September 13, 2017

Ever have things happen but you don’t share because your busy, don’t think they would make sense to anyone else or just don’t share because its just a moment, you laugh along with and not think much of it?

First thing this morning I was scanning documents at work, when I pulled up the file to review before I attached it in an email, all the pages had a yellow line stripe through them.

I went back, scanned them again, to still find the yellow stripe on all the pages. I forwarded the file with an added note that I apologized about the yellow stripe and was looking into why this would be happening.

I did a few other things and went back to the copy machine and found a yellow “sign here” tag stuck on the inside of the feeder portion of the lid. I took it off… then sent an email to my fellow office mates that if you ever have a yellow stripe on your scanned documents to look for a “sign here” tag in the document feeder… truly I must have over looked the tag the first few times I opened and shut the lid to the copier and document feeder and missed the obvious yellow tag…

We all cracked up about it … it was silly to be honest, and I wouldn’t really think much more about it until a short time later when I hung up the phone with Attorney General’s Office.

And then I thought about all the “things” that may have been happening lately that I wasn’t paying attention to but should have been…

And the conversations to follow with my parents and siblings sharing similar stories about signs, feelings, things that have been going on with them lately too.

When Vicki disappeared in September of 1984, yellow ribbons were everywhere, from mailboxes and car antenna’s to people wearing them pinned on their shirts… there’s still one in the window of my Tahoe today.

So the yellow stripe on the documents this morning still has me giggling…

Today the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the original appeal was filed in March of 1998. A copy of the opinion can be found here: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/09/13/14-99002.pdf

Nineteen years to get to this day, its so serene knowing that that something you’ve waited for for 33 years is possible. It’s reachable. It WILL happen.

The defense has 14 days to file for a motion to ask for a rehearing, which we know they will do, its up to the 9th Circuit to give an extension timeline, and we will remain confident based on the ruling issued today, they will deny this motion.

Once that is denied, the defense has 90 days to file for the Writ of Certiorari, basically appealing to the United States Supreme Court to hear their case, which can only be extended once, for 60 days.

Vicki’s case has been presented before the US Supreme Court on TWO other occasion’s, both ruling in her favor, and we are confident that they will do so again. The timeline for that is unclear, but once they do make a ruling, a writ of execution can be issued.

… “A writ of execution can be issued” its actually strange to write that.

We know he will fight like a coward to the last possible moment he can, it’s a given in the 33 years …

Tonight, I’m grateful that we have turned the page to the last chapter.

As we live through this last chapter, we will be her voice, and relish in the fact that we get to see the twinkle of her eyes in the faces and smiles of her nieces and nephews and will cherish the gifts she continues to send us…

Love Never Forgets.