Vanished #MurderMysteryMoNday

This has been quite amazing; spending time with you guys… sipping on murderous tea ☕️. Is it bad to say that I’m going to miss this? Of course I feel for every victim and family member affected by the actions of these twisted people. But I’m also happy to know that I can highlight this cases that I’m sure many of you never heard of… or even cared to know about. In a sense, it’s making sure these victims / survivors are never forgotten. In the same breath it’s okay choosing what’s wrong with society and it’s occupants.

Today I’m going to write about Sandra Cantu. The 8 year old American girl that disappeared on March 27, 2009. Sandra and her family ( mother, grandparents and three older siblings) lived in Tracy, California at Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park.

It’s said that Sandra was a friendly little girl who loved to cook and help others. She frequently had play dates with other children in the neighborhood and on the day she went missing, she never returned from one. Sandra was last seen wearing a pink Hello Kitty t-shirt and black leggings.

On a security camera installed by her grandfather outside of their home, Sandra was seen crossing the street towards her house when something (or someone) caught her attention causing her to change directions.

That was the last time her family saw her. When Sandra didn’t return home for dinner her mother called the police and reported her missing at 7:53 pm.

Later that day Sandra’s best friends mother ( stay with me, I know that seemed complicated) sent Sandra’s mother a text message saying that she should tell the police that an item was stolen from her around 4 pm the day Sandra went missing and she doesn’t know if that made a difference or not. 🤔

To be continued 🤫

Thomas Benke: Looking Around In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, in the Chapter “Looking Around,” says this: Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. Otherwise we’d all just be barking away like Pekingese: “Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it’s your fault, you did this …” Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein. But you can’t do that if you’re not respectful. If you look at people and just see sloppy clothes or rich clothes, you’re going to get them wrong. She goes on to speak about empathy for other people and also, as an extension empathy for yourself. So, in a sense as you try to write believable, relatable characters, you will come to forgive people their trespasses—because no one believes they are the villain of their story, so you have to write “bad,” or “evil” characters from a point of view where they rationalize what they are doing in such a way that it is the right or only way they see is possible. By extrapolation, then, if you begin to forgive and withhold judgment from your less-than-desirable, or annoying characters, perhaps you can extend the same courtesy to yourself and forgive your own trespasses and sins. This, for me, starts to enter the realm of “writing as therapy,” and though I am a firm believer in that—I practice it to this very day—I think I would caution anyone who thinks that simply writing through things is going to lead you to a place of light and love. I am not saying it can’t by any means. What I am saying is I have wrote through my thoughts and my problems and my desperation and depression for decades and I still had enough baggage on my shoulders to supply an army platoon with rations for a year. In any case, when thinking about craft, it is very important to step into the shoes of all of your characters, especially those characters that you see as antagonists and villians. I believe there are very few universal maxims in writing but one thing is virtually certain: every character you write is your version of that human being. Confucius said “everywhere I go, there I am,” and that is never more true than when you are writing. So if you are writing a character that is distasteful to you, it might be effective for you to ask yourself why that is the case. I wrote a blog for Obscura last semester titled, “The Puppy Had It Coming.” The gist of the article was to pose a puzzle to writers. How can you write a scene where an adult human kicks a puppy across the room and the reader at least understands why. I am not saying there is any way to justify the action or for the readers to be on the human’s side unless they are sociopaths. I am saying you need let the reader know how dark the place is in the character’s mind that he is capable of doing that.