neighborhood and her school are mean to her. I mentioned that she should come home and if she really wanted to live somewhere else then she needs to start looking for a place and if it was agreeable to us then we wouldn't have a problem with her living there, this would be better then her running away again.

Tuesday July 1, 1997 Today was really hard on me. I don't want to be to soft with Trinie because she needs to know that what she did was wrong, but I don't want to be to hard on her for fear that she will runaway again. I was tired all day and when I would dose off I would wake up and my first thought was, where's Trinie?. She talked to our neigbor and she pertty much thinks she may be able the live with her. I need to talk to the neighbor first and find out what is going on and what is actually planed.

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