Moms of the Missing, page 5
However, she is sure there is a lot to learn from Avila’s upbringing and Samantha’s death. Knowing details about Avila’s childhood made Erin focus on both victims and perpetrators during the time that followed her daughter’s death, because she did not want Samantha to have died in vain. Therefore, Erin decided to set up The Joyful Child Foundation, which is dedicated to prevent crimes against children through programs that educate, empower, and unite families and communities.
“When Samantha was found I hoped she would be the last child abducted and killed,” Erin says, ”but eleven days later, on the morning of Samantha’s sixth birthday, I heard about another little girl abducted and killed in Kansas. So I decided I had to fight for the children and to help prevent others from becoming a victim like Samantha,” the mother explains.
WARNED WHILE SLEEPING
Erin says that losing a child is a grief like no other. For a long time after Samantha’s murder she felt she was never going to come out on the other side.
“But when I established The Joyful Child Foundation,” she says, “it gave me a reason and a purpose.” She adds that she “wants to ensure that every child is exposed to personal safety education and opportunities to practice [what they have learned] in order to cultivate each child’s instinctual response to recognize, avoid, and if necessary, physically resist and escape inappropriate behaviors or violence.”
Erin believes that as a society we need to do much more to protect children, because they cannot protect themselves. But she notes that we are often afraid to talk with our children about the dangers of the world, and that we do not teach them how to protect themselves against these dangers.
“We must teach our children that it is okay to say ‘stop’, to run away, or to fight back. We must empower our children without scaring them,” Erin says.
The foundation has developed workshops for parents and children called “Be Brave—Be Safe Empowerment Programs”. The foundation also teaches these programs within elementary school curricula. And, according to Erin, the children love it.
“We practise both verbal and physical skills,” Erin explains. “We teach them self-confidence through words, but we also teach them how to back up the words with physical skills, if they have to, in order to get away from danger. Because the children are alone, they need to be empowered to deal with difficult situations. There can not be an adult around all the time. Therefore, we try to give them an understanding about what they should be concerned about, and we teach them so they feel, they are allowed to protect themselves, and that they can protect themselves.”
There is a second reason Erin intrinsically knew she had to start the foundation. In the months leading up to Samantha’s disappearance, some members of Samantha’s family received the same dreadful warning.
“My mum, me, and Samatha all had nightmares where Samantha was killed. On one occasion Samantha came into my room and said: ‘What should I do if he gets me into his car?’. I had no answer for her. That is also why I started the foundation. I feel guilty about having had the premonition and not being able to give her an answer. Now, I want to provide that answer for other children,” Erin says. As a result of her desire to help children, she now works as a full-time child safety advocate.
The nightmares were not the first warnings Erin had. When she was fourteen years old she also had a dream in which her grandfather, who was already dead when Erin was born, appeared in a dream, warning her that something bad was going to happen to Erin and her family when she became an adult.
“I woke up hysterical from the dream and told my mom. But back then it was just a dream,” Erin notes. “Today, we know it turned out to be real. The universe warned us a couple of times about what was going to happen, but how was I to know it would come true?” Erin wonders.
Since Samantha’s death, her family has had more pleasant experiences. Especially Erin’s mother.
“A few days after Samantha’s death my mother woke up in the middle of the night and saw Samantha dancing around in circles in her bedroom. It was Samantha’s way of saying she was okay. I wish I would have had the same experience,” Erin says.
However, Erin does not need dreams to remember what a happy, smiling child her daughter was, and how she always showed compassion for others. Erin feels that she honours that memory by telling Samantha’s story through the foundation’s programs.
“She deserved to be remembered for who she was,” Erin observes. “It would be a disgrace to her [if she were] always being remembered in a sad way, and it helped me to find joy again, focusing on Samantha deserving a beautiful legacy,” she says.
It has also been important for Erin to keep the public’s focus on Samantha as the victim, rather than Avila being sensationalised as a child killer and death row inmate. And this is just one of the reasons why Erin does not want to meet with Avila while he is in prison.
“I can’t imagine why I would want to sit down with him,” Erin states candidly. “He was so adamant about denying his crime at the trial, and I believe he still is. So that would make it even more difficult to meet him. I want a full confession, and I would want to know exactly what happened. My imagination about what [Samantha] went through is worse than having him tell what he did, but till the day he is prepared to confess there is no point in meeting him,” Erin says.
Instead she focuses on spending time with her other three children, her son and two daughters. Erin has always tried to make sure they don’t grow up in the shadows of Samantha’s death.
Right after Samantha’s passing, Erin would sit with a photo of her daughter and do nothing more than just cry. But slowly she realised that her additional children deserved a happy childhood. That recognition helped Erin move forward.
“They were my motivation to find joy again and to learn how to live with my grief. I would share my memories about Samantha with them, but I would not put the grief on them. I did not want them to worry about me,” she explains.
However, her children still were affected by their sister’s murder. For good and for worse. Samantha had a sister who was ten years old when she went missing. The sister is autistic, and until Samantha’s disappearance she had been a very quiet and introverted child. The sad events led to a huge shift in her personality.
“She started to reach out. It was the impact of the trauma. Before, she did not have any kind of understanding about how others felt, but losing her sister was a major shift. Now she reads other’s feelings and she tries to connect. Today,” Erin says, “she is a very caring person, and you would not think she is autistic, because she no longer has many of the typical traits.”
SO MUCH VIOLENCE
Samantha’s autistic sister adjusted in positive and productive ways to Samantha’s death. Samantha’s brother, on the other hand, was deeply and adversely affected by his sister’s brutal fate. He had turned five years old a month before Samantha was killed. Erin observes that he suffered the most trauma from losing not only his sister, but also his best friend.
“He was terrified that the killer would come back and do the same to him. Shortly after [Samantha’s death] we moved to another place to make him feel more safe. I really wish I had done more to help him, but at that time I was so full of grief,” Erin observes. She relates how proud she is of all her children, and that they eventually all came through the traumas of Samantha’s death.
Today, Samantha’s brother is applying for law school, as he has always held justice close at heart. When Samantha’s murderer was on trial and finally sentenced to death, he asked Erin why there had to be so much violence and what good killing Avila would do.
“I understand his question. Imprisonment makes sense,” Erin acknowledges. “People who hurt others need a lifetime of imprisonment to understand the horror of what they have done to others, but not necessarily through death. We need to trust that there is something much bigger going on and that there is love behind it when we leave it in the hands of our Creator,” Erin says. She admits that she sees Samantha’s fate in a very spiritual way. When Samantha was taken, however, Erin would question her own faith. Today, she says, she has decided which beliefs to hold on to.
“I wanted to be able to go into death totally open to whatever may await me, but I don’t believe I will necessarily meet Samantha again in death. I will not cling to that hope, because I think it is super important to be open to whatever the truth is in our death.”
Her first step of letting go occurred when she went to see Samantha’s body at the coroner’s office. Erin recalls how Samantha was pumped full of unnatural chemicals and the staff had smeared a lot of makeup on Samantha to cover up the bruises she suffered during her abduction and subsequent assault. She did not look herself, Erin says.
“My mom took my hand and said ‘you have to let her go now’. She wanted to make sure I moved on. It is easy to feel sorry for yourself and get stuck with that feeling. When she held my hand I realised that Samantha’s death would not stop my life. I had to live on,” Erin says.
Sometime after seeing Samantha at the coroner’s office she had another realisation.
“How could I feel sorry for myself after knowing what pain Samatha went through when she lost her life? I was still alive and had a beautiful family. That realisation has given me strength to accept joy again,” Erin says.
Not one day goes by when Erin does not think of Samantha. Often, Erin feels as if her daughter is still around, as though Samantha is there in spirit, reading her mother’s feelings and thoughts. At times Erin also feels her physical presence.
“I know my baby is gone,” she says. “But if I see someone who looks like her, I still look twice, even though she would be twenty-three years old today,” Erin observes.
3
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Human trafficking, also known as modern-day slavery, is a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labour or to engage in commercial sex acts. And human trafficking represents a great danger to many Americans today.
The number of trafficked individuals is extremely difficult to verify due to the industry’s clandestine nature, but the Global Slavery Index estimates that more than 400,000 people are living in modern-day slavery across the United States. Eight out of ten victims are women, and almost one-third are children who are often forced into prostitution, child labour, domestic work, or even forced to have their own organs removed. Roughly sixty percent of all victims are sexually exploited. Victims are as young as eleven years old, bought and sold alongside adults.
Often, the victims are lured by a human trafficker they have met online. Too late they realise that their so-called friend or soul mate did not, in fact, love them or have any intention of being a genuine friend. The only interest they had was to exploit them by becoming their pimp—or by selling them to one.
Human trafficking is a growing industry. According to the United Nations, selling illicit drugs is believed to be the only criminal activity today that is larger than trafficking human beings. However, today human trafficking is probably the fastest growing business for criminal organisations, because criminals can sell drugs only once, whereas a person can be sold again and again….
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that human traffickers already earn profits of roughly $150 billion a year worldwide. In 2016, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Samsung, JP Morgan, and Apple had annual net profit of $136 billion combined.
Human trafficking has been reported in all fifty states in the United States. Many victims are brought into the United States from Central America, Eastern Europe, and Asia; nevertheless, experts believe most human trafficking victims come from local American communities. Often, the victims are youths who have run away from home, girls from foster homes, or people who are vulnerable because of disabilities, homelessness, or drug abuse. But the victims also include highly functioning girls and women who are abruptly abducted from American streets.
Cindy Young has not seen her daughter Christina for nine years. The young mother of one is believed to have been kidnapped by a human trafficking ring and forced into prostitution in Illinois, just a two-and-a-half-hour drive from her home.
A Slave Of Modern Times
Missing: Christina Maxine Whittaker
Date of Birth: 3/28/1988
Missing From: Hannibal, Missouri
Missing Since: 11/13/2009 (21 years old)
Classification: Endangered Missing
Interview: Cindy Young, mother of Christina
Hannibal, Missouri, has always been known best as the hometown of the world famous author Mark Twain. Novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are inspired by Twain’s time in Hannibal. In 2009, however, fiction wasn’t what best described the small town. Rather, it was hard-core facts concerning a young mother of a six-month-old infant who had gone missing.
That day, Christina had dressed up in a pink tank top under a white V-neck T-shirt. She also wore brand new Nike sneakers with pink stripes. Christina was celebrating a special occasion: her first night out since giving birth to her daughter, Alexandria.
As she enjoyed a few hours of “freedom” with friends, one shot of tequila turned into too many. Just before midnight, Christina was thrown out of Rookie’s Sports Bar after she harassed other bar patrons. When she landed on Broadway not only was she drunk, she was also helpless.
Christina’s best friend promised to drive her home, but she did not want to leave the party at the bar early simply because of Christina’s bad behaviour. The twenty-one-year-old woman was now on her own.
Christina had a habit of calling her mother, Cindy, several times a day, but that night she could not call her for help. Cindy had travelled to Texas with her husband, Alex, who was a professional truck driver. And although they were supposed to make it back home to Missouri on the day Christina went missing, they never did. Alex’s truck had broken down.
“The one time my daughter needed me the most in her life I wasn’t there for her. I will carry that guilt in my heart forever,” Cindy explains.
Therefore, Christina wandered around the streets of downtown Hannibal on her own, asking several different people for a ride home. Everyone rejected her request. And so Christina decided to enter another bar to ask for help. She was last seen when she came running out of the bar’s back entrance, tears streaming down her face.
“I am not in doubt,” Cindy states confidently. “She met the guys who took her in that bar. They must have said or done something that made her run off crying.”
Cindy believes that her daughter did not get far before the same guys grabbed her and forced her to come with them. And Cindy has no doubt that her daughter became desperate: Christina’s phone was later found on the ground, just a few blocks from the bar, and when the phone was examined it showed she had called seven different people several times asking for help. No one answered her calls.
“She was very intoxicated that night and she must have been an easy target for the persons who took her,” Cindy explains.
The mother describes her daughter as a very vulnerable person. Christina was being treated for bipolar disorder and anxiety, and she was taking prescription medication. The psychiatric medication made her susceptible to manipulation, her mother says.
“Christina has always been ‘child-like’ and naïve, which has made her easy to prey on by others,” Cindy says. She often uses the present tense when referring to Christina, as she believes that referring to her daughter in the past tense would convey the sense that she has given up all hope of finding her daughter alive.
Christina began taking the psychiatric medication when she was eighteen years old, but she did not like the effects of the medication, so she took it irregularly. Since she disappeared, she has almost surely not had access to her medicine.
Given Christina’s mental condition, some people have speculated that she has committed suicide, or that she left town by choice. But Cindy says those scenarios are not feasible.
“She was depressive, but she would never leave her little baby. She loved Alexandria, and this [town] was where she wanted to be. She was very happy with her family and just looking for that lift to get back to it,” Cindy explains.
After the disappearance police conducted ground and water searches to see if an accident had befallen Christina. Given that no one was able to find the slightest trace of Christina, however, the mother has no doubt that her daughter’s disappearance was the result of foul play. She believes the abductors knew of Christina’s existence and had already planned on taking her.
“She met the wrong persons with the wrong intentions,” Cindy asserts. “That night was the perfect time and place for them to grab Christina because of the circumstances.”
The mother feels confident she knows what happened to her daughter because shortly after Christina’s disappearance the identity of the kidnappers was confirmed to her by people who are familiar with the alleged perpetrators. Those same people are simply too scared to inform on their associates by going to the police, for they fear becoming victims themselves.
“They are four people, all family-related. I have been told that they belong to a group who sell and run drugs from Hannibal. We know who they are, and investigators have unofficially told me that they are their prime suspects,” Cindy notes, “but they have not been able to prove in a court of law that they took Christina.”
Cindy also says that she knows Christina is still alive.
“We were always close in spirit—and I can just feel that she is alive. We have also had so many indicators that she is. Right from when she was abducted till today.”
Two weeks after Christina went missing, police and the family received their first tip. An informant said that Christina had been taken to Peoria, Illinois.
