By The Side Of The Road by Marla Bernard

of a potential suspect vehicle driven by “persons of interest.” Witnesses described the car as possibly a dark brown two-door Chevy Monte Carlo seen near the area of Ann’s disappearance. However, the “close but no cigar” scenario kept law enforcement frustrated; the car turned out to be blue. On March 23rd, the police interviewed one of Ann’s friends at the Raytown South High School. She rode the bus with Ann but didn’t wait at the same bus stop. On the day of Ann’s disappearance, she just surmised that Ann had missed the bus again. She said that Ann had trouble getting to the stop on time, and Ann’s mother now made her go out at 7:00 a.m. to wait at the bus stop, which was directly in front of their residence. It was only the length of a tractor-trailer truck from her front door to the curb where she last stood. She was so close but yet still too far from the safety of her own front door, unable to wrench herself away from the grip of death her abductor’s clench maintained. When asked if she knew if Ann ran away or was unhappy, her friend stated Ann was not a runaway and only seemed sad about her boyfriend, David’s, battle with cancer. She said that she and her boyfriend would go with Ann and David to the local mall and movies. Ann didn’t like it when her parents limited the number of visits to David but otherwise was a quiet and well-adjusted girl. She indicated that one boy on the bus made vulgar comments to Ann who didn’t like it. She also mentioned the names of two boys