Page 4 The Inquisitor Newspaper
www.theinquisitor.com JULY 18, 2008
By KERRY M. KIRSPEL
For almost two years, Clinton Devon Nelson has been
missing, and little new information has been received despite
the dedicated efforts of a national organization to try
to discover just what happened on the evening of Sept. 1,
2006.
“This is a cold case; there’s no information coming in,”
said LaDonna Meredith, director of Let’s Bring Them
Home, an organization dedicated to helping law enforcement
and families of missing persons located their loved
ones.
Let’s Bring Them Home provides safety education and
resources for children and families. The group also offers
public relations assistance as well as solutions and assistance
to families of missing children and adults.
“We act as a liaison with the media and with law enforcement,”
Meredith said.
The organization also has a No Cops Tipline, a tollfree
automated message that gives the caller the opportunity
to leave a message about a particular missing person
— not unlike Crime Stoppers. Meredith said that people
like the anonymity the tipline provides as opposed to
speaking to a person.
“We also offer rewards,” she said. “We will hook the
families up with different organizations across the nation
that help people like them. Because there are so many
different ones, we can help them find the one that will
maybe increase a reward or set up a billboard or just a
variety of things.
“And we almost always go on the scene and help with
whatever needs to be done. In Clinton’s case, we’ve actually
been to Louisiana four different times.”
In January, members of Let’s Bring Them Home
teamed up with Texas EquuSearch and the Kristen Foundation
to search the area of Nelson’s disappearance in an
effort to possibly find clues to what happened.
Their efforts, though valiant, turned up nothing.
Last seen at house
Nelson was 21 when he was last seen by family and
friends. According to Meredith, Nelson was at a gathering
of friends at a house in the vicinity of Ward Lane and
Highway 80 in Princeton. She said that people were coming
and going throughout the day and that drug use was
involved.
“That adds to the complexity of the crime because
witnesses have reported that Clinton was very agitated
and paranoid that day, and witnesses allege that he went
outside to make a phone call and he took off running.”
Nobody is sure which direction he was heading, “and all
directions have been searched now.”
Meredith said that a wooded area across the street
from the house has been thoroughly searched. Behind the
home is private property that is heavily wooded, most of
which has been searched with the permission of the
owner.
Nelson was last at about 8:30 p.m. wearing a black Tshirt,
blue jeans, a black knit cap and white tennis shoes.
Because no new information has come in, the organization
is taking another look at the case to see what, if
anything, could have been done differently.
“Not as a criticism of the law, but when Clinton went
missing, his cell phone records were not pulled immediately,’
said Meredith. “The family requested it, but it didn’t
get done. It didn’t seem like a priority at the time.”
Such records are kept only 30 days, she said. By the
time it was decided to check those records out, it was too
late.
“Clinton had his cell phone with him the night he disappeared,
and it hadn’t gone dead yet. We know that because
the family tried to call many times, and it was ringing.”
Clinton’s Law
Because of that, Let’s Bring Them Home is starting an
initiative called Clinton’s Law to make it mandatory for law
enforcement to pull cell phone records within 30 days of a
missing person case, “particularly a missing adult case,”
said Meredith. “We’re starting that in Louisiana.”
She expects it to do two things to help families in the
future. “They might have an answer quicker, and we think
it will help get Clinton’s name and picture back out into the
media in hopes that this one person who knows something
will come forward.”
She said they are calling it an educational call to action
— “we have to be careful as a non-profit that we don’t
lobby” — to inform the state of what it sees as a problem.
“What we hope will happen is that a legislator will grab
hold of that, and that could be something that they would
support and sponsor,” added Meredith.
Let’s Bring Them Home has been involved in four recoveries
to date, including the successful finding of two
runaway girls.
“We’ve had, I guess, 18 cases now. Some of these
cases are cold cases; that’s what we tend to get because
these families are desperate.”
One problem with solving missing persons cases such
as Nelson’s is that law enforcement agencies across the
country rarely work together and communicate. “There’s
no mandatory reporting system,” she said.
According to Meredith, 2,400 people go missing every
day in the United States. “That could be runaways, that
could be walking away, that could be abductions. Most law
enforcement agencies, even the large ones, have maybe
one officer that spends one day on those cases. And so
the likelihood that they’re going to be able to work together
and connect the dots — unless there’s one officer passionate
about one particular case — is small. That’s one
of the things that we support is to help connect those
dots.”
Is there any evidence one way or another that suggests
whether Nelson simply left to start a new life somewhere
or was a victim of foul play? “There isn’t,” she said.
“You know, we could all be surprised and wake up tomorrow
morning and find out that he’s alive and well and living
in Texas, but I doubt that’s the case because of the circumstances.
I would believe that most likely foul play was
involved, and somebody that was at that party that night is
afraid to come forward.”
The Dead Zone
Meredith said that her organization has noticed a large
number of missing persons cases occurring along a 100-
mile stretch of road between Shreveport and Houston,
Texas, that they have dubbed the Dead Zone. “Because
of the amount of missing persons cases in that 100-mile
stretch, we are very interested in that because if (Clinton)
did make it to that main highway for whatever reason, it’s
possible he got picked up by a truck driver or someone
else and was a victim of foul play.”
Meredith said she plans to return to this area again
and is currently talking with the family about it. She also
wants to push the Dead Zone project.
“I think we’re still passionate about this particular case
because he was so young, and it should have been a
relatively easy case to solve.”
Meredith said that many organizations have sprouted
up across the country because of missing children, but
“there’s next to nothing that will help missing adults.” And
cases in which those missing adults might have been involved
in some sort of a crime, “there’s many organizations
that won’t touch those cases. And we try to do the
opposite.”
Anyone with any information regarding Nelson’s disappearance
or who would like to assist Let’s Bring Them
Home in their recovery efforts should call them at 479-
966-0471 or online at
www.letsbringthemhome.org.
