Missing Pieces Episode 67 Archive

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(Introduction to show begins)

TODD MATTHEWS (Missing Pieces Host): I’m Todd Matthews. This is Missing Pieces. Tonight we have Sherry Lankester. How are you doing, Sherry?

SHERRY LANKESTER (Guest): I’m doing all right. How about you, Todd?

TODD: I’m doing really good, and you just explained to me that it’s really cold in Georgia too, as it is here in Tennessee.

SHERRY: Yes. This is the first cold day that we’ve really had this year.

TODD: I don’t like the cold weather. I’d like to have to move farther south, I think.

SHERRY: Me neither; I think that I am going to go to the islands where it never gets cold.

TODD: That would be nice. I get to spend some time in Florida in December for another project so I’m looking forward to the warm weather in December.

SHERRY: Yeah, it should be warm there.

TODD: Should be. Now, what part of Georgia do you live in now?

SHERRY: It’s a little town about 40 miles north of Atlanta…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …right off of Interstate 75.

TODD: What’s the name of the town?

SHERRY: It’s called Acworth.

TODD: Acworth. I think I’ve been through there before because I go to Atlanta from time to time, and if I went down the Interstate 75, I’ve been through there, I’m sure of that.

SHERRY: Well the I-75 goes right through the middle of Acworth, so anybody that goes up and down the I-75 always goes through Acworth.

TODD: So now you have a missing son; his name is Stephen Lankester Cox.

SHERRY: Stephen. He’s been missing since November the 18th, 2004.

TODD: Okay, so we’re coming up on an anniversary date, then?

SHERRY: Yeah, the 18th; we’re having a vigil for him on 17th of this month, at our church.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: We’re trying to call attention that, “Hey, my son is still missing.”

TODD: Now, what are you going to do when you have the vigil? What kind of plan have you got going for that?

SHERRY: We’ve got doves that we’re going to release at 5 o’clock. And then we have special singers coming in, a couple of ministers, and a lady, her name is Christine Jones, she’s from ‘Lighting The Way Home’. She is going to be there and she is going to tell everybody about all the missing people that we have in Georgia and across the country, and what other people can do to try to help out the situation.

TODD: Have you ever had a vigil for him before?

SHERRY: I had one in December of 2004.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: That was a little over a month when he fist went missing and it was after I had already been told that my son had most likely been killed. It’s difficult.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: It’s very difficult.

TODD: So now you feel pretty confident that he has been murdered?

SHERRY: Yes. Yes, I was told…I reported my son missing on the 18th of November 2004, and about 3 weeks after I reported my son missing, the police came to my house; a detective that was working the case, the lieutenant, the captain and the regular investigators, and told me that my son was most likely dead, which was something that I already knew.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: I already knew it in my heart. You know a mother knows these things. Stephen and I were very, very close and he was Momma’s boy and he moved home with us in January 2004. He had carpenter’s union out of Atlanta, Local 225, and he broke his leg, the bone behind the knee so he was out of work for several months so me moved back here with me, which was fine with me. I’m a mother hen and I like to have all my babies where I can put them to bed every night and know they’re safe. So that was fine. Then, one night in November, he said, “I’m going to the store. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” and I knew he was coming back because he had a little tell-tale sign, when he went out the door and his toothbrush would be sticking out of his back pocket, then I knew that he was not coming home tonight. He didn’t have that toothbrush that night so I knew he was coming home, and he never came back.

TODD: Did he often do that? Maybe take off and maybe tell you that he was coming back, but you saw the toothbrush and you knew that he wasn’t?

SHERRY: Everybody that knew Stephen and knew me knows he didn’t let me worry; he didn’t let me worry about where he was at. He always called me if he had gone off somewhere and he wasn’t coming home, he would call me, you know, every few minutes, “Hey Mom, I know some girls called me. Who called me?” I would say, “Nobody.” He said, “I know some girls,” and it was a ritual that we went through every time he wasn’t coming home, but this time there were no calls.

TODD: Did you often not tell him that somebody had called?

SHERRY: No, I would tell him.

TODD: You’d go ahead and tell him, right?

SHERRY: Yeah, I would tell him. I’d say that so-and-so called, but he was always interested in the girls. He was a good-looking guy and had a great personality, out-going and charming.

TODD: Now, tell us how they quickly had come to the conclusion that he had been murdered. How could they come to a conclusion that quickly?

SHERRY: Okay. The detectives called me in the first week of December and told me that they were going to release some negative information about Stephen. They said, “We don’t know if it’s true or not, but we want to release this negative information and see if it will generate some publicity, and maybe somebody will come forward.” They told me that this was something…I don’t know how they came up with the idea, but that he was going to rob a gambling establishment. Since then the police have told me that it never happened, which I knew in my heart that it didn’t happen because Stephen, he was expecting a large insurance settlement because of his knee. He was expecting it within a few days, and as a matter of fact, the cheque came about 7 days after he went missing and it was almost $40,000 so I knew that wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t true.

TODD: Now, this negative publicity, was it released in the news media in the newspaper or television or how was that released?

SHERRY: Both. I found out about it, I was at work and someone came and told me that they were putting on the bottom of the screen of the television that Stephen had been killed during a robbery attempt…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …and that didn’t make any sense because if my son had been killed during a robbery attempt, they should have called me and said, “Sherry, your son was killed. He tried to rob somebody. He’s at the morgue.”

TODD: Well, yeah, they would have a body!

SHERRY: Yeah, there would be a body. My son was not raised to do something like that, so if that is true, he should not have been there; I would have buried my son and that would have been the end of it. There would have been nothing else, but here I am going on 3 years, no remains. We found his clothing that he was wearing the night he disappeared. We found his Harley Davidson boots. We have everything except a body.

TODD: Now where did you find his clothing?

SHERRY: At the house where we know that Stephen was at the night that whatever happened, happened.

TODD: And I know that you are trying to be careful not to say something that you shouldn’t say, so that’s okay.

SHERRY: Yeah. Yeah.

TODD: Now you mentioned the negative information, can you talk about that more? This is your chance to explain it in detail to the world.

SHERRY: Okay, they said he was going to rob a gambling establishment.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: This wasn’t Steve. Steve was not a strong-arm type of guy. He was the kind of guy that…I’ll share this with you, he has two children that live right outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he went every Christmas to spend Christmas with his kids. He was at the airport in Baton Rouge and there was a little tiny frog that was on the pavement and he saw it, it was almost dead. Stephen took it to the bathroom, wrapped it up in a wet paper towel, flew that little frog all the way back to Georgia, and we kept it for months and months.

TODD: Hmph.

SHERRY: That’s the kind of person Steve was. Now, this so-called robbery, well the police even said it now, they know it didn’t happen because they’ve never been able to prove anything. And I like say, I’m from the South, and my Daddy told me that if you’ve got a dog and it’s barking up a tree for two or three hours, and it hasn’t chased nothing out of that tree yet, to move on.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: So it’s time now we moved on. We need to find out where my son’s remains are.

TODD: Well what do law enforcement say now?

SHERRY: Okay, this house where we know this all happened, this one person, they took him in for questioning because he said he did not know my son, and I know he did know my son because he had been to my house with my son. He kept telling the police, “No, I don’t know him. I don’t know her son. I don’t know Stephen. I don’t know who he was.” Then when they subpoenaed my phone records, then they did notice that there had been a lot of contact between the two people. This man was on parole from prison at the time, and he signed a waiver to go back to prison. He has never talked. And he’s still sitting in prison. And he refuses to tell. I don’t know what he’s afraid of, but he won’t tell anything. So why would someone sit in prison for two or three years if they don’t know anything? That doesn’t make any sense to me. And since then, the house where all this has happened, the house had been sold and I found out months ago that the house has been renovated. I went over and talked to the man that had bought the house, and he said that the police had come out there about 3 weeks ago and the cadaver dogs had picked up a scent in the basement of this house. And even he said, “If you want to see, I’ll show you.” So he took me down to the basement and you could see where the cadaver dogs had dug down about 2 feet and then they lost the scent. And I said, “Well, what did the police tell you?” And he said, “The police told me that there had been a body there and that’s probably as far down as the blood had ran into the dirt, as far down as where the dogs went.”

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: That’s the last clue we’ve got. We know he was there but we don’t know where he’s at now.

TODD: So did law enforcement ever talk to you about that particular situation? You know, them, not just through another person?

SHERRY: Well, I went to the lieutenant that was working the case and I really have a lot of confidence in the man that’s working the case and I asked him about it and he said, “We know there was some body there, but we do not know it was Stephen.”

TODD: Okay.

SHERRY: His DNA was supposed to have been listed in CODIS almost two and a half years ago, but it has not been. We have just now got the DNA sample sent to Texas to George Gonzales.

TODD: I know exactly what you’re talking about. That’s a good program but…

SHERRY: Yes it is.

TODD: …if a body has not been found and placed away as a John or Jane Doe somewhere, there’s still not going to be anything to match it to.

SHERRY: That’s right. That’s what worries me so much is my son laying somewhere unclaimed.

TODD: Or possibly not even been found yet.

SHERRY: Or not even been found.

TODD: So he hasn’t even got the benefit of even being a John or Jane Doe if he has not been located yet.

SHERRY: No, there’s nothing. I know my son is gone.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: I know my son is not coming home, but where is he? I go every day that the weather permits; I’m somewhere, I’m looking, I’m walking, I’m looking.

TODD: You know this is a long time to have disposed of a body.

SHERRY: I know, and I was told that the window of opportunity of using cadaver dogs, are over with after 3 years, so unless someone comes forward and says where Stephen is at, that’s the only way we’re ever going to find him.

TODD: Has there ever been a reward posted in this situation?

SHERRY: Yeah, there’s a reward.

TODD: Okay. Can you tell us about it a little bit?

SHERRY: Yeah, I did that. When he first went missing I put up a $2,000 reward, and then about 3 months later I put it up to $5,000.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: And nothing has ever happened with that. I did have someone call me one day and tell me that for $3,000 they would take me where my son’s body was, so I made arrangements with the money to meet the person and they never showed.

TODD: Do you think it was somebody trying to possibly put you in a dangerous situation or just torment?

SHERRY: I don’t know if it was just somebody trying to think it was a joke…I don’t know.

TODD: Now going back to when he first did not come home, how many days had passed when you actually able to go and make a valid missing person report?

SHERRY: I left the morning of the 19th, I had to go to North Carolina and left about 5 o’clock on the morning of the 19th and Stephen wasn’t back, and I didn’t really worry at that point. I went to North Carolina because I have a grandson that lived in New River at the Marine base there. I was going there to pick him up and bring him back because he going to spend a few days with us. I got back on the 21st and Stephen’s stepfather said, “I haven’t heard from Stephen,” and this was unusual. His friends are still calling here looking for him and that was something that never happened before; when Stephen was gone, he always told his friends where he was at, and he didn’t call.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: All his buddies are calling for him and nobody knows where he is at. So on the 22nd I reported him missing. I called 9-1-1 dispatch and the officer came down and wrote up the report and gave me a case number. I waited until the 27th of November, and I still had not heard from anyone at the police station so I called back, and that afternoon they sent two detectives here that work missing persons. They took statements from me and my other son and my husband and they said that they would do some checking around and get back to me. On the 27th or 28th or November, I had a knock on my door at night and the Captain of the Violent Crimes Division, the Lieutenant from Violent Crimes, the two detectives and another gentleman, I don’t know who he was; but that’s when they told me that Stephen had most likely been killed. That’s when the investigation started; that was like the last of December. Then on January 1st, 2005, my neighbor called my house about 6:30 in the morning and asked if Stephen was wearing his Harley Davidson boots when left.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: And that was something that was never released in the paper. No one knew. You know they told you to leave out something vital in case someone…I don’t know, to avoid, you know, people calling in false claims or whatever.

TODD: I hear a lot of people call that the ace in the hole. It’s just something to help you verify that somebody is telling the truth.

SHERRY: And he said that they had went to a New Year’s Eve party at this man’s house and he was telling them how he had been out in the woods…where I live, we live like on 5-acres tracts…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …and we have a lot of woods and a lake and it’s all around us, and he said that he had found some boots in the woods. He asked the man what did they look like and he said, “Well, I just left them down there but they were black leather Harley Davidson boots.” So that’s when my neighbor called me the next morning and told me that they had found the boots. He said, “I’ve already called the police and they’re on the way out.” So I went to the place about half a mile from my house, and the police came and the detectives came and marked the crime scene out, and they brought dogs out and searchers, and they searched the whole area but didn’t find anything other than his shoes. The detective said that they looked like they had been just set there in that place maybe to distract us from where we should be looking.

TODD: So you actually didn’t get the boots, then?

SHERRY: Yeah, the police have the boots.

TODD: Okay.

SHERRY: The police have the boots. And they also have the shirt he was wearing the night he left; well he had 2 shirts because it was real warm that night, it was spring-like, and he had on a steel-gray sleeveless shirt…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …and then he had another blue and gray shirt over the top. He had on his Levi’s, and all those have been accounted for; we found all of his clothing, but we have found no body.

TODD: Now tell us about where some of the other clothing was found in the house, right?

SHERRY: Yeah, they were found in this house that I was telling you about earlier. The man has completely torn the house apart because he found out what had probably happened in that house, he was really upset and he wanted everything gone.

TODD: Now, what are the police telling you now? What the next step as far as law enforcement is concerned? I know you’ve got plans for the candlelight vigil to have the awareness and try to keep things going, but what do police do in a case like this?

SHERRY: Well they tell me that they’re still following up on leads. They’ve made another arrest, you know someone that had been implicated in my son’s disappearance, but he has what they call ‘lawyered up’ and will not talk.

TODD: Wow.

SHERRY: So we just wait and see. And if you get a little bit of hope, you think, “This is going to be over with and this person is going to tell me where my son is at,” and it never happens. It’s just like my son is being murdered over and over and over again.

TODD: So really what you’ve got hope for with this candlelight vigil is that you are going to stir and interest in it or enough compassion for somebody to come forward and maybe give you the rest of the story.

SHERRY: Yeah. I need the rest of the story, because I know my son is not coming back. You know, I’ll be driving down the road and I’ll see a homeless person…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …you know I’ll turn around and go back and look, knowing it’s not my son…

TODD: But you have to look anyway.

SHERRY: I have to go back and make sure it’s not Stephen.

TODD: Well now is a good opportunity if you want to speak to somebody, whoever, out there. What would you say to somebody that might have this little bit of information? Maybe they’re afraid to come forward, you know, there are a lot of reasons why somebody might not come forward or they might not know of an opportunity to come forward and they can certainly contact us with the show and we would process that data. But, just from the mother, what would you want to say?

SHERRY: In my heart I’m saying, if you know where my son’s remains are, just tell me. You know I’m not interested in you going to jail or you being punished, because God knows and you are going to punished in the end for what you did; I just want my son back. Just tell somebody where my son’s remains are so I can go get them. What if it was your mother that was going through this? Wouldn’t you want somebody to tell her? Because the not knowing is what is so bad for me; I don’t know. Was he hurting? Was he hungry? Was he cold? How long did he suffer? And that’s what hurts the most, and that’s what nightmares are made of; that’s what I see every night when I go to bed, and that’s been 1084 nights since my son went missing. And every night is the same nightmare. It’s the same nightmare. I see my son, he’s reaching out to me, “Momma, come find me. Momma, come get me,” and I don’t know where to go. I do not know where to go.

TODD: Well then, thinking of the possibility that you might have to live out the remainder of your life, not knowing, how does that change the way you see the future?

SHERRY: You know, they think of this word ‘closure’…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …I don’t think, that for a mother, there’s ever really closure, because if you do find your son, your son is still gone from you.

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: And you know that you’re not going to be able to touch him, you’re not going to be able to ruffle his hair, or hug him, or tell him you love him. Sometimes it’s almost more than my heart can stand. It’s almost more than my heart can stand.

TODD: Now, when you have a candlelight vigil, obviously you’re looking forward to that; does that help encourage you? Do you draw any strength from that?

SHERRY: Yes, I do. I set days to have a nervous breakdown…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …okay, this may sound strange, but I set days to have a nervous breakdown, and I give myself…when that date arrives, it gets almost here, I’ve got something else to plan for a few weeks down the road, you know, pertaining to my son, maybe a search, whatever, so I just get from one event to the next.

TODD: That’s exactly what I was going to say. I think I know what you’re talking about; one little high point to the next, you’re living, and a lot of people live holiday to holiday trying to get through life, but you’re living like, “I’ve got to think of another event so I have something to look forward to.”

SHERRY: Yeah, and there are so many people out there missing, and there are a couple of other men that are missing in our same town, that we feel are related and so there is plenty to do, and you just have to pick up and go from one event to the next, and try to keep our sons’ cases out there. I keep emailing people, “Hey, my son is still missing.”

TODD: Well, we’re going to connect these shows together because we’ve talked to another before now and we’ve connected these two episodes together. Hopefully, to tie them together in that way, that will help some, you know, one leads to another. Do you think there’s a possibility that they’re really connected?

SHERRY: It’s all just really strange, the events. You know my son went missing November 2004…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …and this other man went missing in February and then the last one that went missing, he had information about my son’s murder. He even said he had a cell phone with pictures of my son’s actual beating and murder, and he called the police to make an appointment to go in and show them the pictures and tell him what he knew, and two days later he’s gone.

TODD: And what was that man’s name?

SHERRY: Clyde Daniel Stewart.

TODD: Okay.

SHERRY: He’s been missing since March 2005. I knew that the police were looking for somebody by the name of ‘Cowboy’ in reference to my son, but I didn’t have a real name and I didn’t have anything to go on except a nickname, and then when I read the paper in April of that year, the 1st of April of last year, 2005, that Clyde Daniel Stewart had been reported missing in March 2005, and his a.k.a. was ‘Cowboy’. That’s when I called the detective working my son’s case and told them that I had found ‘Cowboy’ and they wanted to know how I found him, and I said, “I read the paper. His mother has reported him missing.”

TODD: Well, this happening, more than one person potentially connected, does that not make you feel afraid?

SHERRY: What can they do to me? What can they do to me? I mean I’ve had gasoline bombs thrown at my house; I’ve had my car windows busted; I’ve had people follow me home; I’ve had people sit in my driveway; you know they know I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. There’s this one lady from Connecticut who told me she had a son who’s been missing since 2004 too, and she said, “Nothing comes between a mother and her child.”

TODD: I bet that’s Janice Smolinski, right?

SHERRY: Yes, it is. She’s a wonderful lady.

TODD: I know her very well. (Episode 19 – Billy Smolinski)

SHERRY: Well I just talked to her the first time this week and she really gave me some encouragement and some new avenues to try, and there’s just a lot to do.

TODD: Well, now give us again the date of the candlelight vigil.

SHERRY: It’s going to be on November 17th, at the New Hope Baptist Church. It’s going to be a 5 o’clock and we’re going to start the ceremony off with the dove release and then I have some special singers coming in, and the pastor of our church is going to do a short devotional, and maybe if there is anybody close by that can come and attend the vigil with us and share some insights on some things we can do, I’m open

TODD: So the public is invited; everybody is invited.

SHERRY: Everybody is invited. We’re going to have a light supper after the service, so if anybody wants to stay and have supper and talk with us because I’d love to meet everybody that comes and see everybody. Everybody is invited.

TODD: Do you think that it’s possible…now I know that you’re not afraid personally, but the thought of possibly somebody connected with this, what if they’re there? How does that make you feel that that person could be there, maybe somebody with information being right there with you? Maybe not somebody that did it, but somebody that knows something.

SHERRY: I’m hoping that their conscience will get the best of them and they have to tell me. That’s what I hope for.

TODD: Well we have a tip form on the website for this particular episode, and for all the episodes, where they can…and sometimes it’s not easy making an anonymous tip; I’ve been there. I’ve worked with law enforcement before, and it’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that sometimes it’s very difficult to make a tip, and if you’re half-heartedly making it in the first place, if you run into any resistance in trying to make a tip or make the phone call, you might change your mind and not do it. So we do have a form that people can fill out and hopefully we’ll get a little bit of information to go on. All we can do it try.

SHERRY: I’ve told people, you know, call a friend in another state, have that friend go to a payphone and call me; my cell phone number is out there, it’s posted everywhere. You know, just call me, but the person that knows doesn’t have to call. Call a friend in California and have that friend call from a payphone, you know, if they’re afraid.

TODD: Well, we’ll have to get an update from the vigil, maybe some photographs from that and we can include them in this episode. It will be transcribed and it will be there so you can actually hear it and read it, and see the pictures at some point in time, and it’s ongoing. This won’t be the last you hear from us. I’m sure we’re going to continue to move forward and touch base with you and update things, and do all we can do, I guess. And we will keep talking to people and keep referring you to other people that might be able to help you out, or at least help you through. I’ll say that you’ve made a good friend in Janice Smolinski because she’s a really nice lady. I’ve talked to her this week myself as well, so we stay in pretty close contact I think.

SHERRY: She was like a blessing, I just went onto MySpace one day and she had just left me a little personal message on there, and said that she’d like to talk to me, so she shared her private email address and I emailed her back my telephone number, and she called me, and we probably talked for about an hour.

TODD: Now I know that it doesn’t feel good that somebody else is going through the same thing, but does it make it easier for you to know that you’re not alone?

SHERRY: Yes, it does because people that are not in this situation, they don’t really know…

TODD: Uh huh.

SHERRY: …they just don’t have a clue what it’s like, and I don’t really have any friends, per se, anymore because they don’t understand why I don’t just let this rest and let it go, but I can’t let it go.

TODD: Well it’s easier said than done, I’m sure. You can’t just do that you know.

SHERRY: I just say, “Well, what if it was your child, what would you do?” And they don’t know because they’ve never been in this situation, which 3 years ago, I would not have known what to do. I couldn’t really sympathize, I could tell them that I’m so sorry, you know, but now I really know, I really know.

TODD: Well I don’t want to trade places with you for anything in the world. I never want to feel like that. Well, hopefully, we can let you do your candlelight vigil and do a little update later, and maybe some of our listeners can work on things a little bit for you see what we can come up with.

SHERRY: Okay, Todd, I appreciate it so very, very much; you don’t know how much. I mean, just to be able to talk about my son is gratification enough but I’m just hoping that somebody out there is going to really think and let us know where my boy is at.

TODD: Well hopefully the truth will come out. We’ll try, and it will be posted so that the opportunity will continue.

SHERRY: Thank you, Todd.

TODD: It’s been good having you. We’ll say goodnight to everybody and then you and I will talk just a little while longer.

SHERRY: Goodnight everyone, and thank you for listening.

TODD: Bye-bye everybody.

Vital Statistics

Date Missing - November 18, 2004

Are Missing From - Acworth, Georgia

Birthdate: March 13, 1966

Hair Color: Brown (curly)

Eye Color: Blue

Height: 6'1"

Weight: 170 Lbs.

Identifying Marks: Scar approximately 6" long on left elbow, metal screws in elbow, previously fractured left elbow, previously fractured knee cap, limps on right leg.

Tattoos: "Rose" on upper chest and "Crown of thorns" around upper left arm

Piercings: Pierced left ear

Dental: Cap on front tooth

Note:

It is believed by the family members of each of these victims,

All three of these cases are connected: