03/29/2024
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By: Jefferson Weaver

Jefferson-WeaverA proud mom contacted me the other day about her son, a high school senior. His picture had been in the paper, and she wanted a copy.

I won’t embarrass him here, but I’ve known the young man since he was a little kid. He’s a fine young man, respectful of his elders, and always ready to lend a helping hand. He’s a good athlete, and likes NASCAR, hunting and girls, like any normal 18-year-old.

I like to think Buddy Myers would have been the same.

Tristen “Buddy” Myers laid down to take a nap on Oct. 5, 2000. His Great-Aunt Donna was tired, as anyone would be dealing with a bustling four-year-old, and she took advantage of a few minutes to rest herself.

Ten years later, Donna told me she hardly sleeps anymore.

When she woke up, Buddy was gone. His footprints led to the yard, but that’s where the trail ended. Searchers found a favorite toy of his on the trail leading to a neighbor’s horse barn, but that wasn’t unusual – he made the short trek every day. Buddy’s footprints to and from the barn overlapped like the years that have passed since he disappeared.

“Disappeared” is such an odd word. Things don’t just magically vanish, especially little boys. They might be out of sight for a while, but they don’t just disappear. I speak from experience, having earned a reputation as a hider when I was Buddy’s age, even eliciting a full-bore neighborhood wide search on at least one occasion I was asleep behind the dining room door (at least I was innocent that time).

Things don’t just dematerialize, especially little kids.

But Buddy did.

I was in bed and nearly asleep when my editor called and wanted me on the scene of the search. Miss Rhonda and I headed to Microwave Tower Road, near Roseboro, as fast as the Oldsmobile would go, which was pretty darn fast, but we had diplomatic immunity.

Besides, nobody cared about a speeder that night. Every firefighter, police officer, sheriff’s deputy, rescue volunteer, hunter and neighbor was on top of the dusty rise near the end of Microwave Tower Road, hollering “Bobby, Bobby” until they found out his name was Buddy.

I have perhaps belabored that Buddy never got a decent break, but that was the case. His mom was a stripper; his dad unknown. His grandmother took him in, then was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Donna and her husband John then stepped up to the plate, pressing the hold button on their dreams of a semi-retirement driving a big rig across the country. His mom later died when she jumped from a moving truck near Fayetteville.

Buddy was finally happy when he was with Donna and John, although he did have some episodes that may have indicated pre-natal exposure to drugs. He had his dogs, his neighbor’s horses, and a stable, loving family. He liked sitting in John’s big-rig, pretending to drive.

But on that lovely October day, when football was in full swing, the leaves were turning, and almost everyone was preparing for deer season – Buddy walked out the door and disappeared.

We searched for that boy for three nights and three days; I say “we,” because like several other reporters, I got too close to the story. I’m fairly sure, come to think of it, that we all did.

Volunteers came from a dozen states to help; they lived in tents, ate food brought in by the carload from churches and people who just wanted to help, and fought their way through swamps, clay bogs, Carolina bays and fields. Helicopters stacked up to use the landing pad at the command center.

Volunteers filled in for deputies directing traffic, so the officers could get back on the search parties. Native American trackers found possible footprints, a self-proclaimed Ouija board master with multi-colored hair was asked to get out of the middle of a bridge, and a firefighter found tracks from a three-legged dog (Buddy’s dogs vanished with him, then later returned, clean and unharmed.)

But we found nothing.

On the evening of the third day, the chief deputy called all the searchers and media together. A cold front was roaring in, and temperatures were dropping fast. Weather conditions were worsening, and there was, officially, very little hope that Buddy was still alive if he was still in the area.

It was on the way to that evening’s assembly that I noticed the first of the yellow ribbons. Some of them survived a decade before the last threads frayed in the wind and they themselves disappeared. The “Missing” posters in store windows had mostly long gone, although you can still find them online, and in dusty boxes of files under reporters’ desks.

Some things, however, don’t tatter, wear out, and fade away. I met Monica Caison during the search for Buddy, and I make no bones about it—that lady is a hero in my book. She runs the Community United Effort for Missing Persons, commonly called CUE. At the time, it was a little, local non-profit; now Monica gets calls for help from all over the world.

She helps families with missing family members; sometimes there are happy endings, but other times it’s more a matter of closure. Having worked with her on several other cases, and gotten a taste of what she deals with, I can’t imagine the voices she hears in her sleep. She’s a stronger person than I am, is all I can say.

Miss Rhonda and I have no children of our own, but when I look at little Miss Bella, or the Gingersnap, or our nieces, nephews and in some cases, their kids – I can’t imagine dealing with the disappearance of a child. Another “Missing Mom” who I interviewed said frankly that it was easier to lose her other child to death, than to have one simply disappear.

Buddy Myers would have been a high school senior this year, just like the boy whose proud mom called me looking for a newspaper. I’d like to think he would have been a star on every team he joined. I’d like to think he’d say yes m’am, and no sir, and hold doors, and go to church every Sunday.

But Buddy Myers disappeared, even though little kids don’t just disappear.

The yellow ribbons are forgotten now, except by a few who remember three days in October, when a little kid called Buddy Myers wasn’t just another little kid — he was everybody’s child.

• If you have any information about Buddy Myers or any missing persons case, contact your local law enforcement agency or the CUE Center at 910.343.1131.

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