Skeletal remains found a few days ago have been identified as a 13-year-old Clackamas County, Oregon girl who had been listed as missing since October 2007. Because she was under treatment for bipolar disorder and because a lot of prescription meds disappeared with her, the police have ruled her death a suicide.
Unfortunately, I have no idea who this girl is. They haven’t released her name and I can’t find any case matching that description on Charley.
The poor child. What else is there to say?
A few days ago I had been wondering on this blog what sort of trial Doug and Valerie Herrman would have for defrauding the state of Adam’s benefits after he “ran away from home” in 1999. As far as I could see there was no defense to be had: they did it. They knew what they were doing when they did it. They knew it was illegal and wrong. They confessed, many times. What possible defense could they present?
Well, evidently Doug and Valerie reached the same conclusion I did, because they reached a plea agreement with prosecutors: guilty to felony theft. They will have to pay restitution of $15,488, the amount they pleaded guilty to stealing. The agreement recommends a sentence of a year of probation and a $2,500 fine for each of them, but the judge could go as high as five to fifteen months in prison and $100,000. I seriously hope the judge decides to exceed the recommendation. These two need to serve some serious time.
Of course, as the Wichita Eagle puts it, the unresolved question here is what happened to Adam.
Nobody’s buying that “ran away” crap, Doug, Valerie. Everyone knows what really happened. I don’t care what sort of behavior problems the child had: Adam Herrman did not deserve to die the way he did, he did not deserve to be denied a proper resting place and the people who truly love him do not deserve to sit in limbo wondering what happened and where his body lies. So fess up. You’re going down either way.
What did you do to that little boy?
So I just posted the updates for today — ten new cases, ten updates on existing cases. I’m trying to work my way through the backlog alphabetically and right now I’m on S. I have about 67 cases left to add before I reach Z. I say “about 67” because I’ll probably slip a few more in, and because probably when I get around to looking at the cases already in there it’ll turn out that some have been resolved, or they don’t meet the criteria for Charley, so I won’t add them.
And this just is my “normal cases” folder. I also have folders marked “runaways” and “family abductions.” Runaways only has 9 in it right now, but family abductions has 48 (counting sibling groups separately). I figure I’ll get to those after I to the end of the “normal cases” alphabet. So, 124 cases waiting to be added…before I start right back over again at “normal cases” A.
I don’t hold entirely to the alphabetical thing. Sometimes I get bored with it and just add a few random cases from here or there, or if I find a really exciting one, or sometimes I go and add a whole bunch of ones that are just barely six months old because I realize I fell behind in that regard. (Like, right now, it’s past the middle of the month and I’ve only got two cases up for last December. I need to do something about that.)
In any case, at any given time I’ve got, minimum, 300 cases marked waiting to be posted. With more coming in every day. And as a general rule I don’t have the capacity to add more than ten a day. It’s not a set rule of course; occasionally I add more than ten. Much more often I add less than ten. It’s not even the time factor per se — though putting together ten often takes a few hours, and I do have other things to do. It’s just that by the time I reach ten I’m like, “gah, I just want to get this over with already” and so I stop.
Thus, the pile will just keep growing. I have reconciled myself to the situation because I really do love the work, and because I take pride in the fact that no one else can do it. I have many innate talents and abilities and have squandered most of them, which troubles my conscience a great deal. I don’t want to waste this whole research/ writing/ organizational thing I’ve got too. I willingly embrace the rod. Working on the Charley Project is really one of my most favorite things to do in the world, and I would do it even if it didn’t help anyone, even if no one else knew about it but me.
I’ve got a summer cold or something and I’m feeling pretty miserable right now. I’ve been coughing for days, I can’t sleep and my throat feels like it’s got sand in it. This is the kind of night when I might as well stay up and update, do something productive instead of tossing and turning in bed. So perhaps, for tomorrow, I will write up more than ten cases.
The Charley Project Blog 