There are no words, really, to express the depth of feelings that I and the rest of San Diego have for Amber Dubois, Chelsea King and their four parents. They have went through unimaginable pain and six lives have been ruined. I have an extra dose of sympathy for Amber's parents, who had to endure 13 months of unanswered questions. Now, at least, they can have closure. It wasn't the answer anyone wanted, but closure is better than not knowing.It hit home how awful this was when the bodies were discovered,but what really made it personal to me was when I used Google Maps to survey the street where Amber, her mother and her mother's boyfriend had lived. As I used Street View to go up and down the street, I stumbled across the view shown in this post. The Google Maps camera had, at some random time in the last 13 months, went down Amber's street and had picked up what must be Dave Cave's (Amber's mom's boyfriend) truck, complete with Amber posters on the door and back. Though Amber's mother moved out shortly after Amber's disappearance, Mr. Cave kept up the vigil to find that little girl. It must have been a hellish 13 months.
I am fighting off depression from the events of the last two weeks, as is the rest of the community. But I'm pulling out of it and did not reach anywhere near the depths of depression I felt when, in 1997, Susan Eubanks shot her four sons in the head because she was mad at her boyfriend. Those deaths happened just three miles from my home at the time and to this day, 13 years later, I think of those boys every time I pass the lot where their home once stood. The only way I pulled out of my funk after that happened was to take an out of town trip. We went to Henderson, NV to see my wife's relatives and, as the miles ticked by as we left town, I could feel the weight of it all lift from my shoulders. As we relaxed in Nevada, I could finally look at things from an impartial third party perspective instead of as if my community had been shattered.
At this point, my only hope is that Gardner is indeed responsible for Amber's death also. Because if he isn't, there is still a killer on the loose.
