Friday, February 5, 2010

Now They Know...

Stephanie Clark &Alice Beverly hold pictures of their sister, Paula Beverly Davis

Stephanie Clack's sister, Paula Beverly Davis, went missing 22 years ago. She never knew what happened to her.

Thanks to a television show, a Web site, and two tattoos, she now knows more.

Davis was strangled and her body dumped in Ohio, after she went missing from her Missouri home.

The story began to unfold in October when a relative called after watching an episode of the television show, "The Forgotten" [ABC, Tuesday evenings, 10pm EST]. A web site was listed on the show, NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The Department of Justice recently launched the site as a repository for unidentified remains and missing persons.

Clack put in her sister's information, and came up with ten possible matches.

Two unmistakable identification marks came up, tattoos of a rose and a unicorn, and Clack knew she'd found her sister.

Clack contacted Montgomer County, Ohio authorities. She found out her sisters' body had been found on an Interstate 70 entrance ramp, August 10, 1987 - just two days after she went missing. She had been strangled. The homicide investigation that followed the discovery remains unsolved today.

Davis' unidentified remains were buried in Montgomery County with no name and no headstone. A DNA test has confirmed she is, indeed, Paula Beverly Davis.

Clack and her sister, Alice Beverly, had searched all over the Internet for ways to find their sister and find out what happened to her. NamUs  has brought them that information, and perhaps a little closure.

Because Clack and her family have no funds [both she and her husband are currently unemployed, the cast and crew of "The Forgotten", including actor Christian Slater and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, have offered to cover the $5,000 needed to exhume Davis' body, have it cremated, and sent to Missouri where her family live, and have it reinterred there.

Clack states that after her sister became missing, her mother had a break down. She later died, never knowing what happened to her daughter, Paula.

"Our biggest goal was to her [Davis] home, back with her family where she belongs."

Kudos to "The Forgotten"'s cast and crew for making this happen.

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