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The Search for Rachel, a father's journal

Friday, April 1 through Sunday, April 3

My sister Elaine, Rachel's mother Janet, and I flew to North Carolina for the first missing person agency round table sponsored by the CUE Center. Over 50 non-profit agencies attended the event. I was able to meet a lot of people whom I had only e-mailed or talked with on the phone in the past.

Several short sessions were taught on DNA, search and rescue, media relations, and other topics. The round table part of the conference focused on action items that will help improve the missing person problem. The CUE Center will summarize the action items, and the various agencies will try to solve them.

Monday, April 4 through Wednesday, April 6

I'm sorry to report that Craig Akers, missing Shawn Hornbeck's stepfather, had to have one of his legs amputated. Craig has been hospitalized several times to improve the circulation in his legs, but the other operations could not fix his leg. Craig has already returned home and says he will walk again soon. I have no doubt he will be back leading the search for Shawn later this year.

I was contacted by a media research company on Wednesday. They have submitted Rachel's story to the national media again since her birthday is coming up. Two programs already responded to the company asking for more information. Later in the day the producer of a national television program called me. She was very interested in Rachel's story. It's been so long since Rachel was in the national media I hope one of the programs will tell her story.

Thursday, April 7 through Sunday, April 10

I haven't heard back from the two national television programs who called me. All we can do is wait because they have to decide if they want to include Rachel's story on their program.

On Saturday I flew to Albany, NY, and on Sunday I attended the New York Missing Person Day hosted by Hope for the Missing. Hope for the missing was founded by Doug and Mary Lyle, the parents of missing Suzanne Lyall. Several friends and family of missing persons attended the program. The mayor of Albany and several state and local legislators spoke. The Lyles have submitted a bill for a national missing persons' day. We certainly support that bill.

Next year a special memorial will open in Albany. It's called a "remorial" which is a combination of remembrance and memorial. It's hoped that the remorial will be completed by next year's missing persons' day.

Several families of long term missing have been invited to a meeting hosted by the U.S. Justice Department on April 28 and 29. The meeting is called "Identifying the Missing" It is part of the continuing effort to help match unidentified remains with missing persons. I have been asked to speak on a panel about reporting the missing.

Monday, April 11 through Sunday, April 17

I attended a tree planting at the Texas State Capital on Thursday. People Against Violent Crime sponsored the event as part of National Crime Victims' Week. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was the keynote speaker.

I moved the guestbook on rachelcookesearch.org to another server. The software on the new server lets me approve a message before it is posted. This will help with all of the SPAM postings that are being pushed through. Just like with SPAM e-mail, the SPAM messages on the guestbook outnumbered the real messages. I will copy the old guestbook entries later.

Monday, April 18 through Sunday, April 24

I started working on my presentation for the "Identifying the Missing" Conference on April 28 and 29. Our panel is entitled "Reporting the Missing". It's only a fifteen-minute segment, so it won't take long to finish.

We have two M.U.S.T. self-defense and awareness seminars coming up in May. The first one is in South Austin on Sunday, May 15. The second seminar is in Elgin on Thursday, May 19. We will probably do a seminar in Georgetown or Round Rock in June. Information about M.U.S.T. seminars may be found at rachelalert.org/must.

Monday, April 25 through Saturday, April 30

I flew to Philadelphia on Wednesday for the "Identifying the Missing" conference. The U.S. Department of Justice sponsored the event to help match missing persons with unidentified remains.

At the conference it was announced that $14.4 million dollars has been allocated for solving cold cases with DNA. "Several law enforcement agencies, prosecutor's offices, and crime labs across the country have established innovative programs to review old cases. Often called cold case units, these programs have enabled criminal justice officials to solve cases that have languished for years without suspects."

There was a presentation which explained how the FBI DNA database, CODIS, works, citing some of the matches made between missing persons and the unidentified dead. Both the National Crime Information Database, NCIC, and the Violent Criminal Apprehension Programs, ViCap, databases were also explained.

Dr. Emily Craig, a forensic anthropologist from Kentucky, gave a good explanation of various methods of identification. The Department of Justice resources and goals were described. Crime statistics compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics were reviewed.

On the first day, the audience attended two sets of panel presentations. I was a presenter on the "Reporting the Missing" panel. The second day, the audience was broken up into six work groups to identify roadblocks and other problems with finding missing persons and matching missing persons to unidentified remains. Each group contained local, state, and federal law enforcement personnel, forensic medical personnel, and family members of the missing.

Some of the most moving parts of the conference were when John Bish told his daughter Molly's story and when John Walsh talked about his son Adam's disappearance, murder, and the problems encountered with evidence.

AMERICA'S MOST WANTED, 48 HOURS, and Greta Van Susteren were in attendance.

I was honored to be invited to participate in the conference. Several other families of the missing and murdered, such as those of Jason Jolkowski, Suzanne Lyall, Carrie Culberson, Stacy McCall, Molly Bish, and, of course, Adam Walsh, attended.