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By
- Roger Jewell
Friday,
July 4th will mark the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Brooke
Leigh Henson from her Travelers Rest home. Even though four years has
come and gone, Brooke Henson remains in the hearts of those that know
her, love her and hope of her return has never diminished.
Christi Metcalf, of Travelers Rest, is one of many that hasn’t given
up the memory of Brooke and her desire to solve the four year old
mystery is as strong as ever.
“I
remember Brooke as a beautiful child,” Christi (Brooke’s aunt) said
last week in an exclusive interview. “She was the most beautiful baby
that you’ve ever seen. I remember she was light white skinned, with
white hair and she had on a white gown and she just looked like a little
angel.”
“Growing up, Brooke was just one of the children in the family that
you just didn’t notice,” Christi said. “I guess my boys were so
rowdy and she had a brother. The boys were sort of loud and Brooke was
the only girl and sort of stayed in the background. But she was always a
sweet, non-demanding and easy going type of person.”
“As Brooke grew up and she came to be a teenager she had a few
problems but they were nothing major,” Christi said. “She had just
seemed to have just started coming into
her
own, so to speak just before her disappearance. But she was really
naive, she never
thought anyone would ever hurt her and she was very trusting.”
“Brooke had just gotten a job in her Aunt Lisa’s clothes shop which
was in the antiques shop in Travelers Rest and she had very many close
friends,” Christi added. |
Cathy
Henson then called the Travelers Rest Police Department and the
responding officer took the report as sort of a run a way type
situation, which was wrong. Two weeks later TRPD started searching with
the dogs.
“Brooke and her mother were very close,” Christi said. “They were
more like best friends than mother-daughter. From the very beginning
Cathy knew or felt something was wrong.”
According to the Travelers Rest police report, Brooke and Shaun had an
argument that night during the party. When her parents returned home she
said, “I’m getting out of here.”
When her mother questioned what
she meant by that statement, Brooke (according to TRPD reports) said,
“oh, nowhere really, I’m just messing with Shaun.”
A short time later, Brooke and Shaun reportedly argued
again
in Brooke’s room. Brooke reportedly went for a walk to cool down. She
has not been seen since.
The
next morning Shaun was still in Brooke’s room. He received a phone
call from someone named Greg and left in a white pickup truck, according
to police reports.
A note was found in Brooke’s room, reportedly in Brooke’s
handwriting, stating, “Gone for a walk, follow me if you care.”
“I always had a feeling about Brooke’s relationship with her
boyfriend and by that I mean, it seemed she cared more for him than he
cared for her, and he seemed to only be around when he needed a
girlfriend,” Christi said. |
Two
weeks after the disappearance the Travelers Rest Police started their
search. Police Chief Harold Perry had suspects in mind and lakes in and
around northern
Greenville
County
were checked with
assistance from SLED and the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.
By late August, Perry and law enforcement were concentrating on the
Tugaloo Road
,
Keeler Mill Road
areas and several
searches were conducted by the Greenville County
Sheriff’s Office helicopter.
A few weeks after the search of that area, Harold Perry resigned from
the Travelers Rest Police Department on unrelated matters.
Last year Travelers Rest Police Chief Tim Christy claimed the department
had a file that was over 700 pages in length concerning the
investigation of Brooke’s disappearance. However, the police
department has not shared any of that in-formation with the Henson
family.
Every
year around the anniversary date of Brooke’s disappearance, Christi
tries to put the posters out around the area. More can be expected this
year.
Last year Christi met up with Tammy Welch and the Brooke Henson website
was born. The website is now get-ting between 50 and 100 hits (visits)
per day.
There, people can find information about Brooke and her story as well as
pictures and links to other missing persons websites. There is also a
forum available where people can post messages concerning the case or
even light a candle in memory of Brooke.
“Tammy has turned out to be a godsend,” Christi said. “We
met and exchanged information and at first I questioned why, she wanted
to do the website but after meeting her I realized how sincere she is
about the case.”
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“She
was like a homebody, and she stayed at home most of the time,” Christi
said. “She liked to be around all of us (family members). She was just
a sweet girl.”
Brooke attended Travelers
Rest
Elementary School
and Travelers Rest High School. After she quit school in the tenth
grade, her school friends remained loyal friends. Just before her
disappearance she had started blossoming into a young adult.
“I used to jokingly say Brooke was born at the wrong time because she
was more like a hippie type person,” Christi said with a smile. “She
liked the granny glasses and the tie-dyed shirts.”
On
July 3, 1999
Brooke held a party
at her parent’s home. It was the first time she held a party without
her parents being home. Christi and Brooke’s parents, went to
Charlotte
for a concert that
evening.
“We got back at about 1 or 2 in the morning,” Christi said. “And
when we got there
Brooke
was sitting on the porch and Shaun (Brooke’s boyfriend) was inside the
house. The last two people from
the party, “Bingo” Shirley and his girlfriend were leaving as we
were arriving.”
“The next morning, I guess around
7 a.m.
, I phoned
Cathy (Cathy Henson, Brooke’s mother) and she couldn’t talk to me at
that time. So later in the day I went over at about
3:00 p.m.
, and Cathy was very upset. Cathy felt something was
very wrong at that time.” |
“I
was surprised to learn that he was at the party. And during the party
the fight was supposedly about him making a date with someone else that
was there.”
Christi described her niece as someone that, “when she loved someone
she really loved them. When she loved you she really loved you.. She had
alot of good friends and everyone just adored her. She grew into this
beautiful, beautiful girl that didn’t have to wear makup, she had
natural beauty. She had started to learn to cook and gotten a job. She
didn’t have a license to drive but I think she was starting to work
toward that. Even though she was doing these things a little late at the
age of 20, she
was
staring to come out on her own. And she didn’t do these things earlier
because she didn’t have to. She didn’t miss out on very much and she
pretty much got to do what she wanted.”
“That’s
why the run away theory by the police just didn’t make sense, she
didn’t have to run away,” Christi added.
Christi and her husband started posting Brooke’s missing person
posters around Travelers Rest and
Marietta
shortly after the
disappearance. As time passed, eventually local stores stopped allowing
the posters to be displayed. “If they did,” Christi added, “they
would come behind you and take the posters down after you left.”
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Through
this website, the
DOE Network relayed information that an unidentified female’s remains
had been found in near
Sampson
,
N.C.
however authorities
in Travelers Rest and
North Carolina claim
the remains were not Brooke’s due to a check of dental records. DNA
was never checked.
In more recent weeks, a Psychic-Medium has offered her services in
solving the disappearance of Brooke. “I know a lot of people
don’t
put any stock in that type of stuff,” Christi said.
“But
she has hit on several things that we can relate to or identify with
that nobody else could have done.”
“Some of the things she has given us in her readings have been pretty
darn close, especially with her being in an-other part of the country,
there is no way she could have known,” Christi said.
“Like
I said, some people don’t believe in it but we have been following up
on her information and it is amazing,” Christi said.
According to Tony Lee of the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, CRIMESTOPPERS
is offering a reward of up to $2,000 in the Brooke Leigh Henson disappearance. Brooke
has been missing since, July 4, 1999 from her Henderson Drive, Travelers Rest, South
Carolina home. At the time of her disappearance she was 20 years old, 5'4" tall, 104 pounds in
weight, she has brown shoulder length hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a tan
sleeveless shirt, dark green shorts, and black sandals. She wore a silver bracelet on her right
wrist and a silver watch with a velcro band on her left wrist. |
