Family gathers to remember missing teen
By GRACIE BONDS STAPLES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, November 01, 2008
On the first day of November, a month indistinguishable from the difficult ones just past, a mother tried to forget that her son may never come home again.
And so, instead of giving in to her fear, Erika Wilson on Saturday afternoon did what she has done since she first learned her son was missing: She kept Justin Gaines’ memory alive.
About 150 family and friends gathered around tables decorated with cowboy boot confetti and ate barbecue brisket, cole slaw and mac and cheese at the Snellville Masonic Lodge. Each hoped their donations of $5 a person for the meal, and their purchases of raffle tickets, would help bring Justin back home.
They have been searching for Justin since Nov. 2, 2007, when the Snellville teen — then an 18-year-old freshman at Oconee campus of Gainesville College in Athens — disappeared from a Duluth nightclub. They have distributed thousands of fliers, bumper sticks and buttons bearing his image. “Have you seen me?” they all ask.
A year later, neither Gwinnett County police nor the family’s private investigator, Bob Poulnot, are any closer to finding him.
Cpl. David Schiralli, a Gwinnett police spokesman, said last week, “I can tell you now that there is no new information. The case is still open, and investigators are waiting for any new leads to surface or someone to come forward.”
Poulnot said he’s not giving up. But he acknowledged that the longer Justin Gaines is missing, the greater the odds he will not be found alive.
“He had a close relationship with his family and friends. He was enrolled in college and doing well,” Poulnot said. “It’s very unlikely he would not call his family and let them know his whereabouts within a few days, much less in a whole year.”
The approximately $1,400 raised Saturday will help pay for the private investigator; keep Justin’s cell phone service activated; print more fliers, bumper stickers and buttons; and maintain a Web site,
www.justingaines.com.
By keeping Justin’s image before the public — by praying until something happens — his family hopes to eventually turn up clues to his whereabouts.
As strains of Keith Anderson’s “I Still Miss You” played softly in the background, family and friends, many wearing buttons bearing Justin’s image, milled in and out of the lodge dinning hall. Some stayed to talk. Others ordered to-go plates and left.
At 5:30 p.m., everyone gathered in a circle.
The Rev. Randy Rainwater of Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville said he was at a loss for words.
“This is one of the hardest things I’ve even been a part of,” he said, before bowing to pray for peace and comfort for the family. “My prayer is that someone some where will be brave enough to tell the truth.”
That’s Wilson’s prayer, too.
She wonders how much longer she can do this, but she also thinks what life would be like if she didn’t keep looking for Justin.
“You have to have hope,” she said. “I couldn’t function if I didn’t.”
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/me..._1102_web.html
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