Back to Basics

Exactly one year ago today, my 18-year-old cousin Marizela (known affectionately to her family and friends as “Emem” or “Mei”) Perez disappeared from the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

She is still missing.

Those words form on the computer screen with disembodied disbelief. But my heart is screaming:

SHE IS STILL MISSING. WHY, DEAR GOD, WHY?!!!!!

The not-knowing is every parent’s worst nightmare. It brought normal life to a standstill for Marizela’s parents, Edgar and Jasmin. And yet, they have to keep living and working and praying for their only daughter. Because that is what they must do. Their strength and dignity through all the suffering has been an inspiration to me.

There have been no new developments in Emem’s case. No word from the police or the medical examiner’s office. No activity on her bank accounts or social media accounts.

And no response from the Google legal department to our request for help in January.

As regular readers of this blog know, the family’s quest to obtain Marizela’s online information has been a series of endless frustrations, bureaucratic incompetence, and apathy.

It is especially maddening to read ongoing stories about Google’s deliberate corporate decision to override customers’ privacy wishes against their wishes and to commoditize users’ individual browsing/searching/email data in order to increase ad revenue, while they ignore public-interest requests to share that crucial information with families of the missing.

My message to Google’s legal department:

from Michelle Malkin writemalkin@gmail.com
to [name redacted]
date Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:24 AM
subject From relative of Marizela Perez
mailed-by gmail.com

Hi [name redacted] – Belated New Year’s greetings. I don’t know if you remember me, but we communicated by email last spring about my missing teenage cousin, Marizela Perez. Tomorrow, January 5, marks the 10-month anniversary since her disappearance. Our family is very grateful that your company cooperated with the Seattle Police Department in responding to their very limited subpoena request for some of Marizela’s Google-related information.

Here is our dilemma. While the case remains open, the Seattle police are for all practical purposes treating it as a closed and shut case. They will not share the information they obtained from the subpoena — which our family pushed for in the first place. If we had access to that information, we could continue the search for Marizela on our own that the SPD has neither the time, resources, or inclination to pursue. As a fellow parent, I hope you understand our despair and our refusal to give up. My question is this: What are the chances that Google would release the info in the search warrant return to us if we pursued it through legal means? My understanding is that federal electronic records privacy law has done very little to take into account unique situations like ours.

If you have a chance, could you ring me at [redacted]. If you can’t, I understand. But I’m at wit’s end — especially knowing the information we seek is perishable — and running out of ideas. Appreciate your time and consideration.

Best,
Michelle

Google’s corporate motto is “Don’t Be Evil.” How about trying to “Be Good” and accommodate desperate customers who are actually begging you to make privacy exceptions?

***

We have posted Marizela’s missing persons flyer, photos, videos and more at http://findmarizela.com/.

Since I last reported to you, there still have been no new developments in the case of my missing cousin, Marizela Perez. No news from the police or the medical examiner’s office. No activity on her bank accounts or social media accounts.

I reached out to Google’s legal department for help and advice last month in trying to obtain information about her electronic trail in the weeks and months before she vanished.

The circumstances of our dilemma remain the same. While the case remains open, the Seattle police are for all practical purposes treating it as a closed and shut case. They will not share the information they obtained from the limited Google subpoena — which our family pushed for in the first place. If we had access to that information, we could continue the search for Marizela on our own that the SPD has neither the time, resources, or inclination to pursue.

We have not heard back from Google.

As we’ve noted since the day of her disappearance, she was taking anti-depressants at the time of her disappearance. The daunting possibility that she took her life, and the signs that cannot be ignored, still weighs heavily on our minds — as do all the other frightening possibilities as her case remains unsolved and unresolved. I’ve urged you before to support volunteer groups that provide hope and solace for those in need. To honor Marizela, I ask again that you do so if you are able.

Thank you for all your continued thoughts and prayers.

Cherish life.

Lahat ay magiging maayos: All will be well.

www.findmarizela.com

This is a sketch released by Lewis County, Washington authorities last week. It is a reconstruction of the facial features of skeletal human remains found on a logging road in April outside of Morton, WA. The small town is located about two hours south of Seattle. The remains are believed to be of a young woman of “small stature,” “possible mixed ethnicity,” and estimated to be in her 20s or 30s. It has haunted me the past four nights as I toggle back and forth obsessively between the artist’s rendering and the vivid, flesh-and-blood photos of my missing cousin, Marizela.

Seven months of searching and not finding. Seven months of praying and not knowing. Seven months of fear, frustration, false alarms, anger, and despair. Seven months of what one war historian documenting the plight of families of the missing so aptly described as “the dread void of uncertainty.”

Is the woman in the drawing Marizela? If not, dear God, WHERE IS SHE?

We have been told there is a good chance it may not be her. But after spending all Friday on the phone demanding answers, we still await final word on whether this is or is not Marizela.

Either way, there is no solace. The unidentified is someone’s loved one. If she is not ours, she belongs to another family suspended in limbo — craving “closure,” but not, never, this kind.

Compounding the dark cloud of unknowing is the unbearable encumbrance of apathy.

The longer Marizela is missing, the less interested news outlets are in covering the case. The quieter her friends, classmates, and university community have become. And the more lackadaisical some authorities have grown.

The persistent lapses on the part of the Seattle Police Department are maddening. Just when we think it can’t get worse, it does.

Consider this.

My family found out about the sketch thanks to readers who e-mailed me a link to a local Washington state website report late Thursday night. Her parents received no notification, no courtesy call, from the Seattle Police missing persons bureau detective assigned to Marizela’s case. In fact, we have yet to hear from him. As has happened on more than one occasion over the last seven months, he was out of the office on Friday and unavailable. He has yet to return several e-mail messages and phone calls.

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office and the King County Medical Examiner’s office, by contrast, were amazingly responsive and helpful. I found out they have tried for weeks to obtain Marizela’s dental records and DNA from the Seattle Police. But for some inexplicable reason, the police have yet to provide them or the Washington State Patrol with the information.

Marizela’s parents provided her dental records and their DNA samples to the Seattle police five months ago.

Washington state law — RCW 68.50.320 — requires the missing person’s case detective to obtain this crucial information “within thirty days” of the person going missing and to input the data with the Washington State Patrol “as soon as possible.”

RCW 68.50.320

Procedures for investigating missing persons — Availability of files.

Four months ago today, my cousin Marizela Perez disappeared from the University District in Seattle, Washington. I am devastated to tell you once again that there are no new leads or breaks in the case. Her parents have exhausted their work leave and have had to return to the East Coast. The family is weighing various legal and investigative avenues to pursue. As I reported in May, the quest to obtain Marizela’s online/text info has been an uphill battle. After months of pressing, we finally received a search warrant two weeks ago related to the case. It had been signed by a judge on April 22; we gained access to it in late June. The scope of the search warrant for Marizela’s Google records was limited to:

- All Google searches associated with her IP address from March 2 – March 5, 2011;

- All Google searches associated with her gmail account from March 2- March 5, 2011; and

- All email content — incoming, outgoing, drafts, and deleted messages — from March 1 – March 11, 2011.

Marizela’s Google web history was not included. The Seattle Police Department will not disclose the actual Google records to her parents so that they could pursue the search for Marizela on their own.

Days after Marizela disappeared, I described the feelings that families of the missing share:

You try to eat, but all you can taste is indigestible fear.

You try to breathe, but all that fills your lungs is stifling uncertainty.

You try to sleep, but all that comes is fathomless fatigue.

Your heart is weighted with grief, but your soul refuses to mourn.

Emem, wherever you are: You are so loved.

Marizela’s parents, Edgar and Jasmine, have remained vigilant, hopeful, and brave beyond belief. Please, please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as the search for Marizela continues.

Reminder: Marizela’s missing persons flyer is here.

Tip line: 1-855-MARIZEL.

Donations/bracelets here.

Lahat ay magiging maayos.

Scroll down for updates…King County Superior Court has closed out our records request as of today…

There’s a lot that’s been going on behind the scenes over the past two months since my cousin Marizela Perez disappeared from the University District in Seattle on March 5, 2011. As I mentioned last week, we gathered in Seattle on Mother’s Day for a community fundraiser and benefit concert/auction. There will be another South Jersey fundraiser/bake sale/raffle on May 22. Details here.

The Seattle Times has just posted a front-page piece by reporter Christine Clarridge on Marizela’s case and the plight of other families with missing young adults. Read it here. The story provides an in-depth, compassionate, and candid look at what parents go through in cases where the police have not found evidence of foul play. Suicide has been a primary assumption on the part of the police. But the case of young Joyce Chiang — whose death 12 years ago was just reclassified last week as a homicide by Washington police who mistakenly insisted the case was a suicide — shows the dangers of locking into assumptions without thoroughly investigating all leads.

And as this Seattle Post-Intelligence article from 2003 on neglected missing persons cases underscores, police “routinely botch or ignore missing-person cases,” ignore the law, fail to use tracking systems, and close cases with little investigation.

Here’s another Seattle Times piece from 2006 on the lost and missing.

In Marizela’s case, of course, the maddening frustration is that the police have yet to obtain Internet and phone records that would help definitively rule in/rule out foul play and provide potential breakthroughs in figuring out where she might have been heading the day she vanished. I’ve been helping Marizela’s parents push for those records, and in the interest of raising awareness and informing other families who have to face the same uphill battles, am reprinting here my e-mail and phone exchanges with the Seattle Police Department, Google, and the King County Superior Court from March through the present. Subpoenaing Google in particular is key. The police found that she logged onto to her Gmail account in the morning on the day she disappeared, but they have yet to obtain Google search history logs and web history information.

Time is really of the essence here because much of the data we are seeking — e.g., the Google search history and cellphone/AIM text messages — are perishable. We are continuing to push the Seattle Police Department to issue warrants to preserve and obtain any and all perishable data from Marizela’s AT&T, Facebook, AOL, and Google accounts before it’s too late. The family already suffered one devastating blow after finding out last week that surveillance video at a Jack-In-The-Box near the intersection where she disappeared is no longer available.

The clock is ticking.

It’s been more than a month, but my family hasn’t given up hope and hasn’t stopped looking for my missing cousin, Marizela Perez. Many volunteers across the country have joined us in this search. We can’t thank them enough for their dedication, energy, generosity, expertise, and commitment to finding Marizela.

America’s Most Wanted, John Walsh’s ground-breaking Fox television show, is now featuring Marizela’s story on its website here. Their appeal for help:

“Detectives with the Seattle Police Department say 18-year-old Marizela Perez left her home in Rainer Beach around noon on Saturday, March 5, 2011, en route to the campus library at the University of Washington.

A few hours later, surveillance cameras caught her shopping inside of a Safeway in Seattle’s University District. With her green Starbucks mug in-hand, she walked right by a camera, and exited the store a short time later. She hasn’t been seen since….If you know where Marizela Perez might be, you’ve got to call our Hotline right away at 1-800-CRIME-TV.”

Marizela is one of several young women who have gone missing in the Pacific Northwest over the last year.

I heard last week from a relative of Alexandra Xua, a 20-year-old college student who vanished from the Oregon City, Oregon area in January 2011 and is still missing:

And Kathy Chou, a 19-year-old Renton, Wash. student has been missing for nearly a year:

Please look carefully at their photos and click on the links to their stories — and if you have any information about any of these cases, contact law enforcement and AMW immediately. Every pair of eyeballs, every set of boots on the ground, makes a difference.

On March 5, 2011, one month ago, my 18-year-old cousin Marizela (“Emem” to her family, “Mei” to her friends) vanished after walking out of a Safeway grocery store in Seattle’s University District.

This is one of the many ClearChannel Outdoor billboards across the West Coast that’s featuring Marizela and our family tip line for information about her disappearance:

This is the awareness-raising bracelet Marizela’s friends are selling to help the family:

One month later, we have on our own searched adjacent parks, streets, and neighborhoods for any signs or clues. We hired a private investigator. We put up a website. We are raising money and reaching out to private professional K-9 search/rescue/recovery teams for assistance.

One month later, it is difficult to get calls returned from the Seattle Police Department.

One month later, it is difficult to get local and national media to follow-up on her story.

One month later, there isn’t a morning or night that we haven’t thought about her, cried for her, ached for her return.

One month later, there isn’t a morning or night that we haven’t prayed for her and her parents.

And one month later, there isn’t a spare moment I haven’t been on the phone working her case, doing research, begging for help, calling up old friends, e-mailing strangers for advice, pulling any strings I can find, and lobbying law enforcement to do more.

Families across the country who have been through similar plights know the frustrations of dealing with intransigent bureaucracies, chronic apathy, and government agencies with limited resources and politically-driven agendas.

They know what it’s like to be told that your family’s case is just “one of dozens, 30, 40, 50, 100.”

They know what it’s like to feel helpless, angry, numb, scared, and overwhelmed by the battle to keep a loved one’s case from sinking to the bottom of some pile of paperwork and red tape.

And now, we know, too.

Marizela could be my daughter or your daughter. Young adults who go missing often don’t get the priority treatment that underage children get. When they turn 18, law enforcement’s attitude changes. The lack of coordination is flabbergasting.

But your children are always and forever your children.

And I know all parents out there reading this would fight with every cell of their bodies to get their children back — no matter whose bureaucratic toes are stepped on, no matter whose feathers might be ruffled. No matter what.

We have faith, friends, and family.

We will continue to lean on your prayers. We will need more volunteers in the Seattle area to keep spreading the word, keep Marizela in the public’s mind, and keep open eyes, ears, and boots on the ground.

I will keep you updated until we find her.

Emem, you are so loved. More than you know. By more than you’ll know.

A reader sent some eternal words of wisdom — for all of us:

“When you get to the end of your rope, reach out and grab the hem of His garment.”

Keeping the faith…

PM

It has now been 23 days since my cousin, 18-year-old University of Washington student Marizela Perez, disappeared in the Seattle area.

I wish I could tell you good news.

We have had a private investigator on the case the past week. Several leads have been followed. But Marizela is still missing. Our hearts ache for Emem and her parents, Edgar and Jasmin, who have not rested one moment in their efforts to find her. Marizela’s loved ones continue to spread the word and spread her spirit in her South Jersey hometown of Egg Harbor Township, NJ, in her home away from home in Seattle, WA, in her parents’ native homeland in the Philippines, and across our great country where so many friends and volunteers have kept Marizela’s case in the public eye.

Marizela’s friend Brianna Price went to school with her in Egg Harbor Township, NJ. Brianna teamed up with Elizabeth (Beth) Janansky and Lydia Chong to make and sell bracelets to support the search for Marizela. They are orange “for Marizela’s favorite color” and include the Tagalog phrase from her tattoo — “lahat ay magiging maayos.” (“All will be well” or “Everything’s going to be okay.”)

You can order bracelets for $5 each (all proceeds go to Marizela’s family for the search) from Brianna.

E-mail her at dragunsangel-@-aol.com and put “MARIZELA” in the subject line.

Brianna writes that Marizela’s South Jersey friends will also be holding a fund-raising event on April 8 at Egg Harbor Township High School’s lower cafeteria where the bracelets will be sold:

“I am working alongside the Egg Harbor Township High School’s Drama Club/Thespians Honor Society, Key Club, Art Club, Latin Club, Choir, Dance, and many teachers and graduates to put together a Coffee House performance night. This event is on Friday, April 8th. Doors open at 7:30. Admission is $5.00 and we will be selling wristbands there as well. The link to the event page on facebook is http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=306349&id=613401648&saved#!/event.php?eid=203738876322949.”

While we press forward with the investigation and search efforts, please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you so much.

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. -Psalm 27:13

Readers, we can’t thank you enough for your support of our family’s search for Marizela Perez. It has now been 16 days since she disappeared from the University District on the afternoon of Saturday, March 5.

Remember: You can find all the background information and latest updates at www.findmarizela.com, her Facebook missing persons alert page here, and at my archive of Marizela posts here.

There are no new leads in the police investigation to report. We have hired a private investigator to assist in the search.

Your continued donations will help enormously in supporting the family as life remains on hold while Marizela is missing.

As of 3/20, donors had generously pitched in $6,800 via Paypal. You can donate here.

Again, the generosity and compassion of so many people across the country has been overwhelming.

“Thank you” can’t begin to cover our gratitude.

***

Tammy Bruce graciously covered Marizela during a nearly 15-minute-long segment on the Laura Ingraham show on Friday. The interview is here.

A reader with a different attitude e-mailed last week:

Michelle,

Love your column and often visit your site, but a week of “Where is Marizela?” is six days too much. Japan is burning, Libya is engulfed by civil war, the president is nowhere to be seen — and neither are you!

Take it from a cold and heartless conservative: Leave the missing persons reports to Nancy Grace. We know you care.

Dean

First, guest-blogger Doug Powers is keeping you up to date when I’m not online.

Second, more power to Nancy Grace for covering missing persons cases that would otherwise slip through the cracks. I may not always agree with her approach, but I have a new appreciation for her vigilance.

Third, family comes first in my conservative household. Sorry if you don’t share those values.

***

One more thank you to the North American Missing Persons Network for spotlighting Marizela’s case and providing support/advice.

Another huge thank you to Ed Morrissey and Hot Air readers for their continued help in spreading the word about Marizela.

Wish I had time to personally thank every blogger, reader, and viewer out there who has been supportive — please know that each and every one of your messages, donations, blog posts, and prayers means the world to us.

We spent the weekend on the ground in Seattle, looking for any signs of our missing 18-year-old University of Washington student Marizela Perez.

Family, friends, supporters, student and church volunteers, Facebook users, blog readers, and kind strangers met us on Saturday in the parking lot at the Safeway in the University District where Marizela was last seen. Family members continued the search on Sunday. We spread out and canvassed Ravenna Park, Cowen Park, the Arboretum, the University District, Chinatown, Green Lake, Rainier Beach/Rainier Valley, and the UW Bothell campus.

Nothing.

Family members were on the ground again today in the city. We continue to ask for the public’s help in providing any information possible about Marizela’s whereabouts. The Seattle Police Department continues to investigate. The King County Search and Rescue division has been alerted, but cannot launch an official search mission until law enforcement receives more information and leads on where Marizela went after she left the Safeway.

If any public transportation workers or cab drivers came into contact with Marizela on the afternoon of Sat. March 5, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.

If any Seattle-area hikers or joggers recognize her face, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.

If anyone noticed her after she walked north out of the Safeway on Brooklyn Avenue carrying a green Starbucks mug, a Safeway shopping bag, and a denim drawstring bag on her back, we need you to contact SPD Missing Persons Bureau ASAP. The number there is 206-684-5582.

Last week, the family released screen caps from Safeway surveillance video showing Marizela. Today, the family is releasing video clips of her exiting the check stand and store in hopes of jogging someone’s memory and gathering more clues about her location.

The videos are on YouTube and can be embedded and shared. Please watch and distribute widely:

In this clip, she appears at :18 exiting the store, walking north:

In this clip, she appears at :52 exiting the store, walking north.

Marizela’s parents are also issuing a public statement along with the videos:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STATEMENT FROM EDGAR AND JASMIN PEREZ

PARENTS OF MISSING UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON STUDENT
MARIZELA PEREZ

Seattle, Wash.
March 12, 2011

Contact: Edgar Perez, 609 – 646 – 0905

First, we would like to extend our deepest thanks to all of the citizens in Seattle and across the country who have spread the word about our daughter’s disappearance on Saturday, March 5, in the University District.

We would like to thank Seattle law enforcement and the University of Washington staff, students, administration, and campus police for their ongoing support and assistance at this difficult time.

And we would like to thank all the local media outlets that have covered Marizela’s case with vigilance, compassion and sensitivity.

We remain hopeful and we will not rest until we find Marizela.