Again, meet Melissa Baum, who is still searching. Her whole life has turned upside down in the past year. No clues have surfaced. Here’s the unfortunate anniversary story:
High-pitched shrieks and laugher from children playing in the Heritage Park fountain carried across the grass to the nearby picnic table where Melissa Baum sat earlier this week.
Melissa brushed her hair from her eyes and squinted into the sun. Traffic rolled past the Olympia park as dozens of young boys and girls ran through the streams of water, giggling and smiling.
“I’ve always been overprotective of my children,” she said. “They never went outside without me.”
When Melissa and her two children lived in Tennessee, she worried about snakes. She said she wouldn’t let the little Lindsey and Josh outside unless the lawn had been mowed. When she moved to Olympia, she warned them not to talk to strangers and worried they might wander into traffic.
Now again living in Olympia with her sister, Melissa, 38, ran her fingers over a flier on the picnic table. The stained flier was filled with pictures of missing children, infants and teens lost throughout the years. One faded photo matched the smiling young face printed on Melissa’s well-worn shirt.
McCleary, the East County town of just 1,500 people, seemed a sanctuary from the big city worries. Melissa and her two children moved there about three years ago for the small town simplicity and the lower cost of living.
“I was able to find a house down there for the same price I was paying for an apartment here,” she said. “I thought it was a nice, small, safe town. My kids would have a yard to play in and I thought truly in my heart that that would be the best place for my kids.”
She paused a moment, shaking her head.
“Crucial mistake.”
