Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisKristen's Law
To this day, Onuma, who moved back to his native Hawaii in 1999, maintains he had nothing to do with Kristen's disappearance, and, although police have not eliminated him as a suspect, they say there is not enough direct evidence to charge him either.Months after Onuma came to their attention, Mahanay and Bradley learned about a personal ad that appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian a week before Kristen's disappearance. It read in part, "Female seeking friend(s) to share activities, who enjoy music, photography, working out, walks, coffee or simply the beach, exploring the Bay Area!" They believe that Kristen may have placed the free ad -- and gotten a response from someone who lured her into bad circumstances. But by the time Mahanay contacted the newspaper, the computer files showing who had placed the ad had been purged.
Since June 1997, the Modafferis have visited San Francisco a dozen times. They've fought to keep their daughter's disappearance in the spotlight. They've prodded investigators, hired four private eyes, created a website, manned phones and answered e-mails, hoping to get the tip that will break open the case. Mahanay says he's never seen anything like it. He wishes he could give them the answers every parent deserves. "I lie awake at night," he says. "We want to bring closure to this family. I truly feel this case will be resolved, even if it takes ten years. There are people out there looking over their shoulder, and my word to them is to keep looking."
Deborah says it's the unanswered questions that are the hardest. "It's worse than losing a child in death," she says, "because then you can grieve and go on. We still have the hurt of not knowing." Because she and Robert believe their daughter's case suffered from such a slow start, they have sought to find a way for missing adult cases to get the same attention as missing children cases do. "Had Kristen disappeared just 23 days before she did, when she was still legally a minor, there's a good chance we could have had early success," says Robert.
"It shouldn't matter how old a person is when they go missing," says Deborah. "No one should be turned away from resources for that reason."
In 1998, the Modafferis convinced Congresswoman Sue Myrick of North Carolina to back national funding for a center like the NCMEC, but for adults. Two years later, a bill passed creating Kristen's Law. It provided $1.8 million to the Phoenix-based Center for Missing Adults, which, among other things, is putting together a national registry of missing adults that will serve as a central repository of information accessible to the public, advocacy groups and law enforcement.
"We've always maintained the slimmest hope that our daughter will be found," says Deborah. Kristen's bedroom back home is just as it was when she left; her sisters don't use the two twin beds in her room -- not even for sleepovers. And Deborah hangs a stocking for Kristen each Christmas.
It's for the girls that the couple tries to maintain some semblance of a normal family life. "I thank God we have three other children," Robert says. "They keep us busy and give us a sense of purpose as parents, a reason to go on."
"We're doing the best we can," says Deborah. "What else can we do?"
Advertisement 
