Mothers of missing people in Chicago area have plea for new leads this Mother's Day
A Mother's Day celebration with flowers, balloons, and cake was held in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood Sunday, but it was no ordinary celebration.
The women at the celebration marked the holiday with a plea, as they do at the event every year. They are looking for new leads to solve their children's disappearances.
In the crowd was the mother of postal worker Kierra Coles, who vanished on Oct. 2, 2018. Coles was 26 when she was last seen at 81st Street and Vernon Avenue in the Chatham neighborhood – and she was three months pregnant at the time.
Coles' mother, Karen Phillips, does not want to hold the annual event again next year.
"I just I just hope I don't have to go into another year next year," said Phillips. "I don't want to stand up here and be saying that I want my daughter home."
Also present was the mother of Diamond Bynum, who was 21 when she disappeared with her nephew, 2-year-old King Walter, in Gary, Indiana, on July 25, 2015. They went for a walk and never returned.
"As long as they haven't found their bodies, I believe that they are still out there somewhere," said LaShann Walker, Bynum's mother and the grandmother of King Walker.
Each of the moms at the event held out hope that police would find some answers and that their stories would not be forgotten. The moms said Mother's Day is a painful reminder of what they've lost and how few answers they have.
CBS News Chicago asked how the moms react to cases like the recent discovery of the body of Karen Schepers, whose remains were found in March in the Fox River in Elgin 42 years after she was reported missing.
The mothers said it rekindles their own pain, and some discoveries have them on edge as they wait for a phone call to see if the remains belong to their loved ones.
Meanwhile, when police found the remains of missing Gary woman Lisa Wright in a garage on March 28, Walker was worried it could be one of her loved ones — saying some discoveries reignite their own pain.
"It makes my heart drop every time I hear something. I was on pins and needles the whole entire time, waiting for information," Walker said. "It's just a heartbreaking thing, just not knowing. That's the worst part — not knowing."
The moms who gathered this Mother's Day said they come together each year to ask for help — from the police departments working on each case, and from the public because someone may know something.
