http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/margie_boule/index.ssf?/base/living/1224109515311010.xml&coll=7&thispage=1Margie Boule helps a Portland man trying to track down his sister, gone missing in FloridaOctober 19, 2008
Here's what your life is like, if someone you love disappears:"You work eight hours a day, you come home, you feed your family, and then you sit at a computer and you call people, and you look," says Portlander Zakk Hoyt. "I think a lot of my emotion, instead of going into sorrow, has gone into making an effort to find her."
Zakk's sister, Emillie Hoyt, disappeared in 2005; Zakk and his family have been searching for her ever since. For a long time, they got almost no help.
The Florida State Police, in the state where Emillie disappeared, would not list Emillie as a missing person. Without that designation, missing-persons organizations resisted putting Emillie on their lists.
Emillie was not one of those missing people who attract a lot of attention, Zakk says. "Response by police departments and media throughout the world is very much dependent on race, age, sex and social background. Much more attention is given to young, white, middle-class females who have no problems."
Emillie fit the bill in four of those categories: young, white, female, middle-class. But she had problems.
"My father passed away when Emillie was 4," Zakk says. He was 7. Their father's death was a loss for the family, "but Emillie in particular always searched for father figures."
She was "extremely sensitive and artistic. As children we moved often for my parents' jobs. We moved 19 times by the time I was in high school. There was instability there. Not a lack of love, just instability."
Emillie's mother finally settled in Leavenworth, Kan. "Emillie struggled because she was sensitive. High school was especially tough for her."
Emillie's troubles continued, but "she worked really hard to get out of that and do positive things in her life." Her efforts "culminated in taking a job in Florida . . . to get away from Kansas . . . to make a new start."
In Florida, Zakk says, Emillie met a wealthy man and moved in with him. "He was in his 40s; she was 22. He took care of Emillie. I know she loved him, but I also think the stability was a big part of it."
It was a troubled relationship, however. After a few years, Emillie told her family she was going to end the relationship.
"The last contact we had with her was Christmas 2005." Emillie called Zakk in Portland "to tell me she'd sent a package for Christmas. She asked me to call when it arrived."
When Zakk called, however, "I received a message back from her fiance, saying he had kicked her out of the house and had taken her phone because he was paying for it. He thought she'd gone to Fort Lauderdale. That was our last contact with him."
Emillie's family "waited a week or two . . . thinking Emillie was just making a change. But then we became frantic."
They contacted Florida State Police. "After questioning her fiance, they said there was nothing they could do for us, there was no evidence she was in danger." The police refused to list Emillie as missing. "It was awful. They basically said, 'Don't bother us.' "
Zakk and his family tried everything they could think of. "But there's no handbook that says, 'If your sister or daughter goes missing, this is what you do.' " They contacted organizations focused on missing persons. But the groups either could not help without an official designation as missing, or were overwhelmed with those reported missing after Hurricane Katrina.
"We went through Facebook, MySpace, Craigslist, trying to post her picture everywhere. We called friends and other family members."
Zakk was shocked by reactions he received. "Some people I reached out to literally ignored me. The media. Clergy -- not Portland clergy. Even some in my extended family have been insensitive."
Zakk was dealing with more than lack of support. Oregon is far from Florida. And the family is not wealthy.
"If you have money to hire nonstop private investigators," he says, there's a greater chance your loved one will be found.
Zakk has had to do the digging himself. "If you go through records, it's amazing how much you can find. For many people in my position, this (looking for a lost loved one) becomes a second job."
He tried everything he could think of, short of uprooting his family and moving to Florida. He even tried a psychic. "I'm not ready to give a ringing endorsement to spend money on psychics," he says.
He continued his online and telephone work. He will never stop, he says. "No matter what the outcome, somebody has to know or have seen my sister. It's nearly impossible to fall off the face of the Earth without somebody knowing it."
Lately, persistence has begun to pay off. A police officer in Highland Beach, the exclusive Florida enclave where Emillie disappeared, has become involved. "He's been very helpful. We started finding more resources, because she was finally listed as a missing person. So we gained more support from advocacy agencies."
A U.K.-based organization, Forever Searching, sent out thousands of news releases to Florida media. Another charity "helped bring the case to the attention of the FBI." The FBI, Zakk says, "are real advocates."
Zakk is in counseling but has not been able to find a local support group for families of missing persons. He knows there are well over 50,000 people missing in the U.S. Others must be suffering and searching, too.
To help them, and bring attention to the problem, Zakk came up with a wonderful idea. On Nov. 2, a concert to remember the missing will be held at the Catholic cathedral in Northwest Portland.
"Music is a comfort to me," Zakk says. He hopes the concert will comfort others, and bring attention to organizations that support and search.
Classical and pop music will be performed. There will be readings. Names of 500 missing will be in the program, and eight cases -- including Emillie's -- will be told, without regard for sex, race or life circumstances.
"It's important we recognize the humanity in each person," Zakk says. "If you're homeless, or a prostitute, or an A student from a fancy private school, you're still human, and you deserve respect and effort should something happen to you."
