What is Justice?

by Todd Blumhorst

What is justice? When we are faced with the murder of our loved one, we are overcome with a plethora of emotions and we begin a search for justice. We as survivors spend so much time seeking that justice that our own grief is often put on a back burner to be dealt with later because the desire for justice for our loved one is stronger than our personal heartache. They were robbed of so much more than we were and our love for them drives that need for justice.

When we think of justice for the crime of murder we generally envision the defendant going to trial, being found guilty, then serving life in prison or execution. We see the evidence in the court procedures and know our loved ones life was cut entirely too short at the hands of the defendant. We want to see them go away for a very long time or be executed and then justice is served.

Is justice an eye for an eye? Is justice found in the prison sentence? Is justice found at the end of the executioner’s needle? What happens if this sequence of events doesn’t happen like that and justice is denied? Worse yet, what if the defendant is never caught or is freed on a technicality? What if they are found to be un-restorable in their mental capacity and are set free? What if a plea is offered and they see much less time than had they been convicted? How does our murdered loved one get justice?

I struggled for years over this last question. How do I get justice for my sister Veronica and her disappearance and probable murder? We have no body, no murder weapon, or no verification of death. The only thing we have is a police report where a person very close to her stated they could have very well killed her but couldn’t quite recall due to a prior brain injury that caused memory loss at times. He went on to tell the police that if he did kill her then he was much smarter than them and her body wasn’t going to be found. For over 22 years, he has been correct, thus far.

My heart breaks when I am working with a family and they do not feel the sentence or outcome was justice. I often have to remind them that we have a court of law and not a court of justice. The laws can, at times, seem unjust for the survivors of homicide because the defendants appear to have all of the rights afforded to them. It is never easy to hear that the person who killed your loved one got off light or never even face a criminal trial because the case is unresolved.

How do we give our loved on justice in these cases? I have struggled with this question for over 22 years now and I get more pieces to the puzzle as the years progress. When I was fresh with grief, anger, hatred, and rage in 1990, I saw justice as taking him out to a field and killing him in the most brutal of fashions. As the years progressed and I saw that the likelihood of the case being resolved grew ever slimmer, I continued to seek resolution. I didn’t care that the investigator on her case appeared to be sitting on her case and not working it. We often went years without even a phone call to say he was thinking of us and he still wanted to find out what happened to Veronica. We go silent, another injustice.

As the 20 year anniversary of her disappearance approached I decided to make sure her memory wasn’t forgotten. I started a Facebook page for her because I was running into people there who would always ask me about her case. Instead of repeating myself constantly, I set up a place where her family and friends could remember her. I figured maybe a handful of friends would join; we had over 100 people in the first week. Currently, there are 1200 members on her page. They remember her, discuss the incompetence of the case management by police, they speculate on who killed her. They keep her memory and case alive.

The members soon began to discuss a memorial service for Veronica since a funeral was never held for her. The groundwork was being laid for a memorial service on the 20 year anniversary. I thought about this for a long time and felt something was missing from this event. I soon came up with the concept of the Veronica Blumhorst Memorial Expo for a Safer Commmunity which was going to be a safety fair of local service agencies to expose the community with the resources that are available to them in Northern Illinois River Valley. Even if it saved one person, there was some justice and Veronica saved a life.

I got a huge sense of relief after the expo and memorial. I felt that she did indeed get a modicum of justice, the scales weren’t even but they moved in her favor some. I returned to Arizona and began to look at the next step. What do I do next to get her more justice? The months went by and fate intervened. I lost two jobs within three months and was desperately seeking a job when I got a message from Gail Leland, the founder of Homicide Survivors. She told me to go there to see if they had anything for me. I went down and was told that they could employ me for two months. I jumped at the opportunity. I feel Veronica interceded from beyond because the permanent person they had hired didn’t work out and I was soon offered a full time position. I knew this was Veornica putting me in a place to work on that justice thing again. This time it was to help others on their journey of grief and by doing that then her death was not in vain and justice is added to her side of the scales.

After a year at Homicide Survivors, I was blessed to help many families during their tragedies. I still had my own tragedy to deal with and the fact that we never found her bothered me immensely. I sought out a human cadaver search team who agreed to assist our family. I went back to Illinois in September of 2012 on another justice mission. We were possibly successful in locating the area her remains are buried but now need to wait until this spring after the thaw and weather stabilizes out more. Hopefully we will bring her home soon for a proper burial. That would be justice to me today, just having her back.

Over time my concept of justice has changed. I started out with an eye for an eye idea of justice and it has evolved to an attitude of “give me back what was mine”. We just want to have that confirmation that she is dead and this state of limbo that has haunted us for 22+ years can be lifted. I would like survivors to know that even if you don’t get justice in court, you can still get justice for your loved one. I went to the extreme and you can too if you choose. You can also do the small things that bring them justice like start a neighborhood watch, volunteer at a womens shelter, or volunteer for something your loved one was passionate about. There are many small ways you can add justice to their side of the scale. Will they balance in the end? Probably not, but you can definitely make a difference and bring some good out of all the bad.

Todd J. Blumhorst, Advocate,
Assistant Volunteer Coordinator

Homicide Survivors Inc.
32 N. Stone Ave. #1408
Tucson, Az. 85701

520.740.5729
azhomicidesurvivors.org

Continuing on the Path

by Todd Blumhorst

I can’t walk another step on this path. I am not sure how much more I can bear. We will never find answers. If you are a long term cold case homicide or missing persons survivor, then you have probably said one of these phrases or something very similar in your head on many occasions. The weight of the unknown can be a perilous path to walk and defeat is forever brooding over your head. The unknown is always there of your waking moments, jabbing you in the side to constantly reminding you of its presence.

I can relate to that constant reminder in the case of my missing sister. I have had to live in the unknown for 22 years now; that is over half of my life. I have had to do a lot of self-advocacy for our family due to many factors with the law enforcement agency in charge of her case. There have been many times when the cards were stacked against me in my continuing search for answers. There were many times when I wanted to just give up and stop looking for answers. Many nights I would toss and turn in bed wondering how much more would be added to my plate. People have often told me that God trusts us and only gives us what we can handle; I really wish God didn’t trust me so much if this is the case. How does one go forward when faced with mountainous obstacles placed before them to obtain case resolution? When you are the survivor of a long term case where either the killer and or the remains of your loved one remain unknown it becomes difficult to “move on” with your life. The thought of going forward is a terrifying concept for our brains to manage and process.

In my situation, finding a stable grounding was the first hurdle to overcome. I was 16 when she left us and I was already dealing with teen problems and then one huge adult problem was placed in all of our laps. We never imagined having to live this nightmare and my parents did a great job of keeping me on track even though they were blinded by grief. After a while, Veronica wasn’t really brought up around the house and this upset me to no end. I would try to talk about her but the grimaces I would get when she was mentioned gave me the feeling that I was imposing too much on people around me.

As the years passed, I grew older and became involved in a long term relationship; I had hope for some sort of salvation by being able to talk to my partner about Veronica. It soon became evident quickly that he didn’t want to listen to me about my sister either and was asked to not discuss her death with him because it made him feel uncomfortable. I felt lost and didn’t know what to do next because her case had grown cold by this point and no one seemed to care. In hindsight, it’s not that people didn’t care- it was that the pain was so deep that it instilled actual fear in the people of our community. It was when I moved to Tucson where relief came and I found Homicide Survivors. I was finally able to tell my story uninterrupted.

After some time of working on my own grief, I gathered the strength to push for answers in her case. It was out of sheer love for my sister and a sense of justice that propelled me further down the path. It has always been an uphill battle in her case but I always kept the main goal in mind: find her body and advocate for justice for her. Earlier this year I decided that since her case was no longer active I would need to reignite the case with a search. I secured a private organization that performs canine searches for human remains who agreed to assist us in a search. I directed them to a couple of areas we have always suspected to be a potential burial site. We went to the first location and it was quickly determined there were no human remains present; it seemed that another hurdle had been placed before me. We then went to the second site which was quite larger and got two hits within 30 minutes, hope was ignited again that she would soon be found. We are in another holding pattern presently while the leaves and ground in the area dry up and the team can arrange a grid search with more dogs. Hopefully this part of the path is upon us and we start down the path to justice for Veronica.

It is important to me to obtain justice for Veronica; just as you do in your individual cases I am certain. In those moments when doubt creeps into your mind and you feel justice will never come, take a few deep breaths and realize that you can only do your best and much of the situation is out of your control. The love you had for them will be your driver in seeking justice, but don’t beat yourself up should you encounter obstacles. What I have learned in this continuing journey is that our loved ones hear us and they know we are trying to balance the scales of justice. I may not get discovery of her remains or justice, but I keep moving forward and trying to reach that goal and my love for her will sustain me on this journey.

Todd J. Blumhorst, Advocate,
Assistant Volunteer Coordinator

Homicide Survivors Inc.
32 N. Stone Ave. #1408
Tucson, Az. 85701

520.740.5729
azhomicidesurvivors.org

Signs they are Around

by Todd Blumhorst

I miss my sister Veronica immensely. She left us over 20 years ago without a trace, she simply vanished. I went to bed one night and woke up the next day to a lifetime of loss and unresolved grief. She was here one minute, and then she was gone. I lamented over her disappearance and the loss. We knew who killed her most likely. We knew why he probably killed her. We just never found out where her body was hidden. She just vanished.

The turmoil takes a heavy toll upon the soul and wears you down day by day. The not knowing is what really gets to a survivor of a missing person case. I read a great saying that rings true in my case and thousands of others around this country. “It’s only murder when they find a body; otherwise it’s just a missing person.” When you have an apparent death but have no body then many questions arise and even the validation of death is difficult to accept.

I struggled for years with this unknown fate of my sister and the lack of closure kept open a void in my heart that seemed like it would never be healed. I had no body to mourn over, no grave to go lay flowers on, or any sense of being able to find peace. I would walk out to our garage and see her car sitting there like it was that night. I would go into her room and look at her things and hold them in my hand. Her worldly possessions were here for me to touch yet she was gone. I missed those moments of hanging out with her and talking to her about the mundane aspects of life. That was all gone; no more would we sit on the porch and talk about the future because there was no future.

My faith waivered greatly and I yearned for answers. One night a few months after she disappeared, Veronica came to me in a dream. It was vividly real, like I could touch her. In this dream I knew she was dead and I asked her when it would end. She said it may never end but it really didn’t matter if she was found. I was so perplexed at this dream and it was almost haunting.

A few months later she visited me in another dream. In the dream I heard someone walking on our front porch and went to open the front door. I looked down and saw her shoes and pants that were torn, dirty, and covered with leaves. As I looked up, I saw her face with her glasses shattered as she wore them. She said nothing and simply walked through me. I looked down and saw another pair of highly shined men’s shoes. As I looked up I saw her boyfriend who had been behind her. He just sent me the feeling of “Here she is.”; and I then woke up.

Several months later I still struggled with the uncertainty of her fate, and another dream formed in my sleep. Our family was all together in this dream and we had gathered for some sort of party, it was a very upbeat and happy event at my childhood home. I remember at one point in the dream my mom saying it was time to leave. As we were out on the front lawn, I noticed Veronica wasn’t with us and told mom that I needed to go get her. Mom told me no and that she needed to stay behind. I was confused as to why we were leaving her behind at the party. Mom told me to go say bye to her, so I went back in the house. When I got in the house I noticed the remaining party attendees forming a half circle facing me. I noticed for the first time that they were all family members who were already dead; in the center stood Veronica. I just stood there with wonderment and told Veronica we needed to go, she told me that I needed to go back with the rest outside and that she needed to stay behind. Veronica said she was ok and that she was being taken care of by everyone. She then assured me that we would see each other again someday and I needed to live my life and be happy.

I struggled for years to put those dreams together and make sense of them, but it was difficult to go on with the void of the unknown. What I did know was that those visits had a positive effect on my emotions. It gave me a sense of peace that I was not able to find in previous attempts to ease the pain. This got my mind stabilized enough to get a foothold again on the side of the mountain I was climbing. Many times on the journey up, I slipped and held on by my fingertips hoping grace would keep me from falling. At some points on the climb I almost let go so the pain would stop, but I kept climbing. These visits from Veronica became the ropes that kept me from falling off the face of the mountain.

As the years progressed, I began to study metaphysics and paranormal communication. I realized that many people would think I was mentally unstable for following such beliefs, but it gave me comfort for the first time in years. I began to have faith that she could hear me when I talked to her in those moments when I was alone. She started giving me more signs that she was around over the years. They leave their presence known in many ways and they are usually very subtle in nature. We as humans expect the grandeur of a spirit form appearing before us when it is usually a butterfly hanging out or a song on the radio pops on when you were thinking of them.

Over the years I have been blessed many times with the gifts of contact that she has given me. On one paranormal investigation, we even caught something touching me on my head as we stood in the dark woods. Every time I go to the park where her name is engraved, I am always visited by a butterfly that will stick around and flutter by me a few times. I pay attention more to the signs I am given by Veronica that she is still around me. It doesn’t erase the pain I am going through in losing her, but it takes out some of the sting.

The pain of her violent death will always be with me and is a part of me; that is unavoidable. I can however, find some solace in knowing that she is around me and helping where she is able. We all have our faith practices that get us through the difficult times and mine has been knowing that she can hear me and that we will see each other again someday.

Todd J. Blumhorst, Advocate,
Assistant Volunteer Coordinator

Homicide Survivors Inc.
32 N. Stone Ave. #1408
Tucson, Az. 85701

520.740.5729
azhomicidesurvivors.org