Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #138 (October/November 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Clementine

The Squeaky Wheel Tour

From Heartache to Hope

by Linda J. Morris

Seven years ago, a group of independent musicians made a compilation recording from their 13 concerts. Not remarkable. It happens all the time. However, this CD had an added feature: Along with the music, the notes included photographs of 13 missing persons. Now, artists will tell you that they are often surprised at where their CDs end up, and in this case, the self-produced album ended up in the hands of a young man who had made a life for himself in New York City. Examining the jacket, his eyes fell on the photos, especially the last one. There, among the "missing," the young man found himself. Suddenly he realized that, more than 700 miles away, in Indianapolis, his family really did love him, something he did not see clearly years ago when he was a teenage runaway.

One young man calls home. One missing-persons case is resolved. One family finds peace. Over 100,000 more to go.

The 2001 tour that generated that CD was the beginning of what would become the Squeaky Wheel Tour, which now spans the United States and nine countries abroad with hundreds of concerts, held over 19 days from October 17-November 4 each year. At each show, profiles of missing persons in the area are read and flyers distributed. Audience members are asked to simply look, read, and pass it on. The goal is to help "uncover missing pieces to find the missing," said Jannel Rap, founder and organizer of Greater Information Now Available (GINA) for Missing Persons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the serious problem of missing-persons cases still unsolved.

Rap remembers that young man's story as a pivotal point in her life. "The very first year that we did it -- and we didn't call it the Squeaky Wheel Tour back then; we just called them the 'Gina concerts' -- we had 13 concerts from L.A. to New York City. Independent artists profiled missing people at each event, and we created a compilation CD with all their music on it, and included were 13 missing people. The last boy that we put on a CD, his mother had called me a few weeks before the CD was completed, and she said, 'I hope you can help me. I think my son is dead. But the police aren't helping me, and the local press won't help me because the police won't help me. They're just telling me my son's a runaway, and I need some help.' So we put him on a CD. He was the last person to be featured there." The young man has been in touch with his family ever since, Rap said. "I thought, 'That's a sign from God; that's a beacon of light. I need to keep going with it.' " In 2006, as participation grew, the concerts were renamed the Squeaky Wheel Tour. "The idea is to have as many shows during that 19-day period so that the press would have to pay attention."

Missing: Regina "Gina" Bos

Rap understands firsthand the unrelenting pain and emptiness families of the missing suffer. On October 17, 2000, her younger sister, Regina "Gina" Bos, vanished after playing at an open-mic night at Duggan's Pub in Lincoln, Nebraska. The 40-year-old single mother of three was seen leaving the pub, guitar in hand, around 1:00 a.m. Friends said she was in good spirits all night. She planned to pick up her boyfriend at his residence and return home. However, she never arrived. He called Bos' home around 6:30 a.m. and realized something was wrong. Police were summoned, and Bos' Saturn was found near the pub, its trunk ajar with the guitar still inside. To date, there have been no arrests, no fruitful leads, no evidence of stalking or motive. Gina Bos is simply gone.

[cover #138]