Missing (page 6 of 8)

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A Grim Discovery

"Monica tries to bridge the gap between families and law enforcement,"says Marc Benson, a former Wilmington detective (and longtime mentor) who's now a private investigator. "Not many people step up to the plate the way she does."Her background helps her win the trust of people who might be wary of cops and to pick up nuances that other observers might miss.

Caison made sure the case stayed in the press, hoping to generate tips, keep investigators digging and pressure Glover into talking. She held fund- raisers for the family -- including a "chain of love," in which hundreds of Wake Forest residents linked arms, holding portraits of C.J. She made herself available day and night, even as she juggled other cases. "Sometimes I'd call at 9 p.m., and it would be 1 a.m. before we got off the phone,"says Wilkerson. Caison brought in highly trained dog teams to help with the searches. And she kept her eye out for clues.

One cropped up when the police returned Tracey's blue Honda Civic. "See that dent in the bumper?" Tracey asked Caison. "That wasn't there before." Caison urged her to call investigators and tell them about the dent and the fact that a large suitcase was missing from her house. After finding a bit of beige paint in the damaged area on the Civic, investigators traced it to a commercial van, whose driver said he'd had a fender bender with a Honda on the day C.J. vanished. The location of the crash was near the home of a woman who turned out to be a girlfriend of Glover's.

The woman told investigators she'd seen a big green suitcase in Glover's car that day and had noticed it was gone when he returned from an errand. All these developments found their way into news reports that Glover could watch in his cell. It is difficult to convict a man for murder before a body is found. But if that body is located before the murderer has confessed, he loses any hope of using it as a bargaining chip. That's why, on May 10 -- four months after C.J.'s disappearance, and the day before Caison planned to conduct a search of the site -- Glover led police to the suitcase in the woods.

He admitted that he had strangled C.J. that morning in January in a fit of rage against the child's mother. In exchange for his confession, prosecutors agreed to reduce the charge to second-degree murder. Glover is serving a prison term of 48 to 60 years.

Clarence Wilkerson, Jr., for his part, is now a board member of CUE, helping other parents through similar travails. "Monica is an angel," he says. "I love her from the bottom of my heart."