Tanya Jourdain

14 WFIE

November, 2003

Left: Roger Jeffreys; Center: Loretta Conrad; Right: Doe Network Case File of Jeffreys.

"Roger was kind of like the free spirit person. Travelled up and down the road hitchhiking," says Roger Jeffrey's widow Loretta Conrad. "This is a guy I knew like the back of my hand, so I mean, there was nothing about him I didn't know. We were very close. And, yeah, he would hitchhike, but he would always come home. So, I knew he was not able to come home."

In 1984, Roger Jeffreys hitched a ride heading to Canada.

"A couple days later he called and said, 'I'm in Maryland.' And that he was okay," explains Conrad. "Well, that was the last that anybody heard from him."

For 18 years, no one knew what happened to the 22-year-old father of young twins. Police told his wife, Loretta, her husband was probably dead, and that his body may never be found.

Loretta says that wasn't good enough for her and she did endless research. But it was 18 years before she found a Web site called DoeNetwork.org. Two days later, she got a call from the Vermont State Police.

Roger's body was found. Hunters came across the body in a shallow grave in Vermont.

After about a year of DNA testing and investigation, Roger's body was brought home. He was laid to rest in Henderson, 19 years after his disappearance.

"I said if it's the last thing i do, he will come home," says Conrad. "And I mean I would have kept looking until I was 90-years-old if I hadn't have found him."

Jeffreys' daughter, Courtney, says she, and her twin brother Roger, Jr., now have some closure.

"Now I know that he didn't just leave and not come back," says Courtney Jeffreys. "I know that he just didn't abandon us. I know he wasn't able to come back."

Even with an end to an 18-year-old murder mystery, this family is still searching for peace.

"I have a lot of anger for that guy," states Courtney. "I just want to talk to him and let him know I never knew my dad because of you."

Loretta says the man who picked Roger Jeffreys up has a long criminal history, and is already serving a life sentence without parole for another crime. Still, the family would like to see him charged and tried for Jeffreys' murder.

Loretta also wants people to know about the Web site that helped them find her husband after all these years. Click here to be taken to DoeNetwork.org.