http://www.gazette.comBy DENNIS HUSPENI - THE GAZETTE
Some would say it’s the worst thing a parent can endure.
Not knowing where your child is; not knowing if he or she is hungry, cold, lonely, frightened. Not knowing if he or she is alive or dead.
That’s what Jean Rahier-Langness has gone through every day since July 1990, the day her then-15-year-old son, Robert “Bobby†Pillsen-Rahier, disappeared.
“There’s an awful lot of unanswered questions,†said Rahier-Langness. “For every missing person out there, somebody knows something. I just hope someone comes forward.â€
Like most of the hundreds of people in the Pikes Peak region reported missing every year, Robert is believed to have walked away. Or run away. Or just wanted to leave.
But Robert’s case differs from the vast majority of missing persons cases in one key way:
“Most missing persons come back,†said Sgt. Sal Fiorillo, head of the depart- ment’s major crimes unit, which investigates missing persons. “Most cases solve themselves within a week.â€
Robert’s case could have had a different outcome. If he’d been younger, if there had been evidence of a crime, if he had not been reported as a runaway, his might not have been lumped in with hundreds of such cases reported to local police each year, cases that get little attention.
An analysis of more than three years of reports of missing persons handled by the Colorado Springs Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office found most involve white males, 20 to 29 years old.
The Colorado Springs area mirrors national trends in that regard. National studies indicate it is rare that a missing child has been taken by a stranger and held against his will. It’s also rare that missing children aren’t eventually found.
For Robert’s mother, time has stood still for 5,472 days while she waits and hopes for his return.
“They can’t go beyond the day the child disappeared,†said Bob Walcutt, executive director for the Texas-based Laura Recovery Center, which helps parents initiate searches. “It’s very hard for those families unless they reach a point where they know in their hearts that person is not alive.â€
Rahier-Langness vividly remembers the last time she talked to Robert.
On July 6, 1990, he phoned her from Cheyenne Mesa, a treatment facility, now closed, for adolescents with emotional or mental problems.
Robert ended up in the home after suffering “behavioral and emotional problems†stemming from finding his stepfather’s body as a 7-yearold boy, Rahier-Langness said. Robert’s stepfather had shot himself.
During the call, Robert said he couldn’t tell Rahier-Langness exactly what was wrong because the call was being monitored. She immediately called the center to visit him but was told the boy was on a planned outing.
Later that day, a Cheyenne Mesa official called to say Robert had run away. His mother said Robert, despite his behavioral problems, had never run away before. She also said he was diligent about staying in touch with her.
Rahier-Langness panicked. She called the center every hour for the next 24 hours, until she was told to stop calling. She and David Langness, then her boyfriend and now her husband, drove up and down Nevada Avenue looking for Robert.
She went to police and discovered their investigation consisted of a one-page report showing a Cheyenne Mesa employee had called to report Robert had run away.
“I got no cooperation and no compassion,†from those at Cheyenne Mesa, Rahier-Langness said. “With God as my witness, not one person from Cheyenne Mesa has ever called to ask if I found my son.â€
No former Cheyenne Mesa employees could be found to respond.
And though police are looking into the case and a detective has been assigned, Rahier-Langness got what she regards as little cooperation from police initially.
“I fell into a deep depression,†she said. “I got so tired of fighting the system.â€
Rahier-Langness took ads out in The Gazette, distributed flyers and finally resorted to hiring private investigator Troy Zook to try to find answers.
The search remains fruitless.
A recent FBI study shows its agents are tracking almost 47,600 missing adult cases.
A 2002 study by the National Incidence Studies of Missing Abducted Runaway and Thrownaway Children shows an estimated 797,500 children are reported missing in America every year.
But the study also provides perspective:
“Only a fraction of 1 percent of the children who were reported missing had not been recovered by the time they entered the NISMART-2 study data,†the study states.
Most of those reported missing — 84 percent — were runaways. And an “extremely small portion of all missing children†— about 115 — were stranger kidnappings and/or murders.
Fiorillo and missing persons experts said there’s simply no way to investigate every missing person or runaway.
“There’s so doggone many of them,†said Laura Center’s Walcutt. “No police department in the country would be able to investigate them all.â€
There are 10 detectives in the city’s major crimes unit. The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office has six detectives in its major crimes unit that handles most missing persons cases.
“Most of our cases are pretty cold,†Fiorillo said.
City police deal with so many missing persons and runaway cases they don’t have a reliable method for clearing the cases reported to them. They couldn’t say exactly how many people are still missing, but they know it’s not many.
“These people will come back two days later, but they don’t bother to report to police they came back,†Fiorillo said.
The only way police log runaways who have returned is if parents or guardians take them to the station to be fingerprinted and photographed.
Longtime investigator John Holiday of Colorado Springs said family members often turn to him to help find loved ones. If the person can be found, Holiday, who used to work in the District Attorney’s Office, will likely find him or her. But that’s an expense most can’t afford.
“It costs $2,500 for me just to start my car,†Holiday said.
He lumps the majority of missing people into four categories: those who do a “poor man’s divorce†by just leaving; “skips†who are trying to avoid financial burdens; runaway adolescents and those taking children in custody disputes.
To solve — if that’s possible — a case like Robert’s, Holiday would track down every employee who was working at Cheyenne Mesa in 1990, as well as the youths at the facility at that time.
Colorado Springs Detective Rick Gysin, who took over Robert’s case about a year ago, said police don’t have the resources for that type of investigation.
“It’s very frustrating, especially with something this old,†Gysin said. “If we had evidence of a crime, it would be different. . . . All I’m pretty much doing is checking the resources we have access to . . . and reaching out to the people who might have known him.â€
Gysin and Rahier-Langness hope someone comes forward with information.
In the meantime, Rahier-Langness continues to investigate and cope. She’s become a resource for other parents of missing children, making herself available to talk to them through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
“It’s the parents who keep these cases alive,†Rahier-Langness said. “I won’t give up hope. I won’t. There’s just a part inside me that, until someone produces a body, I believe somehow he’s alive somewhere.â€
