| The Post and Courier Sept 22, 2005 |
She looked a lot like Brandy, even answered to her name.
A man had seen the woman in the Big Lots on Rivers Avenue, stopped and talked to her briefly. She
had told him, "I'm not missing."
His story carried just enough detail to give Donna Parent the familiar stirrings of hope.
In the four months since her daughter, Brandy Hanna, disappeared from her North Charleston
apartment, Parent has heard it all.
Folks claim they have seen Hanna in North Charleston hotels, and walking along a Johns Island
road. A search team came to town with tracking dogs, and one national television show has expressed
interest. But so far, police have few leads in the 32-year-old woman's disappearance, and no one has
even called about the reward money.
Such is life for the family of a missing person.
The Big Lots sighting seemed like a credible story. The man had seen the girl one day, told her friend
the next. Two days later, Parent and North Charleston police were at the store, looking at surveillance
videos.
"She bore a striking resemblance to Brandy," Parent said. "It gave me hope, but it's such a letdown
when you figure out it's not her."
On May 20, Hanna left work at the Alex's Restaurant her mother manages on Dorchester Road,
caught a ride home with a customer and settled in for a long weekend. She planned to go shopping
that evening, see her boyfriend and go to the beach on Saturday, meet her family for breakfast on
Sunday. But sometime that evening, between 9 and 10:30 p.m., Hanna vanished.
Since that time, Parent has learned a lot about the world of missing adults. There are more than
97,000 missing person cases in the country. Most are for people who disappear without a trace.
There is so little that can be done. Police have given polygraph tests to Hanna's boyfriend and
ex-boyfriend, they've questioned friends, co-workers and family members. They searched her
apartment for clues, and came up with next to nothing. Hanna disappeared with her new cell phone,
and apparently didn't take much else with her -- not even money.
With detectives stumped, Parent became frustrated. She got some hope when Monica Caison,
founder of the North Carolina-based CUE Center for Missing Persons, brought a five-dog team in
August to scour the area around Hanna's Florida Avenue apartment. Ultimately, they found nothing
concrete.
Gary Dillon, Hanna's stepfather, hung new posters in West Ashley, designed by a national missing
persons organization. "Hopefully, we'll get an answer," he said. "At least something would be better
than not knowing anything."
Dillon describes Parent as "holding up pretty darn good, considering." He says her work as manager
at Alex's keeps her busy seven days a week. But even at work, she cannot escape the family horror.
Posters and articles about Hanna hang on the restaurant's wall. Outside the reader board still asks,
"Where is Brandy?"
"A lot of people come in and ask about her and say, 'I'm praying for you.' Well, I say pray for her -- this
is about Brandy," Parent said.
In the past month, Parent saw a chance to bring publicity to the case lost when Caison's appearance
on "Larry King Live" was canceled because of Hurricane Katrina. Caison planned to highlight
Hanna's case on the show.
The case has gotten a national boost this month from Project Jason, a Nebraska-based missing
persons center. Kelly Jolkowski, president of the organization, featured Hanna's story on her Web site
and this month is distributing posters through her 18 Wheel Angels program. Truck drivers and
anyone else who volunteers can download posters with photos and a detailed description of Hanna
and post them in truck stops, restaurants and any other public place throughout the country.
In about a year and a half of work, the program has gotten about 9,000 posters of missing persons
distributed throughout the country. Jolkowski, whose own son has been missing since 2001, said she
chose Hanna's case for the program because she fit the profile of a missing person with some hope of
being found.
"Awareness is the key in these cases," Jolkowski said. "It's really tough with missing adults, because
the older they get, the harder it is to get attention for them."
For now, the trail is going cold and the police can only react to new leads. Parent is left to come up with
anything new she can to keep people helping her look. Brandy's birthday is in November, and she
has considered a candlelight vigil for her on that date.
Then she stops and thinks. "She will have been missing nearly six months by then," Parent said.
There is so little that can be done. Police have given polygraph tests to [Brandy Hanna]'s boyfriend
and ex-boyfriend, they've questioned friends, co-workers and family members. They searched her
apartment for clues, and came up with next to nothing. Hanna disappeared with her new cell phone,
and apparently didn't take much else with her -- not even money.
[Gary Dillon] describes Parent as "holding up pretty darn good, considering." He says her work as
manager at Alex's keeps her busy seven days a week. But even at work, she cannot escape the family
horror. Posters and articles about Hanna hang on the restaurant's wall. Outside the reader board still
asks, "Where is Brandy?"
The case has gotten a national boost this month from Project Jason, a Nebraska-based missing
persons center. Kelly Jolkowski, president of the organization, featured Hanna's story on her Web site
and this month is distributing posters through her 18 Wheel Angels program. Truck drivers and
anyone else who volunteers can download posters with photos and a detailed description of Hanna
and post them in truck stops, restaurants and any other public place throughout the country.
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| Mother presses hunt for missing woman Leads are few, hopes are many 4 months after Brandy disappeared |
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