The Paducah Sun from Paducah, Kentucky • 16

The Poducah Sun Sunday, April! 7, 988 A16 To her grandfather, Marlena 'is as alive today as we are Bailey "is like any other mother. Her heart kidnapped and sold for adoption. "She's probably in Old Mexico or Canada or even Saudi Arabia," LaWade Strickland said. "She's out of the country somewhere. "There's no doubt in my mind.

They had her sold before they picked her up. She was delivered within a few hours. "They (the abductors) can fix the papers to make it look legal. The people who have her think she's legal." The poster said there's still a (30,000 reward for information leading police or the family to Marlena. "If she had been kidnapped and held for the money, we'd have heard something about it now," he said.

Pam Bailey, Marlena's mother, has moved to Mayfield. Bailey confessed that she accidentally killed the child, then recanted. On her lawyer's advice, she hasn't spoken to the media since. Strickland said Marlena is his granddaughter. "The more I stay occupied, the better it is," Strickland said.

"But today isn't any worse than any other day." He tied on a blue apron, then went to work on the golf bag, a catcher's mitt and a boxful of worn out shoes. "This doesn't take your mind off it. She's on my mind every minute of the day." Marlena is elsewhere in enduring images at the little shoe shop: Two fraying yellow ribbons tied to the front door. A small color photograph in a gold-plated frame. Marlena is 5-years-old, her granddaddy said.

"I feel she is as alive today as we are. We just don't know where." As usual, Strickland opened his courts-quare shop alone. His wife, Catherine, arrived about 10. She had hot coffee and biscuits from a By BERRY CRAIG Sun Staff Writer MAYFIELD, Ky. LaWade Strickland opened his shoe shop at 7, same as he does every Saturday morning.

"An old shoe cobbler doesn't get much of a break," smiled the big-shouldered man with dark hair and brown eyes. Strickland slipped a brown-and-white golf bag under the needle of his old green Adler sewing machine. It clattered, making quick work of a torn zipper. "The man's got to have this today," Stickland said. "He'll be on the course this afternoon." The customer probably wouldn't have blamed the cobbler if he'd closed Saturday.

A reward poster taped to the front door told why. Marlena Childress, it reads, "missing since 4-1647." fast-food restaurant and a copy of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. "There's another article about Marlena in it," she said. Catherine Strickland agreed that her husband belonged at work Saturday. "There's nothing else we can do but be here.

We'll just try to make it through the day the best we can." There were few customers early as the sun sparkled through the front door and down the hall leading to the shop. Outside, a cool breeze softly rustled the ribbons. "Mayfield doesn't wake up on Saturday until after 11," Catherine Strickland managed a grin. The couple had time to talk quietly together. "We'll talk about Marlena.

That's all we talk about at home." On the first anniversary of Marlena's disappearance, the Stricklands remained convinced that their grandaughter was bleeds for the child taken from her. "She goes about her day to day life. She tries to take care of her 14-month-old boy (Damon)." Strickland said some shop customers mention Marlena and others don't. The first two Saturday didn't. "But 90 percent of them that do agree with us that she's still alive," Strickland said.

"Everybody in Mayfield has been real supportive with thoughts and prayers." For LaWade and Catherine Strickand, Saturday was another day for hope and prayer. "We're still looking for the break, that one little break that will lead us to Marlena," he said. "Every day gets harder. But we haven't given up hope. "We are not going to quit.

There's a weak spot in what they (Marlena's abductors) did. That's what we are looking for." Child's grandad died never seeing her again if i a VI ft 'M- i JOHN PARKSmie Sun Searchers wade the Obion River looking for Marlena Childress' body shortly after her disappearance. By JOE WALKER Sun Staff Writer MARTIN, Tenn. It has been a year of heartache for Arietta Childress, whose husband Marvin died clinging to the hope that he would hug his precious granddaughter one last time. As outspoken as maternal grandfather LaWade Strickland has been about the disappearance of Marlena Childress, Arietta has been silent.

But her pain and longing is just as real. Her son, Kevin, is Marlena's father. He quickly becomes emotional and talks little about the little girl, not even with his family, Arietta said. "I haven't given up hope," he said. "But with all the stories, I am more or less like everybody else.

I don't know what to believe." Childress is a welder at a Martin tool and die company. "I think about it every day. But working a lot of hours, that helps." His mother added, "We're just like so many other people. We have no idea what happened. If she's not dead, as time goes probably will have forgotten about us." Suffering from terminal cancer, Marvin Childress broke his family's silence last September by issuing a challenge.

His sons, Kevin, 25, and Joe Keith, 28, would undergo questioning via a truth serum if Marlena's mother and stepfather would also. It was Childress' way of trying to untangle the web of conflicting stories about the child. Marlena had been with Kevin Childress the weekend prior to the Thursday she disappeared. "We agreed to do it if they would," Kevin Childress said. "We weren't trying to do it to get.

evidence. We just wanted her back." Kevin and Pam Childress divorced about 15 months before Marlena was reported missing. She married Johnny Bailey of Union City several weeks after the divorce. In issuing the challenge, Marvin Childress held a press conference, saying Bailey's ex-wife, Mona Watts, had agreed to truth serum questioning. Childress said it was "very evident" the Stricklands and Pam Bailey's defense attorney thought his sons had something to do with the disappearance.

At the time, Kevin Childress also though the Stricklands were trying to blame him and his brother. "We had nothing to do with it," Kevin Childress said. Since then, he added, "they (the Stricklands) haven't said anything towards us implying we had anything to do with it." Four days after the Childresses' challenge, LaWade Strickland responded that he appreciated their concern, but experts had told him -I y4 J- truth serum was unreliable and not used by police. He said he would agree only if hypnosis were substituted. "We had our doubts about being questioned under hypnosis," Kevin Childress said.

That ended the challenge. The cancer ravaged Marvin resulting in his death Jan. 14. "Our issue was to find Marlena," Arietta Childress now says. "Not whether the evidence would stand up in court.

We were under the assumption that if you don't want to be hypnotized, you can't be." She does not believe her sons were involved in the disappearance. "But if it came out that they were, they would have to pay. That's the way I believe." Arietta Childress is perplexed by all the stories. Pam first said the child was abducted from her home. She later confessed to lulling Marlena accidentally.

Then she recanted, saying she had confessed under duress and that a Martin man actually took the child after Pam refused his sexual advances. Kevin Childress also doesn't understand Pam. very confusing," he said. Although Pam refuses media interviews, she has renewed her story that an unknown person stole Marlena from the front yard. Strickland suggests black-market adoption was the motive.

"I don't believe anyone could coerce me. into telling I killed my child if I did not do it," Childress said. "But I would like to know there's hope of her being alive, so I could see her again." Strickland has repeatedly criticized Union City police for not being receptive to the idea that someone other than Pam was in the disappearance. He has traveled extensively, investigating leads. Arietta Childress said her family hasn't the money or training to investigate.

"We feel like that's what law enforcement officers are for," she said. "We've just left things up to the Lord." She does think Pam's confession halted serious police investigation, which is unfortunate. Kevin Childress agrees. "It seems to me like it had quite a bit to do with stopping it That's when it all ended," he said. Part of what kept her husband going was the hope he would see Marlena again, Childress said.

His nasopharynx cancer, diagnosed in 1985, went into remission the following year. But in 1987, it came back with a vengeance, spreading to his bones and liver. Marvin Childress went home from the hospital Sunday, April 12, of last year. Marlena visited her grandparents and, as usual was reserved the first hour she was there, Arietta remembers. Then she came out of her shell.

"She was fun-loving, yet quiet, so terribly precious to us," said her grandmother. "She was our first grandchild and our only granddaughter." Marlena had a fondness for music and pretending she was in a marching band. Arietta ponders the time Marlena rode with the Childresses to a fish fry. She loved the old spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." "Sing it again," she asked her grandmother. Arietta never tired of it Four days after grandfather Childress came home and played with his little girl, she was gone.

His life slipped away with the hope of her return, Arietta said. "It's been a year that's almost unbelievable," she said, choking back tears. "But we have a lot of good memories." Meanwhile, Kevin Childress keeps hoping and praying Marlena will be found. "That's just about the hardest part to deal with that it's been a year and nothing has been turned up." some point everyone, including the police, would give up and it would be up to the family to keep trying to find her. And that's what has happened.

But it's hard without help." Strickland said people still come into the shop and restaurant and ask about Marlena. "Even many of those who believed Marlena was dead after Pam's confession, have their doubts now. It's been so long and there is no body and there are no clues." Strickland and Wyrick said they often feel helpless in fighting the bureacracy and in trying to follow up potential leads. But they are quick to point out that helpless doesn't mean hopeless. "Somebody out there saw something or knows something about Marlena," Strickland "and eventually we will find out.

We have to always remember that there's a little girl out there who is waiting to be found." As Strickland and Wyrick were talking to a reporter in the commons area, Pam Bailey walked in. She had run an errand to the post office for her father. She talked with them (Wyrick and Strickland) briefly about her own and her 14-month-old son's bout with chicken pox, then went into the shoe shop. Emmons has instructed Pam not to talk to reporters, and Strickland, although sometimes disagreeing, follows the attorney's instructions. Strickland said that most people are reluctant to talk to Pam about Marlena, so she isn't confronted by strangers or even acquaintances about it.

Meanwhile, in Union City, the neighborhood of the former Bailey home has changed. Primarily rental houses, many who lived there a year ago, have moved on. One neighbor, 72-year-old Bran-dord Hill, saw Marlena playing that day. "I can still see her out there, playing by the air conditioner," Hill said. "It was about 12:30." It was one of the last times anyone saw Marlena.

About an hour later, Marlena was in the tiny grocery store about two blocks from her house with her stepbrother, 7-year-old Jerry Bailey. Store owner Carolyn Pearce remembers. "Her mom dropped them off outside and they came in," Pearce said. Pearce said people still occasionally ask about Marlena, but not as much as they used to. Perhaps no one outside the family and the police has been closer to the case than David Bartholomew, editor of the Union City Daily Messenger newspaper.

He has his own theories about the case, but he admits it's only speculation and keeps them to himself. He does say the case has hurt the town. "This has torn this community apart," Bartholomew said. "Until we find out what happened, until the matter is resolved, things will not be right" connection with the case, but in unrelated incidents, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two juveniles. He is scheduled to be sentenced on those charges Monday in Weakley County.

Martin Police Chief Jackie Moore said there is still interest in that community about the case. "People still ask about it. It comes up in conversation fairly often," he said. Moore said his department's involvement in the case is over, no matter what, since the exoneration of the Martin man. "There's no indication that a crime took place here," he said.

Strickland said he still gets messages from all over the country concerning Marlena, but most aren't substantial enough to warrant following up with the family's limited resources. Recently he said he's gotten calls from New Mexico, South Carolina and Louisiana, "but most of them just say they saw a little girl who could be Marlena. They don't have license plate numbers or anything else to go on." The call from Louisiana was different however. He said law enforcement officers called him and said they had located a little girl that could be Marlena. "I spent two days down there, but it turned out it wasn't her.

It's tough when you get your hopes up like that." Strickland said the little girl in Louisiana also may have been a kidnap victim. Police told him there were forged birth certificates for her from four states. Strickland believes Marlena's abduction was a well-planned, well-executed crime perpetrated by professional kidnappers. "It wasn't some sloppy, spur-of-the-moment thing. It was planned by somebody who knew what they were doing, and so far it's been a perfect crime.

But there's no such thing as a perfect crime, so it will eventually be solved." Marlena is still on the active roles of the National Association, for Missing Children, and is still in computers that catalog missing children. Also, posters and flyers remain up all over the country. Clara Ann Wyrick, who runs a small restaurant next to Strickland's business a close friend of the family who organized the Find Marlena Committee said the national organization still considers Marlena's disappearance as a "stranger abduction." The committee raised and spent about $13,000 trying to find Marlena. The money went to pay expenses for investigators, postage and other fees. "We still have a room full of mailings, but we dont have the money to send them out," Wyrick said.

She said about $75 has been left in the account to keep it open in the hope that something will happen to generate more contributions. "It's hard to do it alone," Strickland said. "We do as much as we can, but it seems like very little. I was told at the beginning that at HOPE Continued from page 1 ceased to be something that happens somewhere else. In Mayfield, Vnion City and other communities in the area, it had struck home.

In the rear of the building, adjacent to the commons area, a stained-glass sign proclaiming Strickland's Shoe Repair hangs over a door crowded with more posters. Inside, amidst still more posters and pictures and racks full of shoes, a soft-spoken cobbler goes about his business repairing his customers' shoes. LaWade Strickland, Marlena's grandfather, is a quiet, unassuming man whose life has been turned upside down, along with his wife's and daughter's Pam Bailey, Marlena's mother. Pam, her husband Johnny Bailey, and their 14-month-old son have lived with the Stricklands in Mayfield since shortly after Marlena's disappearance, when they moved from the Union City house where Marlena was last seen. For Strickland, it has been a year of twists and turns.

There have been occasional glimmers of hope, fading all too quickly into nothing. But his belief that his granddaughter is still alive somewhere is unshakable. He doesn't hope she's alive; he knows she is. "There's no question Marlena's alive," he said. "We aren't going to quit until we find her.

One of these days we'll get that break. It's out there. We just have to find it." Even with the multitude of reminders of Marlena in the Mini-mall, the most poignant is Strickland himself. Each time her name is mentioned, the pain of her absence etches itself unbidden into his face. A strong, quiet man, not given to showing his emotions to strangers, he sometimes has to stop during conversations if he feels his composure slipping.

But he goes on. Going on is what it's all about, Strickland said. "What else can you do? Five minutes don't go by that I don't think about Marlena. I can't get it off my mind at all and I won't be able to until we find her or get some answers. But still I have to earn a living.

I have to take care of routine things. We have to get by somehow." Strickland said the passage of time has made things harder, rather than easier. "The more time that goes by without any new developments, without an active investigation, the harder it is to handle. The family still works on it People still call with leads and some we follow up. There are still a lot of questions, but no answers." Strickland said that as hard as it is for him, it is even worse for Pam.

"She tries to get by like the rest of us, but it's harder for her. She's like any mother who has lost a child. She's devastated by it, but PAM BAILEY At an early court appearance still she goes on." Strickland said the family discusses Marlena all the time. "Anytime we're together, we talk about her. Sometimes we try not to.

We try to talk about other things, try to get our minds off of her just for a little while, but we can't." Contributions to the Find Marlena Committee dried up in June, after Pam confessed to accidentally killing Marlena in a fit of anger and throwing her body in the Obion River, near Martin, Tenn. A massive four-day search of the river failed to yield any sign of a body. Later, her attorney, Wayne Emmons of Memphis, told a press conference Pam had recanted the confession shortly after making it. Emmons claimed Pam had been intimidated and coerced into making the confession by a private investigator who had been hired by the family. The investigator denied the allegation and said he believed Pam had told him the truth about killing Marlena.

Pam initially was charged with murder, later reduced to manslaughter. Although Assistant District Attorney David Hayes has not dropped the charges, he has not sought a grand jury indictment. Strickland said as long as those charges are pending, it is difficult to generate public interest in Ending Marlena, and it's hard to convince law enforcement agencies the search for her should continue. "It's not like they couldn't charge her later if they found anything new," Strickland said. "It seems like if they don't have enough to get an indictment, they would back off.

Maybe that would help find some answers." Union City Police Chief David Rhoades was out of town last week, but a police spokesman said it was the policy of the department not to comment on the Childress case. He referred all calls to Hayes. Martin police became involved in the investigation when Pam accused a Martin man, whom she claimed had sexually abused her since childhood, of helping her dispose of Marlena's body. The man was later cleared of any Ohio River Paducah Mayfield Union Tennesse Dresden. Obion County LYN McOANitbTr Sun.