10 years since Jessica Cain disappeared

Finding Jessica Cain used to be a lot easier.

“The saying around the school was, ‘If you can’t find Jessica, look in Mrs. T’s room,” Pat Teltschik said.

Teltschik, known to generations of O’Connell High School students as “Mrs. T,” has taught English and ran the school’s drama program for decades.

A decade (and three months) ago, Teltschik was saying goodbye to one of her most memorable students — a spirited, creative kid who excelled at acting, dancing and reaching out to others.

In O’Connell’s 1997 yearbook, Jessica had stated that her goals were “to finish college and turn all my dreams into reality.”

By the time the 1997-98 school year started in late August, the dream for Jessica’s family and friends was for her to come home safely. Ten years later, the dream is simply to learn what happened to her.

“It was just devastating,” Teltschik said. “We started the school year with a big assembly, and her mother came and pleaded for anyone who knew anything to come forward.”

Jessica was last seen 10 years ago today.

She was leaving a Bennigan’s restaurant at Bay Area Boulevard and Interstate 45 where she had dinner with a group of friends after a performance at Dickinson’s Harbour Playhouse.

The next morning, her father found the pickup truck she had been driving parked on the shoulder of the southbound lanes of Interstate 45 between exits 7 and 8 in La Marque. There was no trace of her.

Since then, detectives have followed leads and volunteers have scoured fields, but no one has found any trace of Jessica Cain.

La Marque police Capt. Donald Head said he hoped the dark anniversary would lead someone to disclose a long-held secret.

“Someone knows something,” he said. “And all it takes is that one phone call to break a case wide open. We’re hoping the renewed attention brought on by the 10-year mark will motivate someone to tell us what they know.”

Jessica was O’Connell’s Drama Club president her senior year — choreographing dance routines for entire productions, directing one-act plays and acting — but Teltschik said the girl was more like a group mother.

“She was one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known,” the teacher said. “I know people always say things like that after a tragedy, but it’s true.

“If there were a boy sitting in the corner of the room, she’d go over to him, talk to him and make sure he was all right. She was not one who ignored anybody.”

That sometimes included Teltschik herself.

“I remember more than one opening night, when I’d be going crazy because someone had forgotten their lines or someone froze on stage,” she said. “Jessica would come up to me, put her hands on my head to bring our foreheads together and say, ‘Mrs. T, it’s going to be OK.’”

The multitalented child always seemed ready to tackle any challenge, Teltschik said.

“Actually, one of my favorite memories of her is when we went to Austin for state competitions,” she said. “Jessica was in the drama competition, but she didn’t make the finals. But she wanted to go to the final competition so bad, she somehow wiggled her way into the spelling competition. I still don’t know how she did it.”

Teltschik laughed as she continued the tale.

“I just remember watching the students on the spelling — and they gave them really difficult words — and Jessica would look up, and her eyes would just roll up into her head. I don’t think she knew one of those words, only because she hadn’t studied that list. All she knew was that she wanted a chance to be in the final competition.”

However, Teltschik also wondered if Jessica’s confidence and compassion did not prove her undoing.

“I have no doubt that if someone was flashing their lights at her, she would have pulled over, because she would have wanted to help someone who needed it, and she thought she could handle herself,” Teltschik said.

Still, a small reminder of Jessica Cain remains in the drama room where she spent hours a day, for four years.

About two years after Jessica vanished, students looking for props found a piece of plywood that Jessica had signed while at O’Connell.

The signature was big and stylish, with an angel’s halo over the “C” in “Cain.”

Teltschik said she was glad to have a sign of Jessica, one that was signed by friends who had known her when she attended the school.

Friends also will commemorate Jessica Cain Saturday, with a 10 a.m. vigil on the steps of the Galveston County Courthouse, 600 59th St., in Galveston.

Afterward, from noon to 4 p.m. that day, O’Connell will sell dinners to raise money for the Jessica Cain Scholarship Fund.

The dinners will be sold for $6 donations at the school, 1320 23rd St., in Galveston.

+++ Mysteries Along I-45

Anniversaries of disappearances and unsolved killings can be trying times, not only for the families of the victims, but for others who lost loved ones similarly. Among the unsolved cases of missing and murdered girls and women in Galveston County are:

July 1, 1971 — Brenda Jones, 14, was last seen in Galveston, saying she was on her way to visit a relative in the hospital. She never made it there. Brenda’s body was later found floating in Galveston Bay, about 500 yards west of the Pelican Island Bridge, with a head wound and a piece of cloth stuffed into her mouth.

Nov. 9, 1971 — Allison Craven, 12, vanished from her Galveston home. About three months later, her dismembered remains were found, buried in two separate places — in a field near her family’s home and in another field, in Pearland, about 13 miles southeast of Houston.

Nov. 19, 1971 — The half-nude bodies of Ball High School students Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson, both 15, were found in Turner’s Bayou in Texas City, four days after they had gone missing. Both had been shot to death.

Sept. 6, 1974 — Brooks Bracewell, 12, and Georgia Geer, 14, were last seen at a payphone outside a Dickinson convenience store. Their remains were later found in an Alvin marsh.

Oct. 10, 1983 — Sondra Romber, 14, left her Santa Fe home for school, but never arrived there. Her father reported her missing the day after he returned home to find his daughter gone and his house unlocked.

Oct. 26, 1985 — Michelle Doherty Thomas, 17, disappeared after leaving her Alta Loma home with a group of friends. Investigators believe she may have been kidnapped and killed because she had served as a police informant in a drug bust.

May 1986 — Shelley Sikes, 19, left her summer job at Gaido’s restaurant for her Texas City home, but never made it. Her car was found on Interstate 45’s northbound feeder road, about a mile north of the causeway. Her body was never recovered, but Bayview resident John Robert King and El Lago resident Gerald Peter Zwarst were later convicted of aggravated kidnapping, the most severe charge prosecutors could pursue without a body, in the case.

Oct. 1988 — Suzanne Rene Richerson, 22, disappeared from the lobby of the Casa Del Mar Condominiums on Galveston’s Seawall Boulevard. One of her shoes was found, but no one has been able to turn up any other trace of her.

Sept. 1991 — The remains of an unidentified woman, known as “Janet Doe,” was found in a Calder Road field, just east of Interstate 45. Her body was the fourth found in the field since 1984. Heidi Villareal Fye, 25, disappeared in 1983 and Laura Miller, 16, disappeared in 1984, both from the same convenience store. The bodies of Fye and Miller later turned up in the field, as did another unidentified woman, known only as “Jane Doe.”

March 5, 1996 — Krystal Jean Baker, 13, was reported missing after being seen last walking in the 4500 block of FM 1765. Her body was later found near Interstate 10 and the Trinity River in Chambers County.

April 1997 — Laura Kate Smither, 12, disappeared while jogging near her Friendswood home. Her body was found weeks later in a Pasadena retention pond. Friendswood Crime Stoppers, at 281-480-8477, is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and indictment of anyone involved in the child’s death.

Aug. 17 1997 — Jessica Lee Cain, 17, disappeared on her way home from a Bennigan’s restaurant in Webster. Her father found her tan 1992 Ford extended-cab pickup on the shoulder of southbound Interstate 45, between exits 7 and 8 in La Marque. Her wallet and keys were inside. The Cains have established a $50,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts, or to the arrest and indictment of anyone involved in her disappearance. Anyone with information can call the Laura Recovery Center at 281-482-5723.

July 12, 2001 — Tot “Totsy” Harriman, 57, was visiting family in League City when she left for a planned trip up state Highway 35, looking for property to buy. Neither she nor her 1995 Lincoln Continental have been seen since.

July 12, 2002 — Sarah Trusty, 23, was last seen riding her bicycle near Algoa Baptist Church. Fifteen days later, two fishermen found her decomposed body on the Texas City Dike. Her death was ruled a homicide, and doctors determined she had been dead more than a week when her body was found.

Nov. 3 — A man on a motorcycle found the body of Terresa Vanegas, 16, at the edge of a Dickinson High School practice field. Terresa had last been seen three days earlier at a Halloween party on California Avenue. Her death was ruled a homicide, with police saying she had suffered various types of injuries.

Nov. 10 — A passerby found the body of Amanda Nicole Kellum, 27, lying facedown at the eastern edge of Omega Bay, just north of the neighborhood bearing the same name. She had been beaten and stabbed to death.

July 15 — Beach campers found the body of Bridgette Gearen, 28, on Crystal Beach. Gearen, a single mother who worked at a Beaumont law firm, had been raped, beaten and strangled. Gearen vanished one Saturday night from outside a beach house at the corner of Redfish and Crystal Beach roads that she was renting along with a dozen friends.

+++ How To Help

Anyone with information in any of these cases can call his or her respective law-enforcement agency: • Dickinson Police Department: 281-337-4700 • Friendswood Police Department: 281-996-3300 • Galveston County Sheriff’s Office tip line: 866-248-8477 • Galveston Police Department: 409-765-3760 • Hitchcock Police Department: 409-986-5559 • Jamaica Beach Police Department: 409-737-1143 • Kemah Police Department: 281-334-5414 • La Marque Police Department: 409-938-9269 • League City Police Department: 281-332-2566 • Santa Fe Police Department: 409-925-2000 • Texas City Police Department: 409-643-5760 • Texas Department of Public Safety, Galveston County office: 409-933-1125