Missing girl's family has hope
By MIKE CONWAY
BEE STAFF WRITER
Thursday, May 31, 2001 WINTON -- Beverly Smith dreads this day.
"I know the 31st is looming at me. I try to block it, but I can't," she said.
It was four years ago when her daughter, Vanessa Dawn Smith, disappeared.
"It seems like an eternity," Smith said. "It's reality. She's gone. We don't know where. We've missed four years with her."
Vanessa, then 15 and a student at Winton Middle School, was going for a walk on the evening of May 31, 1997. She carried a walking stick for protection from dogs; the stick was found not far from her house.
Tonight a candlelight vigil will be held in front of the Merced County Courthouse Museum in Merced to mark the fourth anniversary of Vanessa's disappearance.
"The case is still open," sheriff's Detective Sgt. Rick Marshall said. "We get three or four calls a month about Vanessa. We follow up on all of them."
So far the leads have led nowhere.
"Certainly, you hope for the best," Marshall said, "But historically, many times these cases end up tragically.
"We always hope one day she will give us a call, or someone will, and we will find out what the result of this was."
Beverly Smith said: "Some people say after four years she's not alive. I don't believe them. As long as we don't know, we're going to keep her in the forefront.
"I feel she's alive. I feel she's somewhere near. I believe it with all my heart."
Earlier this week Smith talked with Robert Levy. He is the father of Chandra Ann Levy, the 24-year-old Modesto woman who disappeared from Washington, D.C.
"They're hurting, too," Smith said of the Levy family. Smith said that luckily there is only a small group of people who know what she and the Levys are going through.
"It's a miserable feeling. In a situation like this you feel like you're all alone. You feel your lowest," she said. "I know what they're going through."
Smith and her husband, Art, are intent on making sure Vanessa's disappearance remains a high-profile case. Reward money totaling $40,000 has been posted for information on her disappearance.
The Smiths and friends have distributed about 60,000 fliers describing the girl. They also are working on a project that puts Vanessa's posters on the back of trucks. So far 1,200 have been laminated onto big rigs, and a Texas trucking company is interested in getting 6,000 posters.
"My cousin went to Canada and saw Vanessa's picture on a van," Beverly Smith said. Other friends have reported seeing Vanessa's poster across the country.
"Missing children don't get the publicity they need," Smith said. "If they don't get the publicity, they're forgotten."
Marshall said the posters generate calls to the Sheriff's Department. "Her face is up all over the nation," he said.
Today's candlelight vigil for Vanessa Smith will begin at 7 p.m. in front of the Merced County Courthouse Museum, 21st and N streets, Merced.
Officials ask anyone with information on Vanessa's disappearance to call sheriff's Detective Keith McClain at 385-7551.
http://www.modbee.com/metro/story/0,1113,270997,00.html