Buttons put faces on missing adults - NE/ AL

[AmyStrange]

September 26, 2004
Buttons put faces on missing adults
By Crystal Bonvillian
Montgomery Advertiser

FROM: http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/NEWSV5/storyV5jason926w.htm
Eleven-year-old Timothy Davis of Bristol, N.H., has never met LaQuanta Riley, but he carries a button emblazoned with her picture on his backpack every day in the hopes of someday easing her family's suffering.

Riley, now 20, got into a car outside her Montgomery home the night of Dec. 7 and has not been seen since. There have been few leads on her whereabouts. Her disappearance nearly 10 months ago has left many, including her family and the police, baffled. "We've come to the point now where we've talked to everyone," said Montgomery police Sgt. Scott Martino, a detective working the case. "Right now, she's still considered missing, and we hope for the best. We hope that we'll find her alive and well."

Riley's case has gained new interest, however, in the form of Project Jason, a Nebraska-based organization that helps families of the missing. Kelly Jolkowski, the organization's president, founded the group after her 19-year-old son, Jason Jolkowski, disappeared from outside their Omaha home one June afternoon in 2001. "There are no indications that he's a runaway to me," Jolkowski said. "But there's no proof of anything happening to him. That's what these families are going through -- the limbo. These families deserve some peace of mind."

Project Jason, which celebrates its first anniversary Oct. 6, began the "Adopt a Missing Person" program June 13, the third anniversary of Jason's disappearance. Riley is one of the adopted.
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