The day after -September 9, 2014
Sifting back through phone records (which I collected and downloaded early on) it doesn’t surprise me that there were phone calls or texts constantly throughout the night from law enforcement, Troy, and other family members. By 6:45 AM, I gave up trying to sleep, got up and fixed coffee. I recall standing at my kitchen counter when a longtime friend whose children grew up with mine called me. She had seen the 7 AM news about Sarah and Jacob; how could she help? I was grateful that law enforcement had worked through the night to have the pre-dawn news broadcast their disappearance. The paradox of wanting it to be public so that others could help locate them vs. the gut-punch from seeing their faces on TV would soon become palpable.
My friend offered to call my middle daughter and arrange a flight home. Both her daughter and mine, 23 years old, had lost a very close friend a few days before so their feelings were already raw. I thanked her for the offer and told her to tell me what I needed to do. (e.g. credit card, pick up my daughter, etc.) My only recollection was that my daughter arrived at my home; Southwest Airlines somehow was sensitive to the situation and had been particularly helpful. I don’t believe I ever asked for details for fear of dredging up more emotion.
Without any idea of what to do next, I left my house by about 7:30 AM and drove to the Police Station located near the Chick Fil-A where Catherine had disappeared from. They directed me to another Montgomery County, Maryland location where there were now three different agencies that would be involved: Child Protective Services, Special Victims Unit, and Missing Persons. While driving on Interstate 270 south to the address I had been given, I called the associate pastor at my church (8:03 AM) to tell her and ask for prayers. Without hesitation, she immediately started a prayer as she could tell my frame of mind.
I stayed at the new law enforcement location for a bit, trying to learn what I should be doing. I soon discovered that there were media vehicles, cameras, and reporters at my house, so went back to determine what was to come next. By 1:40 PM, we were contacted by Montgomery County Police that we would need to all be “cleared”, so we all proceeded to the location provided, and waited. We were all in cars outside waiting as they went through their processes to rule out family that might be involved. At one point, my middle daughter drove out and got dinner. It was a grueling end to an already raw day.
When all was done, I drove home, arriving after 11 PM. As I walked into my kitchen, there — sitting at my kitchen table, in army fatigues, working on a laptop, was a childhood friend of Catherine’s. She had heard the news, had experience in Army logistics, and began her work to help pull together any pieces of information available. Little did either of us realize that she would help for many months ahead. There were also phone messages, food from friends, and written notes from neighbors.
It wasn’t until the next day, September 10th, 2014, that an influx of information appeared. My plans are not to describe every day in detail, as I would need to crosswalk phone calls, texts, emails and other records; however for key points, I am fact-checking.
By early AM, Troy called with details from one of the mothers from his oldest son’s bus stop. One of the mothers recalls seeing Catherine in their van, only there was a “white guy in a grey shirt, with a tattoo on his left arm” driving the van (with Catherine in the front passenger seat) about 8:10 AM the morning before (the day of the disappearance). This sounded reasonable, as it aligned with the timing of Catherine’s return and that she had told Troy she saw him and the oldest child walking to the bus stop.
This provided a glimmer of hope that others would come forward with information. It would also become the first example of how public tips where subsequently handled -with the assumption the public feels so much pain for the family, that they somehow fabricate their story. So…. the tip is not taken at face value. The reference to the tattoo on the left arm did surface in conversations.
In this case, I believed the account — Catherine had interacted with the other parents at her oldest son’s bus stop. He was a kindergartener and there were a couple of days the first week of school when the bus did not come or was delayed significantly. Catherine called the school, identified the location, and stated that there were several parents waiting for their child to arrive via the bus stop. The parents had all interacted and likely knew Catherine more so because of the bus snafu.
On September 10, 2014, videos began to surface of Catherine’s disappearance from the Chick Fil-A.
Additional details were that she had walked to a restaurant next to Chick-Fil-A, borrowed the host’s cell phone and called a childhood friend who lived in the area. She had then been caught on camera in a building across from Chick-Fil-A, just moments after she disappeared and then at 4:30 AM. She also checked voice mail from this location (without her cell phone) four times that evening. The following map provides some visual context of the different locations.
