EVANSDALE, Iowa | The parents of the missing cousins are reaching out to the person who took the girls this summer.
In a letter submitted to Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, the parents of Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins ask the unknown abductor to be a hero and let the children go free.
“Our thought of the letter was to just get out to whoever has them and to just really touch their hearts to return the girls, that they still can do this,” said Heather Collins, Elizabeth’s mother.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
Heather Collins composed the letter, which was also signed by her husband, Drew, and Lyric’s parents, Daniel Morrissey and Misty Morrissey.
Tuesday marks four months since the girls — Lyric, age 11, and Elizabeth, 9 — were last seen riding their bicycles in Evansdale.
“They say, in almost all cases of anybody who has taken a child … they always keep their clippings because they always want to keep update on what’s happening… So, I was just like maybe I should go to the paper,” Heather Collins said.
As she talked, the mother pulled up a phone picture of a note Elizabeth’s younger sister, Amber, age 7, wrote and placed on her bed. Written on stationary with a cartoon panda bear, it read “Ples bring Lizzy back home safe. Pleees I mist her.”
“We don’t know what this person has been through. We don’t know what his life is like, and usually when people do something like this it because they had a bad childhood or they had this or they have a lot of hurt in them,” Heather Collins said.
The letter was written gradually and draws from Heather Collins’s thoughts she posted earlier on Facebook.
The mother said she hopes the letter spurs the abductor into releasing the girls, possibly in a location where he can avoid detection, if that is a concern.
“They can still drop them off at a park or wherever and still not be seen, because our desire is not to know them. Our desire is to get the girls back, and that is all we want. … The kids can be dropped off at a park, and they can get to a house,” Heather Collins said.
To Whom it May Concern:
We would use your name, but we don’t know who you are. Or maybe we do? Maybe you are someone who knows the girls? Maybe you are someone who just acted upon an impulse? Maybe you planned to take them? We don’t know, because we don’t know who you are.
But we can sort of imagine that you must not have had the things you needed to grow up feeling safe and loved. Because only someone who hurts inside would hurt another person and their family. We’ve all heard the saying, “Hurt people, hurt people.” We believe that is true.
We are so sorry for whatever happened to you, when you were growing up. Certainly, all children do not receive all the love and care they deserve. Some are even abused by those who are supposed to have taken care of them. When that happens, it is very wrong.
Taking the girls from us has caused much pain, pain for them, pain for us and our families. Since the time you took them, maybe you’ve wondered more than a few times, how you could ever make it right. How to be a hero, not a monster. Things probably look pretty hopeless for a good outcome.
We want you to know that we are praying for you to do the right thing. By releasing the girls, everyone wins. Even you. The person who took them.
Imagine how it will feel to have everyone remember that you were the one person, in all the missing children cases, the one person who cared enough to let the girls go! You will not be remembered as the one who took the girls, but as the one who let them come home.
Our lives have not been the same since July 13. Please, let our girls come home to us.
Do the right thing. Be a hero.
Sincerely,
Drew and Heather Collins
Dan and Misty Morrissey-Cook
