I kept reading.  

 

Oh yeah, that girl, I thought to myself.  

 

That girl, the one whose face was printed in black ink on white paper and plastered on entrance doors to businesses all over town back in 1986.  That Girl, whose name lead off the nightly news in the days and weeks following her disapperance.  It was that girl who at 19 years young had her biography reduced to 6 short lines and spread all over town in a time before internets, social networks, 24 hour news stations, and Nancy Grace's.  Her mother, who was barely 40 at the time and the same age as me now, had over 3000 posters made and spread across 38 states.  Some the size of billboards that dotted the Gulf freeway back when I was 16 years old and just old enough to drive past them on my own.  All with those same 6 lines:

 

-Missing Since: May 24, 1986 from Galveston, Texas

-Classification: Endangered Missing

-Date Of Birth: September 2, 1966

-Age: 19 years old

-Height and Weight: 4'11", 90 pounds

-Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female.  Brown hair, brown eyes.  Sikes is petite in stature.  She has a scar on her right knew, half an inch long by three-quarters of an inch wide.  She cannot bend her right index finger.

 

That first year had to of been a hard one for the Sikes with missed birthdays and a quiet Christmas, but then came a call to police.  Finally, some answers and with them the quiet turned to pain.

 

Holed up in a shabby El Paso motel room, 29 year old John Robert King tried and failed to take his own life. After slashing each wrist, he phoned the police.  Police met with him at a hospital in West Texas where he ran out of road trying to outrun his own memory of what he had done.  From that hospital bed in El Paso he told police about the final moments of Shelley's life.

 

Knowing this, the police, who had become close with the Sikes family, held on to the news for a day so Shelley's sister could have her wedding day in peace.  Her honeymoon, days later, would receive no reprieve. 

 

The nightmare unfolded.

 

On May 24th 1986, Shelley Sikes clocked out of work around midnight at Gaido's in Galveston where she was a server.  Shelley was a student at UT who was out of school at the time.  She was living with her parents in Texas City, just 15 miles away from her work on the Seawall.

 

John Robert King lived in San Leon and was with El Lago Resident Gerald Peter Zwarst at the time.  Somewhere along Broadway on the island an altercation began between them and Shelley Sikes who was driving alone in a car next to them.  While going over the causeway Sikes made an obscene gesture towards the men.  For these high school drop outs hopped up on pcp that's really all it took.  Once over the causeway King used his two tone chevy pickup to force Shelley to the shoulder, then into the marsh.  He jumped from his truck and busted out the drivers window of her blood splattered 1980 Ford Pinto.  Leaving some of his own blood in the car as evidence.  Shelley's boyfriend at the time and his father would find her car at 2 a.m. that next morning, but not before King and Zwarst had pulled her from the broken window like monsters taking her away.  Witness accounts from the scene contridict what was happening at the time.  One witness claims they were talking about taking her to the hospital, another claimed they were struggling as they were obviously taking her against her will.  She wasn't even 100 pounds.  She wasn't even 5 feet tall.  Still she struggled.  Not that it mattered.  

 

It's chilling to me to think of what must have been going through that 19 year olds mind in what, by all accounts, were her final moments.  They drove around town trying to decide what they would do with Shelley.  They passed the time by raping her with a beer bottle.  Somewhere around San Leon, they had both had enough.  As bad turned to worst, they burried Shelley alive in her grave that would never be found.

 

For these unspeakable acts John Robert King and Gerald Peter Zwarst were sentenced to Life in Prison.  No, not that kind of "life".  They were sentenced to the kind of life that lasts for only 40 years in Texas.  Occasionally, they come up for parole.  Everytime they do, the Sikes get to relive this nightmare over and over again.  Like the relentless campaign they started years ago when first Shelley went missing, now they campaign for a different cause.

 

In 2007 they campaigned to get people to write the parole board to let them know king and Zwarst belong in prison.  Heaps of letters were among the considerations parole members took in denying Parole for these two monsters in 2007.  That bought us all another 5 years but now it's 2012 and they're up for parole again.

 

The Sikes are once again asking for everyone to write the parole board and express their opposition to the release of these two creatures.  I have included the address information at the bottom of this post.  Take their advice and take the 5 minutes it will take to write a quick note and stick it in the mail.  If not, you and your family may just be sitting next to one of these creatures around town when you go out to dinner.

 

Not long after Shelley went missing her father had another piece of advice for everybody:

 

"Shelley was my baby. We all need to take care of our babies. You just never know how long you're going to have them with you."

 

Oh yeah, that girl.  Shelley Sikes, just shy of 20, just shy of 5 feet, just shy of 100 pounds, still missing.

 

Those wishing to make comment on the possible parole of Gerald Zwarst or John King can mail, fax or email the Victims Services Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Include the men’s state and TDCJ Identification numbers when writing.

Zwarst: State ID: 02060724 TDCJ ID: 00485451

King: State ID: 02559332 TDCJ ID: 00479010

Contact

MAIL: Victim Services Division 

8712 Shoal Creek Blvd., Suite 265 P.O. Box 13401 

Austin, TX 787111-3401

FAX: 512-452-0825

EMAIL: victim.svc(at)tdcj.state.tx.us