The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With help of girl’s mom, Canton tries to recover
Child’s death stings, but calm slowly returning.
Some of the signs are subtle that life is getting back to normal in Canton, like the childish chalk drawings on the sidewalk beside the playground where 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera was last seen before she was murdered last December.
Along with the stick figures of animals and fish are the words “I love my brother and mom.” In the afternoons children are back in the playground, too. There, the difference isn’t as subtle.
“The children used to be out there by themselves but now they’re always with their parents or an adult,” says Sybonae Henry, a mother of three who lives in the back of the River Ridge at Canton apartment complex.
“If your child is out playing, somebody will come up and say ‘Where’s your mom?’ ” she says. “It’s like the whole com-
plex is watching out for them.’ ”
People in the Cherokee County city rocked by Rivera’s death and its aftermath — Canton police Chief Jeff Lance was forced to resign; the man who pleaded guilty to her murder, Ryan Brunn, committed suicide in prison — say one of the most emphatic forces helping the city put the horror behind is the girl’s mother, Joseline Rivera.
Rivera, who last February filed suit against the apartment’s owners for her daughter’s death, has been instrumental in getting funding for a community program called radKIDS to educate children, and parents, against predators. She’s done that while dealing with grief those who know her say is devastating.
“She’s lost 50 pounds since December,” says Canton police Sgt. Stacy Baily. “She is still so distraught, but she is an amazing woman. This city would not be recovering as fast as it is without her.”
Rivera declined to be interviewed. But, her friends and city officials say, were it not for her strength and stepping forward after her daughter’s death, the RADKIDS program — which the Police Department was considering before Rivera’s murder — might not yet be funded.
Canton interim police Chief Todd Vandezande said when he pitched the program to the Canton City Council in January “they thought about it for about 10 minutes, and gave us $5,000.” Businesses have donated additional thousands of dollars to the police and the YMCA, which hosts the program.
Joseline Rivera was one of the first to go through the program last February with her 4 year-old daughter. “Part of the class is to play out what a predator might do, so, watching that she had to be thinking of Jorelys,” said Vandezande. “But she went through and I thought was amazingly stoic.”
The Canton Police Department was heavily criticized for what many considered a slow-footed response to Jorelys’ disappearance.
But Randy Richardson, a minister with Changed 2 Ministries who works closely with the Hispanic community in Canton, said there was never a feeling in the community that the police didn’t respond as quickly as they would have if the missing child had not been Hispanic.
“The Hispanic community thought the police did everything they could,” Richardson said.
An outside investigation determined if Canton police had responded quicker they could not have saved Jorelys’ life. But it al-
“We now have a standardized checklist that we follow that verifies who took what information and what information needs to be collected.”
Todd Vandezande
Canton’s interim police chief
so found the department made mistakes that next time could cost a life, and that cost Lance his job.
Vandezande said Friday that his department has adopted new procedures to prevent repeating the mistakes in the Rivera investigation, which included searchers discovering blood in an abandoned apartment where she was killed, but not reporting it for at least 24 hours.
“We now have a standardized checklist that we follow that verifies who took what information and what information needs to be collected,” said Vandezande, who, along with several other officers is attending a two-day seminar this week in Atlanta on how to handle missing person’s cases.
He said he thinks the city is getting back to nor- mal five months later, but it will take time for his department and its force of 43 sworn officers.
“People have said terrible things to them since this happened,” said Vandezande. “Before her death, I would say department morale was good. But, now, I wouldn’t say that. I have the sense some people are looking for other options.”
He said it’s been tough for him personally, to the point it’s hard to return to the scene of the crime, the apartment complex.” To tell you the truth, when I do, it feels like a big cemetery to me,” said Vandezande.
Residents say police seem to be making more frequent patrols, but Vandezande said they’re no more frequent now than they were the day before Jorelys was killed.
“They just notice us more now,” he said.
John Hicks, branch executive for the YMCA, which hosts the RADKIDS program, said Jorelys’ death was a “tragedy and wake-up call” for the community. “Parents said ‘wow,’ I need to watch out for my kids.”
Mayor Gene Hobgood said he thinks “it’s settling down quite a bit,” and with programs such as RADKIDS, “we’re getting back to a sense of normalcy.” For the owners of the apartment complex, the recovery is further off.
About 50 residents moved out of River Ridge since the murder, and last week there were about 40 more vacant apartments than there were last November. Still, said resident Nancy Hudgins, who helped search for Jorelys the Friday she disappeared, the sting of the loss and the fear that went with it seem to be subsiding.
“They had an Easter egg hunt here this year, and we had a great time,” she said. “All the kids were outside playing.”