WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Midlands mother refuses to give up hope on missing daughter

Midlands mother refuses to give up hope on missing daughter

(Midlands) January 15, 2007 - After 20 years, Debbie Gutierrez Garnsey has a new belief that her daughter Jesse will be found. It's not new evidence, but rather a real life story of hope.

Last week, two missing Missouri boys were found safe. One of the kids had been missing for more than four years.

Debbie tells WIS' Maggie Alexander, "I'm just excited. It gives me an excitement I can't explain because I told my friend you never know, you never know."

On June sixth, 1986, Garnsey put Jesse and her two sisters to bed. The next morning, Jesse was gone, "My daughter said the man with the magic hat took Jesse last night."

The little brown-eyed four-year-old had been taken in the middle of the night. Debbie remembers, "I ran past them, went to her room screaming out her name - looking under the bed, in the bathroom. I was in the closet, throwing covers off the bed. She was nowhere to be found."

The Lexington County Sheriff's Department says Jesse's case is cold. But that doesn't mean anything to a mother. "I've fought the Devil, thought the bad thoughts. I'm not going to give up looking for my daughter."

Jesse wouldn't be a tiny girl anymore. She would be a woman. An age-progressed photo (right) shows what she might look like, now 25-years-old.

"Sometimes I visualize how she would look, how she would be. I'll keep waiting until I find out."

Garnsey says she also visualizes her daughter's homecoming. And with cases like the one in Missouri, it doesn't seem so unreal.

Anyone with information on Jessica should contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.

Reported by Maggie Alexander

Posted 10:53pm by Chantelle Janelle