furthermer i worked so i arranged with her to watch the kids while i worked. it was a god send really since jeri had to be hospitalized for weeks after raymond was born and get back to work and find a new home to take the kids to. i d come out there on my day off to stay with the kids and spend some time with them. so then i called her and told her i was coming to get the kids and the next day i went out there, and gone. not a sign of them. no kids, no shirley. frantic then she went to the police. what did you tell them? your children had been kidnapped? yep, and they took the report and that s the last i heard. did you go back and talk to them again? i went back two or three times and told me the same thing, they hadn t found anything. see looked on her own and found year after year, nothing. had no idea, she said, that
that s right. tell me about that. to me i feel it was my fault because i put them in the hands of this monster. we re in a hotel room in los angeles, jeri is eager, anxious, terrified, visibly shaking. and then they come around the corner. their first meeting of 37 years. wow. it s been a lifetime we ve missed. i feel i m dreaming still. i can t really get it yet. i can t either. can i just stare at you for a minute? you can do anything, honey. i m sad because i was there with you. you re my mom. yes. you re my babies.
and now it was barbara s turn to tell a story. shirley had been her friend, she said, had told her about a woman working in the sex trade named jeri smith who didn t want her babies and one day she showed up at the house. barbara could see it was a little iffy but she wanted that baby so badly. and so she said she ignored the red flags. nope, didn t care. didn t really care. she was going to see to it, she said, that rhonda was loved and cared for by the best parent she could ever possibly have. bob and barbara legally adopted their little princess four years later in the fall of 1973. and it was shortly after that, said barbara, when shirley and rene showed up at her door. and the kids played together and we visited together, and she