Text Version:
(Introduction to show begins)
TODD: Missing for 5 years, the family is baffled by the disappearance of Hope Danielle Meek. Tonight we have her sister, Angel Dawnelle. Welcome Angel.
ANGEL: Hello.
TODD: How are you doing?
ANGEL: Okay.
TODD: You sound good. Long distance, you’re in Oklahoma, right?
ANGEL: No, I’m actually in New Orleans, Louisiana.
TODD: Oh, okay.
ANGEL: She disappeared from Valliant, Oklahoma.
TODD: Valliant, Oklahoma. Okay, so you’re far from home?
ANGEL: No, she was the one actually far from home.
TODD: So you’re not from…. you’re originally from north, right? You’re from the northern states?
ANGEL: Yes, we lived in Ohio when we were growing up.
TODD: Okay.
TODD: Missing for 5 years, the family is baffled by the disappearance of Hope Danielle Meek. Tonight we have her sister, Angel Dawnelle. Welcome Angel.
ANGEL: Hello.
TODD: How are you doing?
ANGEL: Okay.
TODD: You sound good. Long distance, you’re in Oklahoma, right?
ANGEL: No, I’m actually in New Orleans, Louisiana.
TODD: Oh, okay.
ANGEL: She disappeared from Valliant, Oklahoma.
TODD: Valliant, Oklahoma. Okay, so you’re far from home?
ANGEL: No, she was the one actually far from home.
TODD: So you’re not from…. you’re originally from north, right? You’re from the northern states?
ANGEL: Yes, we lived in Ohio when we were growing up.
TODD: Okay.
ANGEL: And then, when we both were adults, we went south on our own.
TODD: So Hope resided in Valliant, Oklahoma with her husband and her 3 children. Her husband told the authorities that he saw Hope inside the home, during the day, on February 21, 2002. So that’s the last reported appearance?
ANGEL: Yes, and the thing is, he may have said that that was the last her saw of her, but the thing is, I don’t believe that she just up and left… nobody believes this. My sister, I mean, her family, her kids, her job, her school, it was her life. What I find funny about it all was in November, the Thanksgiving before she disappeared, I was 6 hours late getting home, and she told me that the next time I worried Mama, she was going to whoop my tail. We don’t, we don’t worry our mother because she’s been there for us and you see, we’re her babies, us girls, and so I was in Jacksonville, Florida when anybody last heard from Hope, and when I got home, I immediately started telling them “look she’s been missing 48 hours, we need to call the state police”, I’m more used to the way things are done.
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: And Valiant P. D., all they did when we called, they went over, Jerry Dale told them that Hope had just left 5 minutes ago, that was on Sunday but then on Tuesday, when we reported her missing, he changed his story. He said that he hadn’t seen her since the previous Thursday and that’s when all this evidence of abuse was coming out.
TODD: Well how did he explain this change in his story?
ANGEL: He’s not explained it. He won’t cooperate. He won’t let the authorities speak with him. He has lawyered up. I mean, he called his work the day of my sister’s disappearance, he called his work and told them he needed emergency leave, he was going out of town to find another job.
TODD: Kind of odd behavior. So you and your sister, you really made sure that you never caused your mother any moments worry so you know this is very out of character for her?
ANGEL: Oh yeah, because, I mean, this may sound strange… but my sister is younger than me by 5 years.
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: I look up to her because I had to give custody of my son up, I was… I ended up in a bad situation when my first marriage ended and I turned to alcohol. Well my Mom and Hope, they both stood by me and yet Hope let me know what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do and, I mean, she called my Mom on her cell phone 5 times a day. If I didn’t contact Hope at least twice a week, she would be on the phone with our dispatcher asking them to “please have me call her immediately”; and Mom had just had major surgery, she broke her back, so Hope wouldn’t just….. We had a, um, this might sound dumb, but I’d been in an abusive relationship years ago and we had an agreement that if either had to take off from the man we were with, we would call the other and let them know and tell them we’d be in touch. I never got that.
TODD: Have you told law enforcement about this, this particular agreement?
ANGEL: Oh yes. It’s been in newspapers, I… it’s in my statement to OSBI.
TODD: How did they react to that? Did they think… did they believe you?
ANGEL: Oh yeah, they believed me. They know he murdered my sister. Point blank. They know he did, but we’re up against a brick wall, you might say. We’re at their mercy because of him saying that he went camping that night.
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: You don’t take a 10-month old child camping in February in Oklahoma. But he says he did it, he couldn’t take him back to the camp ground, so we’re up against what we believed happened, is he buried her somewhere, and we’re up against hunters, campers, a dog… somebody stumbling across where he’s got her.
TODD: So now, you’re saying that you don’t really feel that your sister is just missing, you feel… you’re very confident that she has been murdered.
ANGEL: Yes… and nothing will change my mind on that. I would see Hope in front of me and then I would say that I was wrong but until that happens, with all the evidence of the abuse, the fact that that morning she stayed home, Hope confronted him with the affair and they were fighting… Jamie Clare, she’s the oldest, her daddy is actually my sister’s first husband. Her and the little boy, Junior Dale…
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: They both told the authorities “Mommy and Daddy were fighting. Mommy got quiet and we never saw or heard Mommy again.” See, I mean, no woman, especially my sister, she’s ‘little miss pristine and proper’… no woman’s going to leave without her glasses, her contacts, her cell phone, her brand-new truck that she just got, her checkbook, her credit cards, HER KIDS! I mean, Hope made her own baby food, for goodness sake.
TODD: So it’s not even feasible to say that, even if she did leave him and found someone else, there’s still the factor of the children. She’s not just going to leave without them.
ANGEL: Oh no.
TODD: To get a new life.
ANGEL: Me and her talked several times. I begged her to let me come get her and she was like “if I leave, I lose my kids and I’m not letting that happen. Hope’s the type of mother, that even if she was sound asleep and Junior woke up just wanting a pickle, she’d be in that kitchen getting it for him. She took the kids to do numerous things every week, I mean just… she started out by helping with my little boy and it got her ready for when she had hers and she just… she had her youngest, I mean she wouldn’t leave a 10-month old child…
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: …and now this new woman steps into the picture and tells me “oh, I’m just the babysitter”, well, A, if you’re just the babysitter, why are you living there? And another thing when he has to go out of town for his work, because he works for Weyerhaeuser’s, he leaves the kids with this woman’s mother and this woman goes with Jerry alone. That don’t sound like no babysitter to me.
TODD: hmmm
ANGEL: And she had, when Hope went missing, this woman weighed 300 lbs and she had that gastric bypass surgery…
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: She now weighs 110 lbs and she’s stepped into her place. My youngest niece calls her “mom” and they have tried to get these kids to forget their mother and I won’t let it happen. I mean, I’m… don’t get me wrong, I’m never out of… I never show disrespect to Jerry Meek but I won’t let them kids forget their mother and I won’t do anything that can jeopardize would investigation and I don’t want nobody else to forget.
TODD: How often do you see the children? Do you still see them?
ANGEL: Oh yeah. I see the kids and I talk to them every week.
TODD: So he’s not really tried to prevent you from having a conversation with them?
ANGEL: The only one the kids want anything to do with in the family, is me. Their grandfather, my ex-stepfather, has slandered their dad so much so that… he didn’t care if he hurt the kids by what he was doing, that the kids just don’t want nothing to do with him. Me, I tell them that yeah, mum’s missing, but I’m not going to say or do anything until they find her and then we’ll go from there. Because, that’s all that I’ve got left of my sister, is them 3 little ones.
TODD: What are their ages?
ANGEL: Jamie Clare is going on 11.
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: Junior is 8, and Clea just turned 5, no, I’m sorry, she just turned 6.
TODD: The 11 year old is going to ask questions before long.
ANGEL: Well, she already is. She found my website… she had known that her father went on she went back into the history on the computer and she found it and went on it, and when she came downstairs, from what I gathered, and she was crying. She told Tiffany, that’s the woman that cares for them and I think is involved with the husband (Jerry); she told Tiffany that she wants somebody to find her Mama. Every year, Junior’s number one thing on his Christmas list is for Santa to bring my Mommy home. He asks me if I know where his Mommy is and I tell him “honey, if I knew where you Mommy was I would go get her and bring her home.”
TODD: Now, do they ever wonder why isn’t Jerry doing this? Why are you doing what possibly he should be doing?
ANGEL: Well, he told them that their Mommy didn’t love them and just left him for another man.
TODD: Because I think if that was my wife, you know, I think that I would be leading this search.
ANGEL: He has never, I mean, when I said “Jerry”, because he called the house the fifth day after Hope was missing and asked me if I had seen her… I said, first thing I said was “thank God, Jerry I’ve been so worried about your kids”, he said “well I’m getting a bit worried myself, I’ve not heard from your sister in 5 days.” Well, quiet little me that I used to be, I’m not no more from being in semis for so many years, I said “What!? What are you talking about you’ve not seen my sister in 5 days?” Well we got into it about the abuse and him dragging her with the car and cheating on her. He told me, his words “if you called that abuse, you’re as stupid as your sister was.” Not as stupid as your sister ‘is’, WAS.
TODD: That’s bad.
ANGEL: I mean, right there, I knew; and then when they asked him to take the polygraph, he said “why should I when everybody has decided that I’ve done this? Not, ‘I’ve hurt Hope’ but “I’ve done this.” He told everybody that he didn’t care about her kids. She was working part-time at the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Department. She escorted prisoners from their cells to their court cases. She was going to college, taking care of her kids, her house, her husband. She had just went and bought him a brand-new truck for Christmas.
TODD: Well with her job at the police station, are they offering some type of support? Have they showed any… because this is one of their own, you would think that there’d be a little…
ANGEL: Well, we’ve got McCurtain County Sheriff’s Department behind us but not Valliant P.D. The man that was Chief of Police in Valliant, he was a real jerk, and no offence, I mean most law enforcement I know are wonderful, but this man went and knocked on that door, did not lay eyes on Hope, but never went back… and then, the new Chief of Police, he told everybody that he knew Hope in passing and that gets my dander up because he used to pull Hope over and sit and talk to her for hours. They were friends! Why lie about it if, you know?
TODD: You know all these cases, where people are missing, there’s always some kind of odd and strange set of circumstances, they keep it that way. I’m going to give the number to the Valliant Police Department now, it’s (580) 933-4555, and we’ll have that posted on your website. For the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation it’s at 1-800-522-8017. On your website it says that if somebody knows or has heard anything, they can remain anonymous, so that’s good, somebody that might not want to get involved, if they actually leave an anonymous tip, they can contact the website here and get in touch with you if they like and we’ll have your email address on here so that they can possibly get in touch with you. Now do you think it’s possible that she is possibly somewhere as a Jane Doe? What do you think?
ANGEL: I’ve checked all that; I’ve been through New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi. I’ve even went as far as checking once in Tennessee and, I mean, there are very distinguished marks about Hope, not just her bellybutton ring, but my stepbrother poked her where her liver is, he poked her with a fork, that scarred up and some girl attacked her face when she was 13, so she’s got scars on her face. I mean, they’re not noticeable unless you’re standing in front of her but, I mean, I’ve checked everything. I’ve got her on 18-Wheel-Angels…
ANGEL: Have you got SomeoneIsMissing.com hooked up? And another thing Todd, there is actually another number, goes straight to the investigator that does this case.
TODD: Okay, can you give that to me?
ANGEL: His name is Cliff Fielding and it’s (580) 286-4438.
TODD: Okay and that will also be included in the website. We transcribe these episodes so that a lot of text goes out there, once… we don’t have the greatest technology and recordings, just simple phone calls with simple recordings, but after it’s transcribed, you have 20 pages of text with all these details and that… I feel like it’s helped in some cases. You know we had a recent positive I.D. in Tennessee and the lady was missing from El Paso, Texas.
ANGEL: Yeah, and I keep in close contact with Cliff Fielding. Are you there?
TODD: Yeah, can you repeat that?
ANGEL: I said I stay in very close contact with Cliff Fielding, the investigator on the case.
TODD: Okay. Can you tell us a little about that? How has he treated you with this?
ANGEL: Oh, Cliff Fielding’s good to me. He said he likes to deal with me and my mother both, but he does not to deal with Hope’s father, my ex-stepfather because he cusses at him, he threatens him, yells at him.
TODD: Well, people react differently, I’m sure. But can you just tell me, like on a day you’re going to call and get an up-date from law enforcement, how does that happen?
What do you do?
ANGEL: I call him and I no sooner tell him “Cliff, it’s Mary” because, I go by Angel but my real name’s Mary, I hate my name and automatically he says “Hi Mary, how’re you doing today” and all. I’ll tell him “you know, I’m just touching base with you to see if there’s any new leads, any… anything” and he’ll tell me if there’s anything new. He was going to quit his job, he told me to keep it quiet, but now he’s staying. He would tell me about seeing Hope’s kids uptown with the babysitter and things like that, I mean, he’ll call me if there’s anything new, he’s even behind me trying to get Hope’s case on Unsolved Mysteries.
TODD: But now if this the case where a body has never been found… that makes things difficult. You know, I’m not sure if it would help, you know. It would get the word out, of course…
ANGEL: Well my thing, like I told him, there are so many truck drivers that run coast to coast, that you never know, I mean, Weyerhaeuser’s is an international paper mill…
TODD: Yes.
ANGEL: …and so many trucks are in and out of there in a day, you never know if one of them has seen or heard something and maybe seeing in TV, it’ll trigger their memory.
TODD: It couldn’t hurt.
ANGEL: But my thing, the main thing that gets me is, not even 2 weeks after her disappearance, he filed for divorce.
TODD: Filed for divorce? What were the grounds… abandonment?
ANGEL: Abandonment… he wanted everything, I mean everything. He wanted the house, the vehicles, everything but her clothes and any debts in her name. He wanted the kids, the house, the cars…
TODD: Wow
ANGEL: He wanted her to only see the kids once a week in his home. Luckily his lawyer got him to drop it.
TODD: So she’s a white female, brown hair, blue eyes, 5 feet 2 inches, 105 lbs and she was 25 years old in 2002. Now, the date of birth is listed as ‘unknown’.
ANGEL: No, they messed up. It’s January 26, 1977.
TODD: Okay, and that’s good, because there’s things that people are going to see, that I’m looking at right now, that’s good for us to talk about during this program so that we can kind of clarify some of those things. So, everything that I see, that I have a little trouble dealing with, I’m going to ask you about.
ANGEL: Okay.
TODD: So now, you understand, now if she is a Jane Doe somewhere, the soft-tissue marks, those are not always the things that… they’re gone by then and I don’t mean to be insensitive but if she is skeletal remains.
ANGEL: Well, another thing we’re looking at is Jerry swears she had her jewelry on, two pieces of that jewelry; they’re not made like other ones. One is the anniversary ring that my mother had especially made for her and the other is my old engagement ring which had my initials engraved inside the ring.
TODD: Now that’s interesting. Now what I would think about this is, do you have a photograph of that jewelry?
ANGEL: Yeah and I’ve been like… when an unidentified woman in Florida was found, I was comparing it to those, I contacted the investigators on the case, I gave them Cliff Fielding’s name and number and any other thing that they needed, I faxed them a copy of the pictures of the jewelry and everything.
TODD: So do you have the jewelry available online, the images of the jewelry?
ANGEL: Not now, but I will come the weekend, I’m going to put it on my website.
TODD: Because I will tell you, that’s one the… if I’m looking for a possible match of a missing and unidentified person, that’s one of the things I’m going to look at, it’s going to be the jewelry and the availability of that jewelry and the images. Do you have really good clear pictures, or are they…?
ANGEL: They’re clear.
TODD: Good.
ANGEL: And other thing that some doesn’t understand is, indeed I know if he’s buried her or whatever, that I’ll see skeletal remains.
TODD: mm huh
ANGEL: Everybody thinks, you know, she an adult so she’d be bigger than a child; my sister wasn’t no bigger than, say, a 13-year-old kid technically.
TODD: And this happened, in the very case that I worked on, the ‘Tent Girl’ case, she was 24 years old but for so long she was classified as a teenager because she was small. She was just slightly over the 5-foot mark, you know, very similar to that but they thought she was a child and I think that’s one of the problems that hindered the initial investigation because they didn’t know. The classification back in the 60’s was so much harder; it was people that weren’t fully trained and qualified that actually made determinations on bodies. When a body was found…
ANGEL: That happened in 1960?
TODD: 1968.
ANGEL: Oh my.
TODD: So you know, it was just people that weren’t really fully qualified. There was no anthropologist available at the time to say, “No, this person is older.” So you have to consider, if he’s taken her out of that area, has he taken her to an area where…
ANGEL: Well…
TODD: …where this isn’t available?
ANGEL: …he went to Texas that night. They’ve got him on camera on this road, going through there. He bought a lottery ticket in Texas and he was also seen buying… I don’t know what all it was, they won’t release it to me, because they said when they find it, they’re evidence… but whatever the things was he was buying in Walmart that night, will tell them if Jerry is indeed the one that did this. I mean, we know he did, but the evidence has to point to him.
TODD: Well, how do they feel about you doing something like this? Like, tonight, you’re having a conversation with us that’s going to be public, is that going to hurt your case?
ANGEL: No. I spoke with Mr. Fielding about it. I even talked to the Chief of Police in Valliant and they all told me that they think it’s great what I’m doing.
TODD: Okay, that’s good and you really don’t ever want to do anything against law enforcement, if at all possible, no matter how frustrated you get.
ANGEL: Oh no. I’m always very, very respectful to these gentlemen because…
TODD: I mean, it’s good, you know, if you disagree, you disagree but a lot of your fate lies in their hands.
ANGEL: And like I told them, you know, my mother, she’s getting married this week, as a matter of fact, and with my being sick, I mean, I’ve got liver disease and all… like I told them, I just wish that they could break this case before anything happens to me because if something happens to me, I don’t think anybody else will carry on trying to do this in the way that I am. Her dad, when he tries anything, he wants to cuss and scream and threaten people. Me, I look at it this way… I’m not going to treat somebody other than how I would want to be treated.
TODD: How old are you now?
ANGEL: Pardon?
TODD: How old are you right now?
ANGEL: I’m 34.
TODD: Thirty-four. Okay that’s something we’re always told never to ask a lady but I like to ask so we can kind of… you’re not much younger than me, I’m 36.
ANGEL: Well my mother, believe it or not, she’ll probably strangle me for this, but she just turned 50 and she looks like she’s my age.
TODD: Well, so you’re afraid that your illness could make you unable to carry on this fight?
ANGEL: Well, as of now, because my sweetheart, he’s… him and our room-mate, they do as much in the house as they can when they’re home and they don’t want me doing anything I shouldn’t and besides that, I come over and I work for my mom 2 days a week, caring for a couple who she is care-giver for…
TODD: So she’s actually taking care of an elderly couple, right?
ANGEL: Yes, she 68 and he’s 87. She’s got dementia and Alzheimer’s and he’s got congestive heart failure and lung disease and I cover for Mom, one sometimes two days a week, you know, because she’s got to have down time and she pays me good, I mean I make $10 an hour, so I do that more or less to get out of the house, make some of my own money and to give her a break.
TODD: Well, that’s not an easy job. That… taking care of a disabled or handicapped person; my mother-in-law does that job and wow, I don’t know how she does it but she had 8 children that she raised so I guess that she’s used to having to take care of people like that, but, you know, we visit her sometimes where she’s at her job and… wow, what an incredible job to have to take care of… you’re responsible for these people so you’ve got to have…
ANGEL: She doesn’t remember nothing, she can’t dress herself, I mean, the most she can to is feed herself after you put it in front of her and, I mean, I love them. They’ve adopted me as their granddaughter and…
TODD: Do they have any children or…?
ANGEL: Well, their daughter was my Mom’s best friend. She passed away June 29th of last year from liver sclerosis. We took care of her until she passed away and Mom stayed on taking care of her parents.
TODD: Now, you go on about your daily work and like you said, you have a pretty intense job and you still work on this website… I know your sister weighs on your mind with this.
ANGEL: Yes and that’s one reason I do things the way I am, is I just pray somebody, somewhere knows something and one of these days they’ll come forward and until then I’ve got to keep my mind on the positive side. So between working part-time for Mom, going to college and doing the website and all, I try and stay busy.
TODD: So you’ve worked your life around where you can actually try to take care of everything. You know, I think you’re still trying to take care of your sister… it looks like you’re… do you feel like she would have done the same for you? What would she have done?
ANGEL: My sister would have raised hell from the rooftops.
TODD: I have a good friend, his sister was… we think she was murdered, she was found dead and he’ll say, “I didn’t do half of what she would have done for me.” That’s how he feels. He feels that no matter what he does, with all he’s been through his entire life, he feels that he hasn’t done half… he says, “she would not have stopped and I’ve let her down”. You know, I try to encourage him and say “no, you’ve done a lot for her… you have put a lot aside in your life for her” but he always said that she would have done so much more than I did.
ANGEL: Well, my sister when she was, I mean, we were states apart, we got fired from a job we were with out in another state. When you’re a truck driver, they’re supposed to give you bus tickets home, they didn’t do that, we were stuck. My sister called this motel put my room on the credit card, gave me money and everything until my mother got up there to get us. I mean, she’s just… she’s wonderful… I mean, people think I put her on a pedestal because she’s my baby sister, but that’s not it at all. She just… from the time we were little, she was never a little… how people say their kids are little people…
TODD: mm huh
ANGEL: Hope never acted like a little person. She was always around Mom and other adults and so she acted more grown up… that’s why Mom let her get married at 17 the first time.
TODD: Now, how’s your Mom? How does she deal with this?
ANGEL: Oh God, she just doesn’t deal with it good. I bring up Hope’s name or something about Hope and… people think she just blows it off but that’s just not it. She cries… that’s her baby and sometimes after she says something out of… that she thinks is wrong… she’ll apologize to me and I’ll tell her “No, Mom” because I feel the same way. That’s our baby girl and for somebody, I mean, people, a lot of people that do this, have no respect for anybody’s life or their family and what they’re doing to everybody…
TODD: Because it disrupts your entire life, I mean, everything’s changed.
ANGEL: Right, I mean, like the term paper I did for school, it was a change in my life, it’s about Hope… and like I told them “my life will never be the same without her”. I mean, I’ve got myself picking up the phone to call her, um, I’ll be making dinner or something and something will hit me that I think “goodness, I’ve got to tell Hope”.
TODD: Still today?
ANGEL: Yeah, still to this day.
TODD: Well, you hear people talk about their house, when a house is burnt and they go to get something that’s long gone, because you always miss these things… people, things in your life. You know, my grandfather has been passed away for 3 years now and there’s time I wake up and I just realize it again and, you know, you never get past some of those things.
ANGEL: First thing in the morning unless he’s awake before me, and I know he’s up… first thing that goes through my mind, and that’s is Hope. I mean, ever since this, I’ve been on Prozac and I’ve got to take pills at night just to get 3 hours sleep.
TODD: So now, you’re going to college?
ANGEL: uh huh
TODD: And that’s got to be enormous, and you’ve also worked this into your college.
Now we’ve had conversations, obviously before tonight, we’ve had some emails and we’ve had a phone call where we could kind of get used to each other and get our southern accents worked out, but you told me you wrote a term paper and that was something that you chose to keep between you and your professor but you worked this whole thing, you know, this is part of your school too. You found a way to express yourself and your feelings in this term paper.
ANGEL: Right.
TODD: Did that help? I mean, a lot of people have said, “What can I do when I can’t do anything?” You know, you took the time to write some things and did that help you sort through some of your problems and fears?
ANGEL: Yeah, because I’m so, so angry that every time she (Hope) called the Police Department, he (Jerry) was never arrested…
TODD: So you could say things in that paper that you can’t say in public, obviously. You were able to really let it out.
ANGEL: And I did and my instructor told me that for being my first term paper, my first year in college, it was wonderful… out of 300 points, I got 285.
TODD: Well, you had a lot of… that wasn’t just something you pulled out of the air, just something you were mildly interested in, you had a great compassion in that. Trust me, that love and hope and compassion just really shows through.
ANGEL: Oh yeah, and another thing Todd, this case with my baby sister, so many thing coincide like it did with the Lacy Peterson case.
TODD: (agrees)
ANGEL: How he (Scott Peterson) says he went fishing on Christmas Eve when Lacy disappeared?
TODD: Yes.
ANGEL: My brother-in-law said he took the kids camping….um, the affair. Jerry was having an affair with a woman at the mill. This woman is now on death-row for killing and burning her husband’s body and…
TODD: Now, she’s been charged in this… she’s actually serving time for that homicide, right?
ANGEL: Yes, and the OSBI tried to give her a deal. It would be life in prison instead of death, if she would tell whatever she knows about Hope’s case and she wouldn’t… she’s being tight-lipped. I mean, just so many things coincide that it just… I watched everything after Lacy Peterson, I mean, I used to watch cases every now and again, Unsolved Mysteries and things but once Hope disappeared, it’s like, I watch every single one that I can.
TODD: I did too. I did the same thing years ago. I loved to watch those shows and now I don’t. I can’t. You know, I don’t watch CSI, I don’t watch any of those shows.
ANGEL: The main one that I watch is Law and Order.
TODD: Oh, you love Law and Order?
ANGEL: I am a Law and Order fan.
TODD: Well, I’ve got a really good friend that’s involved in Law and Order and I will make sure she hears that. (Laughs) I will definitely pass that along.
ANGEL: Actually my two favorite on there… I can’t remember, not the older white guy, I think he’s colored…
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: Him and Alex Cabot and there’s a woman that play Olivia. They’re my 3 favorites.
TODD: Well, you know, they say these shows, they sometimes give people ideas and I’ve seen things and I’ve thought “Wow, it was really bad to show that on television and give somebody an idea of how to get around something.” Do you feel that you can watch these show and maybe get ideas to help inspire you? You know, just the opposite of teaching somebody something bad, but something good.
ANGEL: Well, a lot of… one case I watched on there really… it hit me… where Alex Cabot got shot and had to go on Witness Protection, that case there, it hit me and so did the one about the sister that was missing. Usually I can sit there and I’ll watch them hour and hour when the marathon is on, but this one, I had to turn the TV off.
TODD: Wow. Would you ever think, and I know it’s probably not the case in this case, because I think you feel pretty confident she was murdered… I had a lot of people, you know, they’d say, I wish they in Witness Protection or I like to think that…
ANGEL: Oh I wish! I’ve said so many times when she first went missing, I said is there a chance she’s in hospital with amnesia, is there a chance he’s committed her somewhere. I mean, anything and I got yelled at by quite a few people because I made the comment and it wasn’t an intentional thing and I guess it’s my subconscious and my love for her, but I had said numerous times that I would have gave my life for them to find her alive and raise them kids, because I can’t see these kids, the rest of their lives without their momma because they’re going to be in counseling and I’d hate to see that.
TODD: Unfortunately we don’t have those choices to make in life, because I know there’s a lot of people that would lay down their life for their children or their parents or their spouse, you know, that’s normal, that’s true love for somebody that… but we don’t have those choices.
ANGEL: I know she’s watching over us and she agrees with what I’m doing and I’m going to keep doing until they break the case.
TODD: Now, you said your Mom has a really hard time. She does not want to talk about this case at all?
ANGEL: She… the one time that the newspaper interviewed her, she broke down, she couldn’t do it at all. Now, I asked her to come on with me, be on the phone with me and she’s like “honey, I can’t. I will break. You know what to say and not to say. You do this and show how much you love your sister.”
TODD: And so, she was really… she felt good about you doing this tonight?
ANGEL: Oh yeah. Me and Mom live maybe 40 miles apart and we’re on the phone minimum 20 times a day.
TODD: Well I, you know, I’m doing this show because there’s time, we have time to really talk and you get time to really describe some of the things that might not matter in a shorter news broadcast, usually you’ve got 3 minutes, and you’ve to go hurry up and get everything out as quickly as possible. A lot of our early guests, they would really rapidly start describing their situation, you know they’d have it all done in like 2 minutes.
ANGEL: Wow.
TODD: And, you know, I’m saying, you know you’ve got time. I want to have time and this came from just phone calls, I’d had phone calls, from people like you, and I thought “if they were just recorded” because I learned so much myself from them, I’m thinking that someone else, sitting in the same shoes you’re wearing, hopefully they will say “ you know, I never thought of that.” Hopefully something…
ANGEL: Like another…?
TODD: Yeah, hopefully something you might say tonight might actually help somebody.
ANGEL: Right, and I don’t see how they could try and wrap it up in 2 minutes because…
TODD: Well, they’re basically trying to read their flyer, they’re trying to hurry and…
ANGEL: Oh, I couldn’t ever, in 2 minutes, there’s just too much, too many coincidences, I mean, we’ve… this might sound stupid, but you’ve seen psychic detectives on TV?
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: You know, one of the ones that they portray is Carol Pate…
TODD: uh huh, yes
ANGEL: We contacted Carol Pate and though I can’t really say exactly what she told us…
TODD: Well, we had a conversation about that last night but she, she actually gave some bit of information that kind of hit home a little later on with something you discovered, I think.
ANGEL: Yes, and she confirmed our suspicions, exactly how and things like that.
TODD: Well, you’ve let that be… you’ve not built your own investigation around what she said but you’ve kind of used that as a marker and that’s good, to take these things in stride.
ANGEL: Well, the reason being is, I always felt Hope. I mean, that’s how close we were. I could be 3,000 miles away from her and I would feel her. I don’t feel her now. I mean, I feel that she is with me but I don’t feel her like she’s here.
TODD: Yeah, I hear a lot of people say that and I can relate to that in a way, but you know a lot of people won’t buy that, they’re going to… you know, I don’t think they’ve ever experienced it, it’s just like when a noise has been turned off, you don’t feel it anymore but I guarantee there’s other people, that’s in your same situation, that agree with you on that.
ANGEL: Well, it is the… I mean, I’ve lost 3 babies. I’ve got 3 babies buried and, as a matter of fact, my daughter would be turning 15 this June, but that was… I mean, that was hard on me, I felt like dying at the time but this with Hope, it’s even worse because she was there through all 3 of my babies passing away, she was there when I had my oldest son… I sent her father to prison for drugs back in ’94, she never turned her back on me. That’s how close we are and I’ve told them all, I’ve told Jerry, I’ve told Tiffany, her mother, all of them, I will not believe that my sister is alive until I either A: answer my phone and she’s on it, or B: I see her. I went as far as chasing buses that I thought Hope was on!
TODD: And this brings me to something that I’ve done before on some other shows that we’ve had… if she’s alive and if she had the chance to Google her name on the Internet and find your message, what would you say to her tonight, right now, if you could just talk her… just say if she’s alive and there’s a possibility… talk to her. Tell me what you’d say to her.
ANGEL: To just contact me, even if it’s through my email, let me know she’s okay. No matter what she did, why her reasoning for leaving is, I’ll never care about it. All I care about is her and I would never hate her for it. I would back her 100% and if she left because of Jerry beating on her, to contact me and I will protect her and keep him away.
TODD: So you can forgive this, even if…?
ANGEL: Even if she left, yes, I could forgive her because that’s how much I love her. I mean, we were more than sisters… she’s my best friend and my confidant. She was there through everything for me from the time she was 2 years old. My baby sister got burned in scalding hot water; her brother put her, she was about 3 years old and he put her in a scalding hot tub. She had 3rd-degree burns over 80% of her body and even after that happened the only one she shied away from was him. We’ve always been close, I mean, her school things, I went to all hers, she went to mine because I was in band. I mean, when she had her little girl, I was there for her. When… another thing, Jerry took Junior Dale and hid him, back in 1999, he hid Junior Dale for 3 weeks and wouldn’t bring him home and I was on the phone with her every night and I kept telling her “Hope, do you want to come out there?” and she said “No, it will just be worse if you come out Sissy.”
TODD: So, you guys have been through a lot together, it sounds like?
ANGEL: Oh yeah.
TODD: You’ve had a troubled life growing up, it sounds like?
ANGEL: Yeah, the only one that actually was there… my stepfather, ex-stepfather, he tried to say that he was there but it was actually Momma because he was too busy out drinking with his friends from work and actually abusing us kids. He says he never did, but he did and Mom was there at my basketball games, Hope’s plays, cheerleading, doctor, you name it, us 3 women, well we were girls at the time, we were closer that any mother and daughters could be, and…
TODD: She was real young when she had you?
ANGEL: My Mom? She was 15.
TODD: Wow, so that makes her almost, like you said, like a sister?
ANGEL: Oh yes. Even last year, she got involved with this idiot and I found out he was beating on her, well… they were at the same house I was at because we were all working for the same people, and they got into an argument in the other room and he asked Mom “will she call the cops” and she’s like “yes, she would” and the day they split up he told Mom, “you’ve got an evil daughter” because I said “I’ve done lost my sister to an abusive man, I’m not losing my mother”. I told him “I don’t give a rat’s tushy”, but I don’t have to worry because this new one she’s marrying next week, he’s a sweetheart and I think Hope would approve of him.
TODD: So, do you think he’ll help join the effort to try to find her?
ANGEL: Oh yes, he’s behinds us 100% on anything and he would help. Like he says, he wishes he could do something to find out what was the truth and what happened to give and Mom and me some closure. Because that’s the big thing, is closure for us and these kids, especially Mom and the kids, I mean, me I can deal… I’ve been through a lot, I can deal with it, but for Mom and the kids, I just want somebody that knows something to come forward.
TODD: You know, I had a man that called me last night, I won’t give his name but he called me… his fiancée had gone missing and he was facing the situation of making the report and how long it takes the person has to be gone, an adult has to be gone so many hours before you can make a report, yet, he’d already gone on the Internet trying to find out information and he also read the first 24 hours are crucial and he couldn’t understand there was this possibility, why it was so difficult to get through this, so he got an education like really quickly, so we had conversations throughout the night and emails through early morning hours and he did what he could, he contacted the local media that would probably have picked up and helped him out with it. He actually investigated a few things on his own and, from what he can understand; she actually had a boyfriend and was leaving him. I not sure how confirmed it is but his whole world…
ANGEL: Have they been able to contact this lady?
TODD: No, but they’ve got some pretty compelling evidence after he contacted a few of her co-workers, you know, but he is going to go forward with the missing persons report and just everything and, hopefully, get it fully resolved but that… you know, when he was so sure she would never have done this and now he’s facing it as a factual possibility.
ANGEL: Well see, when they tried to start rumors saying that Hope was in De Queen, Arkansas…
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: I even went to De Queen, Arkansas and searched. When they searched the landfill in McCurtain County, the dogs came upon a carpet, they went nuts… they didn’t want no part of the landfill after they got a hold of the carpet and, from what I gather, the only telltale sign that will make a cadaver dog go after them is either blood or a woman’s cycle and Hope was not the type to sit on the floor like me; I’m more comfortable, give me a pillow, I’m sitting on the floor… but Hope she’s little miss pristine and proper, she’d sit on the couch or in her recliner, something like that, so there’s no way them cadaver dogs they went after that carpet.
TODD: Well, what’s next? What do you think you’re going to have to do next in this case? What kind of plat have you got? Is there more areas you’re going to try to search?
ANGEL: Right now I’m on their butts. I want them to… I was given the name of 2 certain roads going out of McCurtain County…
TODD: mm huh
ANGEL: …and I want them to go up around where Jerry says he went camping, I want them to use that thing where they can check in the ground…
TODD: Ground-penetrating radar (GPR).
ANGEL: Right. Right now they’re telling me they’ve not had a land survey done in 10 years, this, that and the other, and I said “I don’t care!” I mean, I’ve contacted Texas, Equusearch, I tried to get them involved. Every little thing I can think of, I’m doing.
TODD: Now, has she actually been entered into the NCIC (National Crime Information Center)?
ANGEL: Yes.
TODD: Okay, and there’s the DNA in…
ANGEL: It’s already in there.
TODD: So, you’ve got that done. Both of those things are completed, It’s very critical to get that done so I’m glad you’ve already got that done.
ANGEL: What we did, this may sound funny, but when her father was in prison, she sent him a letter that she had licked and we still have that envelope, they were able to get DNA off of it.
TODD: Well, that’s really good. Now that’s interesting. Well, for the website, for the archives, I definitely want to get a picture of the 2 rings from you and we can actually enhance those for you. We have artists that can actually work on those and actually bring them in a little more clearly if they’re a little hard to see, we can take care of that for you.
ANGEL: Okay.
TODD: If we can possibly do that and I really recommend you get those on these flyers really soon.
ANGEL: I’m going to.
TODD: That is really, really critical for that because that’s a really big identifier especially in possibly skeletal remains, and I hope that’s not the case. I hope that she would come home to you. You know, you gave her a message tonight… I hope it’s different than what you think.
ANGEL: I pray every night that everybody’s wrong. I pray that she just split because Jerry was abusing her and that she’d come home but, I mean, I’ve had… this might sound dumb, but signs…
TODD: uh huh
ANGEL: She’s told me she’s not here and, I mean, I’ve told everybody I going to believe that she’s really gone unless I see for myself but in the same sentence, I’m praying every day that they break the case where’s she found alive, one of the two.
TODD: Well…
ANGEL: I would like to same thing to be for her like that guy that was missing 15 years, he didn’t know who he was.
TODD: I know of some living Jane Does right now that, you know, I don’t think that they’re… I’m positive they’re not her, you know, but it happens.
ANGEL: I saw the one on the cold case thing the other night about the guy that had been missing for 15 years, that when he disappeared, his car, his license, and all, was just abandoned and now they found him and his wife had passed away in 1999 or something, but I mean, I just pray that it will come out to be that.
TODD: Well, there’s 2 crime bills that are actually missing persons related; one was actually recently passed in Indiana and there’s one that’s in the works in Connecticut and I’ll list both of those on your archives, as well, because they’re interesting and it helps in adult cases, you know, because you know what you went through working with an adult case, it’s not easy.
ANGEL: Well, I keep in mind that you can’t murder somebody without somebody else knowing and if he did, I’m praying that somebody know something and will come forward, just anonymously. I mean, there’s a reward out, they can remain anonymous and still get the reward… and to help these kids.
TODD: mm huh. Well, have you thought about a memorial service… not a memorial service, just a candlelight vigil?
ANGEL: I’ve wanted to do that and I don’t know the first thing about trying to.
TODD: Well, today is your lucky day because I think we can help you with that because I know Jill Bennett with Angel Garden of Hope, you might have heard of her. I’ve had her as a guest before, a good friend of mine; I’m definitely going to see if she can advise you on that, she’s in Georgia.
ANGEL: Okay.
TODD: And she’s really good. This is her thing, so hopefully she’ll be able to help you do something and this helps, I mean, you might not see an immediate result but it sure seems to help people cope with things, and they all seem to be re-energized after something like that.
ANGEL: I’ve also actually found 2 others things that have helped me cope. One is… every night, for a little while, I light a white candle…
TODD: mm huh
ANGEL: … and it’s always on a desk where her picture is, I mean, I’ve got pictures of Hope all over my house, on my desk, in a frame, I even have a picture of her and her stupid husband in a frame even though everybody’s like ”why do you have that?” Because it was a part of Hope’s life. As much as I would like to cut him out, until the truth comes out, I’m leaving it there… especially if I get the kids this summer, I want them to see Aunt Mary put a picture of their Mommy and Daddy together on the wall because he’s letting me get the kids for 6 weeks this summer.
TODD: So, that’s good. I’m just surprised that he’s not keeping the kids from you, so that’s interesting.
ANGEL: Well, he won’t let them go with Hope’s father because he (Jerry) found out that he (Hope’s father) was drunk and had me and the kids all in the car and apparently when he had the kids last, he did nothing but scream at them so the kids don’t want to go with him but they’re real excited to come over here with me for a few weeks this summer. They want to spend time with me and with their grandma.
TODD: That would be such a great time for a candlelight vigil.
ANGEL: (Agrees)
TODD: And that’s something they’re going to remember.
ANGEL: Oh yeah. I’ve already told him. I told him by the end of April and set up a time to come and get them.
TODD: So, we’re going to work on the jewelry and the candlelight vigil. At some point in time, if we need to do this, she been missing for 5 years, we can actually give you age progression for her if you decide that you want that at some point in time. I know you feel that she’s dead, but in the possibility that she’s not, we don’t know it for a fact, so it would be good to do that, and that won’t be at any cost that we can do that for you. When you’re ready, you let me know, and I do want to have you back and do an update, hopefully close to the time that you might be doing some sort of candlelight vigil.
ANGEL: Okay.
TODD: Because we want to keep this going and I’m going to refer you to other people… when I see other people that are in the same situation that you are in, I think they’ll make great friends for you and I think you’ve made some great friends. We talk about this a lot; this is a very caring family that you’ve gotten into… this family of people missing loved ones. Nobody wants to be a part of the family but it’s a very caring family because everybody knows what it feels like so embrace that family and I do think you’re going to benefit from it, I’m sure you will. Well, Angel, it’s been really good talking to you tonight.
ANGEL: It’s been good to be on here and talk with you.
TODD: I know it’s not Unsolved Mysteries, but hopefully you got to talk about her and just get some feelings out and I want to invite you back. Everybody’s got a standing invitation to come back and we’ll do updates, we’ll post updates. I want you to stay connected with us and hopefully you’re going to have your candlelight vigil.
ANGEL: Oh yeah, I definitely want to do that.
TODD: So, I’m going to wish you goodnight and wish everybody goodnight, and we’ll see everybody again next week.
ANGEL: Okay, thanks Todd.
TODD: God bless you.
ANGEL: You too.
TODD: Bye-bye
ANGEL: Bye-bye
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