There are missing children, and there are hidden children. And I am here to teach you the difference.

Presently it’s Spring, and almost 38 years of life is unfolding like a basket of laundry on a trampoline. This is where I’ll start this unraveling of my past. A freedom I’ve never afforded myself. A psychological rumspringa, of sorts.

The story I will share in the Elusive Enigma series has no bearing on my ability to find people, or to find myself. And to those who know me, look away, go find animal videos to stare at or motivational quotes. This is not for you. This rambling of the past is for those who are stuck and need a hand, and for those who have no idea how common child abuse, torture, and human trafficking really is. This is where myself and many other survivors will publish their stories. Some of the beautiful people who will share their stories here are also people I have had the opportunity to help locate. In another portion of this site you will see stories that detail difficult criminal cases that I have assisted with over the last twenty years.

I’ve been asked countless times to write a book that reflects my wildly unbelievable past, and I’ve always been hesitant. The Elusive Enigma series of writings will allow me to write and release my story in portions, while also still helping others to release their stories too. This is a work in progress, this is a work of healing, and coming to terms. I will not be able to keep the chapters of my life in separate books, from now on, this is all one book. This has fortunately and unfortunately been all one life. This is just one experience and one journey to, above all, simply do better. 

13-months ago, I truly believed that I had my life fairly sorted out. If nothing else, my past was certainly sorted. I could laugh at it, talk about it without clenching my fists, and the rage had majorly subsided years ago. 15 years of traveling as a chef was an effective icebreaker, and I was cracked out of my shell, like it or not by a constantly moving yet very personal workspace, the kitchen line. Everything that I never experienced in childhood from peers and just being around people in general, I initially learned from the kitchen line. 

Considering the library of chapters I walked through in my life, I believed that I had arrived at the calmest destination possible, given where I came from. I stepped out of kitchen life, away from traveling, and I even managed to stay in one general area for several years. Even I know better than to believe in this type of fairytale ending, I should never get too comfy. Complacency is soul suicide. And I had become more than just complacent, I had no idea just how far I had removed myself from so many of the chapters that I previously walked through. Soon that temporary blindness would wear off. The last 13-months were more of a lengthy sprint through a difficult crime scene that was stuck on replay. I’ve seen plenty of crime scenes, I kept asking myself, “why is this a problem? Why can’t I move forward?”

I cannot count the number of times in the last 13-months that I have physically stopped myself, something I do not normally do because I am always full speed ahead, and said to myself out loud, “This is real. This happened to me.”

I have never considered the validity or reality of the weight that my past truly put on my life, even when it was my present. I escaped that world through a wild imagination and humor. So, I laughed at it all. The insanity of paying rent to my adopted “parents” when most children were in grade school. I laughed about having more electrical output in my body than a nuclear plant because I’d been tased on a daily basis for lengthy periods. I joked that I would eventually score enough lithium to spike my adopted mothers drink and give us all some peace. I joked about not knowing whether or not I was mentally disabled, because in order to control me,  I was gaslit about my intelligence as a child and it left me incapable of knowing the difference. I was isolated from the outside world so that I would have nothing to compare my life to. I laughed about having flaming hot frying pans hurled at my head for not walking into the room at the correct time. I joked about being poisoned as a child, as if it happens to everyone. I joked about being a rogue kindergarten graduate, but the reality is, I was a child growing up in the 80’s/90’s who was never sent to school. Never homeschooled and hidden from society. This is unheard of for most people. It took 38 years to tell myself that this was not funny, and that it actually happened.

In March of 2021, my younger sister passed away. Death was just as much a part of my childhood as complex dysfunction. Up until this point, of all the death I witnessed, the passing of my brother, Ford, was the hardest. I was not sure how I would handle losing my sister, Mia.

17 years before losing Mia, my brother committed suicide, but as always, there would be no time to grieve. He had two little girls and another on the way. I made it my personal goal to make sure they could find ways to still smile, even at the worst time of their life. Not for anyone else, but for them. To this day, when things get difficult they manage to find ways to still smile. In the darkness, laughter might as well be light. After his funeral I boarded a plane to go and cook for 5,000 people. But I had just been a part of making the decision to end my brothers life, or what was left of it after he spent days in a hospital on life support because his dumb ass thought anti-freeze would be a lovely mid-week cocktail.

In March of last year, in the middle of the night, my younger sister, Mia, passed away in Arlington, Texas. I was in Chicago, Illinois. Unable to leave, unable to do what I do, show up. Make them laugh. Make the hard decisions. Hold them tight when they need it. And do ridiculous things that ignite their laughter. Not just anyone will sport a diaper on their head and run through the neighborhood in a strangers bikini just to make their sisters or nieces laugh after life has, once again, shown us just how blinding the darkness can be. This is a tall order. I was stuck. Life and circumstances prevented me from traveling due to COVID and a bulk supply of medical issues that I am determined to navigate alone. I would have to somehow get through this, at home, without showing up. And that sent me down a 13-month sprint through what I now fully accept and understand was not a childhood. It was in fact a crime scene.

My sister was younger than me, bolder than me, and braver at times. She did not allow our biological mother to live in her head rent-free. Hell, she didn’t even allow her to drive through the neighborhood of her mind. No matter where our mother was, Mia had mentally moved her to outer space. The great beyond. And she did not look back. Mia was incredibly smart and focused when she wanted to be, and always full of life. Mia fully moved on from everything we went through as kids. She had so many friends, she didn’t shut people out of her life like the rest of us. She was incredibly loved by so many wonderful people. Mia was also in the middle of her own “awakening.”

Sobriety. Mia played cat and mouse with sobriety for years. She wanted to mend that final fence that sometimes left her out of control of her life. Our past usually won in the end and Mia would pick up a bottle of wine on her way home from work. Her way of saying, “I’ll just have a glass of wine.” By 10:00 p.m.she was usually texting me photos of an empty wine bottle and a lit cigarette. A few months before she passed, Mia did what so many survivors have to do on a daily basis, she tried again. The cycles of trauma will forever be a part of our memories, our learned behaviors, and our perceptions. The untamed instability that was stitched into our emotional being as children would often leave us back at square one. Mia was determined and to my surprise, she was successful. I couldn’t have been more proud of her ability to lay awake with her demons and confront them.

The last time I saw Mia, we went to a bar in Texas with a sandlot in the back of the bar. We drank until 4:00am in the sandlot, discussing the finer things in life and avoiding the topic of our mother. A friend asked, “how many siblings do you two have?” My sister and I simultaneously responded with different answers. I quickly looked away to avoid Mia’s light saber piercing stare. She thought this was because I did not want to answer the question. She should know better. I always answered all their questions even if it declared a war between our mother and I. My avoidance was because I could feel another incredible moment with my sister giving way to being ruined by our past. I threw my hands up, “I don’t know anything,” I said. She replied with, “what the hell are you talking about? 7? There’s 7? Who? Where?” I pointed towards a field across the street as I walked away from everyone with two bottles of vodka and said, “Mia, not here.”

We finished the conversation in a field across the street, emptying two bottles of vodka and a lot of mixed emotions. I had to leave the next day. That was the last time I would ever see her. We laughed, we had some great memories during that visit. But it was, once again, haunted by a past we did not create. Instead of just having what most call a “normal visit.”

By the time I arrived at my next cooking destination, Mia was texting me photos of her in my hoodie and shirts that I left in Texas at her apartment. In that moment, I looked at those photos and realized the level of dysfunction that we had attached to us as siblings. We all love each other, but not in the same way you love a sister or brother that you spent your entire childhood with. We have a different bond, something darker that links us together. All of us were scattered across the United States and left in whatever random place our mother happened to be when she once again decided to start over, without us. We deeply desired a connection to each other, but it always seemed just out of reach. However awkward we were around each other, those photos reminded me that I had to continue trying to keep us all glued together, somehow. We would never vocalize our need for each other or the pain we had all experienced, individually. But we cherished every second and secretly wore each other’s clothes, looked at each other’s photos, and longed for that connection in silence. When you are born and raised without “family” you never really learn how to properly reach out. If there is any one thing that all 9 of my siblings have in common, it would be isolation. 

Our pain was uniquely different for each of us. I was left in a crack house; Mia was left with her father who had a brain injury and he was unable to properly care for her or himself; another sister was adopted through an adoption agency in Boston. We were all left in different situations, but the pain was the same. The abandonment was identical. The rage and the shame was ingrained into our souls and we were all separately on a mission to remove our own serial numbers and start over. That is not even close to possible. We would all have to work through it or become it. Some of us overcame the past that left us dripping with abandonment and fear. Unfortunately, not all of us did. And I don’t blame my siblings who did not move on. How could I? This is not easy, and I am finally admitting that.

Even though I was stuck on the other side of the country, my younger siblings all went to say goodbye to Mia when she passed. Something I was exceptionally proud of. Our childhood taught us to flee, escape, and protect ourselves. But we have all learned how to show up, for each other and for others. Something our mother was never capable of. To help others, we don’t always need to “do” anything, we just need to show up.

Our mother made Mia’s passing extremely difficult and inserted herself in ways that a mother who abandoned all but two of her children did not deserve to be present for. This stirred up the rage that I had not felt since I was a child. Since I had let go of myself and let go of caring about what was happening to me. She knew she would not even think of stepping foot inside the funeral service for Mia, so why do all of this? Why try to cause more harm in an incredibly devastating situation? It was all she knew. Chaos. 

I should have known as soon as I felt the rage that I was about to go on a wild ride. I immediately wanted to go to Texas to be “boots on the ground” and handle our mother, before the situation became worse. But I couldn’t do that. I hadn’t experienced any of these feelings in years. It was the same rage and anger that I first experienced as a  child when a weapon was held to my neck while being sexually assaulted by my adopted mother’s son. I always imagined that my biological mother would rescue me from this one day. I consistently told myself she was coming back. Every time I was carried down a dark hallway and thrown into a room to be assaulted at knifepoint, I always told myself she was coming back. And 38 years later I was still becoming enraged by the life she created for me. I just never wanted to admit that. I never before admitted that any of this was her fault, but when Mia passed, I could no longer deny that she was always right. Our mother did not deserve a seat at the table that, as siblings, we had fought to build. We built that table from scratch without the help of a single family member. Our mother did not deserve to be there and I was not going to let her take the seat that once belonged to Mia. 

I should have protected myself the same way Mia did. As the oldest child I felt a need to be present and somehow link us all together. I was the one who tracked down my mother, all my siblings, and handed my mother her family back on a silver platter. Provided an income, a place to live, a new start. Something she claimed she wanted. To have us all back in her life. But she only walked away, again, from all of us but the two youngest children. And we were once again left to comb through emotions of abandonment and rage each time she left.

After Mia’s death I disappeared. I stopped responding to personal messages, phone calls, emails, social media messages, and I immersed myself in the only thing that made sense at the time, the only thing I had been good at since childhood, finding people. I spent 13-months trying to hide from this turmoil inside of a world where I could be productive and bring peace to unthinkable situations since I could not fix my own unthinkable situation.

Several years ago, after I found my mother and siblings, I moved on to finding victims who were being held against their will or manipulated by religious groups. I also traveled often and I had the opportunity to be in several states a year. I checked into cases across the country and began to network with other advocates, senior law enforcement, private detectives, and concerned black sheep across the country and internationally. Twenty years later, I have now worked on cases from the United States to Syria.

When Mia passed and the dust settled, and I no longer had to field our mother’s attempts to disrespect Mia’s wishes, I vanished. I went on a hunt that would last 13-months straight, with less than 20 minutes of sleep a day, no concern for eating or thinking of anything except taking down every predator I could find. During this time I also made my efforts public and started a website where I share some of the work I do. I work cases from beginning to end. The search, the rescue or recovery, and then the fallout. I spent 13-months managing the fallout of countless families and assisted them in putting the pieces back together. I assisted them with resources to truly heal from the horrific events they faced in any way I could. And when I couldn’t, when the system failed them, the system failed us. We became enraged together. At 10:00 a.m., or 3:00 a.m. They were never left behind, no matter how difficult it became. No matter how much each situation could in some way relate to one of the chapters of life I have previously lived through.

But I completely vanished from my own life and my own set of horrific circumstances, without a trace. I wasn’t disassociating any longer. I wasn’t there at all. Effectively, I became DB Cooper to everyone who knew me. Not as if this would send off any red flags. I walked away from most of the people in my life over a decade ago. 

9-months after Mia’s death, I received a phone call the day before New Year’s Eve. It was one of my sisters letting me know that our mother had been admitted to the hospital for COVID. I told my sister, “I can’t do this right now.” Of which was the oddest response I have ever had to hearing that someone might be dying. My sister and I recently discussed our mother and how her health was declining. I had not spoken to my mother in a few years but I would still ask my youngest sister how she was doing. She never cared enough about herself to take care of her health and I knew that the outcome would not be good.

We hung up the phone and I immediately thought, “I wish my mother knew what she meant to me.”

I wish that I could go back and tell her that to me, she resembled hope. But I know that would not change anything. It would not help her. It would not move her soul. She had blanketed herself in trauma. She was no longer there. She left a long time ago in order to protect herself. She disassociated herself from reality, from her children, and from her pain. Going back would only be a replay, not a reset. 

My adoption/drug deal gone bad was no secret. I always knew who I was. I always knew who my mother was, who my criminal father was, and that I was part of a much bigger family of dysfunction than the one I was being imprisoned by. Still, my mother resembled hope to me. I prayed for her every day. I hoped she was safe. I hoped she was happy. And I hoped she would come back. She did not respond to the court when I was declared abandoned. But still, I had hope. And even after meeting her and experiencing the fall-out of her inability to be present, I still had hope. I hoped one day, at some point, she would be motivated to heal.

The night of New Year’s Eve she passed away in a hospital bed, fighting to breathe, and riddled with health issues that were likely due to years of trauma and abuse. She passed away having never truly taken a breath. A sigh. A moment of arrival after years of anguish. Sure, she had put us all through hell, even as recently as last March when Mia died. But, still, in that moment I could only think of the fact that she would never experience healing and that essentially her soul had been riddled with COVID-like symptoms her entire life. Her death was a metaphor to me at the time. An inability to escape the clutches of a soul that was, like mine, encased in cement. Unable to breathe, locked in a chamber of traumatic experiences that felt like a rare lung cancer. 

I chose to use the pain of my own past, my mother’s past, my father’s past, and my brother’s past to push myself toward a new, more hopeful and honest future. I did not make some of the damaging choices that they did, but I was no different. I disassociated from the pain that consumed my childhood and ran full speed ahead. I spent almost 38 years bullying my damn self and creating wildly dark humor from my painful experiences. But I never once saw this until my mother passed. I never saw this was actually my life, my childhood, and in effect, my present. Admitting this to myself has opened a window. It has allowed fresh air to fill my soul. The cement is slowly being cracked open and removed. This is not an easy, or painless process, but I can feel the benefits and I am committed to making sure I continue to “do better.”

In the beginning, when I first left the home I was “adopted” into, “doing better” just meant caring about other people, having compassion, showing up for others, and not intentionally hurting others. But now it has become a journey to be sure that my actions are seen by the survivors who think I have it all together and by my siblings, so that they also know it’s ok to let your guard down and focus inward. Especially when your strength has become your weakness.

A 13-month painful coming to terms has resulted in an emotional collapse that has cleared a path to healing, acceptance, and understanding. I understand that what happened was real and for the first time in my life, I am not laughing. It’s not funny. And that was the hardest part to admit. Because in a situation like this, if you stop laughing, you are likely going to start crying. I had never shed a tear. Not for lost siblings, lost loved ones, or even when I witnessed those I cared for take their own lives right in front of me. I have cleaned up the blood of those I love more times in my life than I have eaten breakfast. I have assisted in carrying the bodies of people I cared for while their blood spilled out onto my shoes. I have taken blood soaked furniture out to a fire pit to burn, and I have witnessed those I care for reach their most vulnerable moments as they drew their last breath. Again, this is not funny. And it took 38 years to realize that this actually happened. Sure, I knew it happened, you never forget that. But I completely removed myself as being who it happened to. I moved forward, it was impossible to stay in that moment and process any of it while being under the influence of years of imprisonment, sexual abuse, and gaslit to believe I was mentally disabled.

My mother’s death robbed me of the hope I had held since I was a child. The hope she would return. The hope she would heal. That door had now closed, and a new door opened. I spent months trying not to walk through that newly opened door. I tried to hold it all inside as I had in the past. I tried to listen to my adopted great-grandmother’s staunch German voice that always said, “don’t cry, you are the strong one.” I no longer find one damn bit of it funny. I find it sad, sick and twisted that anyone would have a past that is so soaked in blood and darkness that they would have to leave their own life just to cope. But for the first time, I’m not laughing. I am simply letting it go. The tears that have been shed over the last month alone might as well have been chunks of cement breaking free from my soul.

Today I feel lighter, less recognizable, and perhaps more determined to fight for my self than what has become my normal for so many years. I feel a return to myself that I have not participated in for over 30 years. But today, I found myself. Not someone else, not someone else’s child, not someone else’s friend. I found myself.

I woke up this morning, took care of all the typical essential tasks to get the day started, and I opened a message from an associate who seems to be becoming more of a friend, and by noon I was on my living room floor with 38 years of loss leaving me. This seems natural to most, especially for anyone who just lost their mother and sister within a year. Along with many other substantial deaths over time. But for me, this was the most unnatural reaction to any life event, even grieving. For the first time in my life, that staunch German voice in the back of my head that always said, “don’t cry, you are the strong one,” was gone. For the first time in 38 years, the voice was out of reach, just a whisper in the distance that I, for the first time, completely ignored. My adopted great-grandmother was the only consistent normalcy in my life as a child, and to let go of her voice, it feels like letting go of her strength. I can no longer view her presence in my life this way. Her strength, which became my strength, has become my weakness. And I’m exhausted.

Two days before my 38th birthday I broke. They say that it is most common to have a re-emergence of childhood trauma in your thirties. And I always said, “I’m not weak enough for that.”

I was wrong. I broke for the countless people I lost in childhood and adulthood, for the disappearance of myself over 30 years ago and I grieved the reality that I missed out on. I have finally admitted to what I have lived through, to fully allow myself to process it, and the reality of it all is, “this happened to me.” Something I never told myself until now. I labeled my trauma responses as weakness or excuses. I gave no credit to the sad nature of my childhood or just how much it had forever changed me and molded me into someone I was not. And my body could not handle the stress I would spend 38 years putting myself under by dissociating, avoiding, and holding the pain and sadness in the outer spaces of my existence. I am going to hike back up this mountain I fell off of a long time ago and fight for myself, be ok with myself, attempt to regain what health I can, and accept the fact that, “this happened to me.”