“Have you had a chance to call detectives?”
The message came through Monday afternoon from Mrs. Susan, mother of my friend Jessica Lewis. This week marks the 15th anniversary of Jessica’s murder, and I know without responding that Susan is in agony, stays in agony, over the loss of her only daughter. As we creep closer to February 20th, the pain hits as if the wound were fresh. I don’t have the heart to text her back and tell her that calling detectives hasn’t done much good.
You may recall that last year in this space, I invited the Memphis Police Department to a conversation about Jessica’s unsolved case. Some time passed, but I did get an email offer to meet the cold case team and public information officers in person at their Downtown office. My colleague Toby Sells and I sat down at a long table in a room with a dozen uniformed, suited officers, and I was nervous. My voice cracked and my throat closed, all eyes were on me, and to be honest, I still think back on how I fumbled that meeting…