The Search for Linnea Lomax, 73rd Day

A true story from the perspective of a search Volunteer

My Flame Flickered

My flame flickered during the summer of 2012 when a young girl named Linnea Lomax from my hometown in El Dorado County went missing. She was last seen on June 26, 2012 around twelve thirty in the afternoon when she walked out of a doctor’s appointment.

In 2012 I was a Private Investigator. My specialty was finding people who didn’t want to be found. A friend and fellow volunteer, Jami asked me to join the efforts to find Linnea. Jami was in the business of saving people,  I was in the business of finding people.

Linnea Lomax’s case leads me on wild goose chases to the seediest parts of Sacramento. The lack of humanity I witnessed changed me in ways I never thought possible. My internal flame flickered.

Days turn into weeks and weeks turned into months.

Leading Up to the 73rd Day

Every person has a flame within them. This flame is what guides them, and what drives them to be the person they are. For me, it’s my moral compass, it’s my positivity, it’s my compassion, it’s my fury. 

Every day of this investigation, day in and day out were the same. The lack of humanity was dimming the light of my flame. The flame that burned inside of me that allowed me to believe most people are good.

I was beginning to be shaded, and I couldn’t seem to shake it. When I talked to family or friends about my involvement with the case, I was vague about the details.

The words that came out of my mouth, to me sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher, “Wah, wah, wah”. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them what I SAW or what I HEARD. In fact, this is the first time I have actually tried to put it into words what really happened.

What I SAW

What I saw was countless young girls with their so called “boyfriends” walking from the neighborhood of the flophouses to the pay by the hour, no tell motels.

The “boyfriend” invariably trailed the young girls by a few feet. As if it gave them some kind of anonymity.

Keeping the distance in case a John rolled up ready to do business. Or in the off chance the police wanted to ask questions.

I saw the living conditions within the walls of the flophouses. The filthy, bare mattresses on the dirty floors. With half eaten fast food on the kitchen table, the floor, the coffee table, or wherever they dropped it.

The air was stifling. Body odor of sweat and meth or crack permeated every inch of the small space. I swatted at flies as they swarmed and dive bombed.

A “boyfriend” aka pimp asked if I needed a new boyfriend on more than one occasion. Of course, my smart ass mouth pissed one of them off when I quipped, “Oh, so I can live in a lap of luxury?”

What I HEARD

What I heard made the light flicker and almost blow out. I was with a couple volunteers walking door to door. We came upon a row of small duplexes.

In the front yard were three little girls and one little boy playing. All within a year or so in age. I noticed they all looked similar, with a same shape of eyes.

When I knocked on the opened door a twenty something year old girl answered by saying, “What ever they did, I don’t give a fuck”. The volunteers who were with me were from the Christian Camp. They both seemed to recoil a little at the fowl hostility.

The Fury

I wanted to throat punch her and be done with it, but instead I smiled and gave my spiel.

I held up the missing person flyer and asked if she have seen Linnea? The female seemed to calm down a notch and took the flyer. She thoughtfully looked at it. She said, She kind of looks like a girl she saw working at the Red Roof Inn.

I asked if she was a working girl? She looked at me with dead eyes, with a sweep of a hand towards the children, she said, “All us are”.

Stunned, I asked, “Are you saying your kids?” She said, For the right price, the boy too, he a good moneymaker.

I felt my hand ball up into fists. I felt my stance lean forward. My eyes burned with tears. She seemed to sense the intense fury I was holding back.

She slapped her skinny crankster leg and laughed, saying, “I’m just fucking with you, girl”.

In the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the young volunteers leaning into each other. They didn’t know what to do.

I looked at the children who stopped playing. Tears were in their little eyes. I knew the female was lying when she said she was just fucking with me.

Also, I knew there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it. I was disheartened. My flame was going out.

Back at the Barn

Back at the barn, the retired fire station, now used for the search headquarters I overheard my friend’s Jami “Chica” and Mary talking about something similar.

I asked them where was the house they were talking about. I was surprised to learn it wasn’t the same place or same person willing to sell off her children. Jami was making it her mission to get the authorities involved.

I was skeptical but Chica was in the saving people business and I was in the finding people business.

73rd Day

The 73rd day landed on Friday; and it started like most mornings. I made my son breakfast, and then we hustled out the door. Before we got to the car, I snatched a tight hug from him.

Then I drove him to school before heading down the hill. I had a new client meeting scheduled before doing the rounds of the no tell motels, flophouses and homeless camps.

There were volunteers working the American River trails. I was praying they would get lucky, but it had been seventy-three days since she was last seen in the area.

I was driving from my office in Gold River to downtown Sacramento when I got the call. My friend, Chica, asked if I heard the news and if I was sitting down. I said I was heading downtown.

She blurted out Linnea was found. I said, oh my god, where? Chica was crying. She said she had been in the same area we all searched so many times, near the river.

I now knew she was dead..

The Press Conference

In the press conference, Craig and Marianne Lomax were leaning on each other. They looked raw and numb. Marrianne explained how she was the person who found Linnea. In her description, she said she smelled a bad odor and tried to locate the source. She got on hands and knees and crawled under the thick undergrowth. Finding Linnea hanging from a tree, her body was badly decomposed. 

The memories of the first night (Part 1) of joining the volunteers came rushing back. From meeting in the Safeway parking lot, to knocking on doors along Howe Ave. And walking the same levee where her body was found.

We were yelling her name; and we talked to homeless people who had camps along the trails. We walked the entire length of the trails from Howe Ave to Discovery Park. It was dark and it was scary. I tried to put myself in Linnea’s shoes. I remember thinking she was dead, but I held onto hope. Especially later with all the possible sightings.

I think I knew all along she was dead and for a long time after the 73rd Day I wondered what kept me going back to the seediest places of Sacramento. Why were there so many possible sightings in area of the flophouses and the no tell motels? Looking back at this time in my life, I wondered if God had put me here to help save Kristi?

Sign Up

Subscribe to receive my FREE newsletter, where I write about full-time travel and living on our boat. I post weekly updates on my Carnivore Journey. Along with fictional stories and Non-fictional historical stories, like “The Search for Linnea Lomax”  and “The Road to Sturgis”  How I became a member of the Guinness World Record. True stories from my perspective.

Michelle Wishart

Bell

Next up!

A true story of how I rescued a human traffic victim using contacts I made during the Search for Linnea Lomax

Human Trafficking, Kristi Merrill