BY GWEN BOLIN
Journal Enterprise

January 22, 2003

For 18 years, Roger Gene Jeffreys’ parents, Carl and Virginia Jeffreys of Clay, and siblings Carla Hunter, Charlie Jeffreys, Angie Herron and Kimberly Luntsford have been looking for him.
On Monday, Jan. 16, they finally received word on his whereabouts. But the news wasn’t good. He had been murdered shortly after he left his home in Clay in September 1984.

Jeffreys’ decomposed body had been found in a wooded area outside Glover, VT, by hunters in November 1985.

According to Vermont authorities, Jeffreys had died from a blunt trauma to the head. His body had been buried in a shallow grave in the wooded area where he was found. Estimated date of death was September, 1984.

Unfortunately there was no identification on Jeffreys’ body at the time it was found. His death was as much a mystery to Vermont State Police as his disappearance was to his family back in Clay.

After the discovery, Jeffreys’ body was properly buried in a pauper’s grave in Glover, VT. A stone at the gravesite simply reads, “No. 9.”

According to Jeffreys’ sister Angie Herron, Vermont State Police attempted to identify her brother immediately after his body was found.

“They issued a paper with a sketch and all the particulars of the victim,” Herron said. “It had height, weight, clothing and other descriptions. It was very widely spread throughout Tennessee. For reasons that I’m not free to discuss, they believed that the victim was from Tennessee.”

Vermont police missed their mark. No one with knowledge of Jeffreys’ disappearance saw the flyers.

When Jeffreys first left home in September 1984, his family found no reason to be concerned.

“It wasn’t unusual for him to go off somewhere for a few days,” said Virginia Jeffreys. “He was always a free spirit. From the time he started walking at eight months old, he was hard to keep up with. He always wanted to be going somewhere and doing something.”

As Jeffreys grew older, whenever he wanted to travel, he’d hitch a ride and go. Family members said he never met a stranger.

Because of that, when Jeffreys brought a friend home he had met while hitchhiking, his family took it in stride.

“This young man was going to Canada and Roger wanted to go with him,” said Virginia. “He had gotten into trouble in Madisonville and he was afraid of going to jail.

“They were here two or three hours that Saturday morning. They were anxious to get on the road.”

Within three days, Jeffreys called home to check in. “He was in Maryland,” Virginia said. “He said they were going on to Canada. I never heard from him again after that.”

Initially Jeffreys’ family didn’t suspect anything was amiss.

“I just kept looking for him to come home,” said Virginia. “Whenever he’d go on a trip, he’d never be gone more than two weeks.”

But as days turned into weeks, the family began to worry. Because he was wanted by the law, his family chose not to file a missing person’s report.

“We thought if he was picked up they would find he had an outstanding warrant against him and he’d be in more trouble,” Virginia said.

“I spent months looking out the window. The next car that drove by I expected to stop and let him out. The next phone call I expected to be from him.”

Jeffreys’ family even considered that he had been arrested and incarcerated in another state. But past experience had showed them he would have been sent back to Kentucky if that had happened.

“His sister thought maybe he had amnesia and he didn’t remember where he belonged,” Virginia said.

“He had a pattern of just going away,” Herron said. “But he would never go for a long period of time without calling. Or he’d just show back up shortly.”

As weeks became months, and months years, Jeffreys’ family never gave up hope of finding him.

“Anytime someone would see a blond-headed hitchhiker, they’d stop and pick him up,” said Virginia. “One time I was in a restaurant and saw someone who looked like Roger from behind. I tapped him on his shoulder. When he turned around I was so embarrassed. It wasn’t Roger.”

Other family members thought they saw sightings through the years as well. No matter where they were or what they were doing, a glimpse of a slender young blonde man would cause their hearts to beat rapidly... until they determined once again it wasn’t Roger.

“I knew he would never be gone like this if he hadn’t been killed some way,” Virginia said. “In your mind you think that, but your heart thinks he’s okay and maybe he’ll come back home. Your mind just jumps back and forth.”

Roger had also left behind a wife, Loretta (Conrad) and one-year-old twins, Roger and Courtney.

Soon after Jeffreys’ disappearance, Conrad contacted Kentucky State Police and Jeffreys’ parole officer. She too, couldn’t believe he would intentionally step out of her and their childrens’ lives for very long.

Over the next 18 years, even after her divorce from Jeffreys, Conrad never gave up her search for him. She followed every lead and even wrote to “Unsolved Mysteries.”

Although it took 18 years, her persistence finally paid off. In October 2002, Conrad learned of a missing persons website called doenetwork.org.

The site is operated by a volunteer organization that assists authorities nationwide in locating families of missing persons that are deceased, but have not been identified.

Conrad e-mailed the organization in Maryland, where Jeffreys had made his last phone call. Along with her inquiry, she sent all Jeffreys’ identifying information. A few days later, Conrad received an e-mail saying the information had been distributed across the nation.

A few days after that, Vermont State Police contacted Conrad stating they had been working on an 18-year-old case and wanted to talk to family members.

After hearing about the internet site and being questioned by Vermont State Police, Herron decided to get on the missing persons website as well.

“There are literally thousands of files,” Herron said. “I went through page, after page, after page of information on unidentified bodies. Because the body was decomposed, they had a composite picture of the body and vital statistics. Some of it was wrong but they did the best they could.”

Strong determining factors linked Vermont’s old case with Jeffreys. Jeffreys had tattooed the initials “RGJ” on his shoulder. The unidentified person’s profile stated the initials “RGJ” had been tattooed on the shoulder. Also, Jeffreys had broken his arm when he was a child. The profile mentioned an old break in the same arm.

“When I came to his file, I knew that was my brother,” Herron said. “The composite drawing didn’t look like him. But we gathered different pictures of him that we had and laid them all around the composite. Then we could see it looked like him.”

A series of phone calls to family members from Vermont State Police continued over the next three months. According to Herron they had plenty of questions, but would offer no answers.

Family members gathered every record of Jeffreys’ young life they could find. Authorities wanted medical records, dental records, jail records and even DNA samples from Jeffreys’ mother and children.

Finally, on Monday, Jan. 16, 2003, the family received official confirmation. The body found in the woods in Vermont was indeed that of Roger Gene Jeffreys.

“We didn’t want it to be,” said Virginia. “But it was.”

“For us Monday (Jan. 16 ) was the day that hope died,” said Herron. “That’s the day we knew Roger was dead.”

Jeffreys’ remains won’t be exhumed and returned to Kentucky until the ground thaws in Vermont. But his family will be holding a memorial service for him on Jan. 25 (see obituaries).

With the identification of Jeffreys’ body, the murder investigation is again being actively pursued by Vermont State Police.

“We don’t have closure yet,” said Jeffreys’ sister Carla Hunter. “But we are ready to put our search to rest.”