Summer 2001
I was about 7 years old when my mom told me I was adopted. It was a warm, sunny day, and I was playing outside with my brother. We had come inside for a drink and my mom called us upstairs. Climbing the stairs like a ladder, I bent over like a bear using my hands and feet and hurried up behind my brother, Ceej [pronounced like ‘siege’]. My mom was sitting on the chest at the end of her bed and asked us to sit down with her. Calmly, she pulled out aged pictures of a man and a woman. I didn’t recognize them, but I had a strange feeling I couldn’t understand. I held the photos in my hand while my mother told me this story:
“On April 15 of 1994, George Rivera, your father, and Lullie Jones, your mother, were killed in a car accident. You two [Ceej and I] and your half sister, Elizabeth, were in the car when it happened. Your car was hit by a truck, and then you crashed into a river. But the three of you survived. You two had nowhere to go, so we adopted you.”
At the time of the accident I was two months old, and Ceej was 20 months old. We had grown up thinking Mike and Darline Jones were our parents when, really, they were our aunt and uncle. My birth mother and my adoptive dad were siblings. These photographs told me that, but they did nothing to change my 7-year-old mind, or my way of looking at the people I knew as my parents. Mike and Darline raised me. They were my parents. I didn’t need or want to ask any questions.
Jenny Jones: “Name of my dad?”
Junior Reyes: “George Andrew Rivera”
Holy crap. He’s right. Is this really happening? How did this man find me? What is going on?
He keeps sending messages. I don’t really want to give this stranger any more information or clarification of who I am.
I should stop messaging him, shouldn’t I? This is terrifying! Who is he? What does he want?
All these questions keep flying through my head. Another message comes in.
Junior Reyes: “I’ve always wanted to find you two and never had much of any information, I’m sorry if I overwhelmed you with this.”
What does that mean? He’s always wanted to find me? What?
I have now begun to pace around my house.
Why is this happening?
I have so many questions, but I’m terrified to ask them.
What should I say?
My computer beeps again. Another message—from someone else I don’t know.
Cristina La Cantante: “Hi sweetheart my name is Cristina your fathers only full blooded sister…God is great, you know how long I have been looking for you…omg!!!”
Who is this? There it is again, “been looking for you.” What does that mean?
More messages from this stranger, who claims to be my aunt, keep appearing on my computer screen. I call my brother. He answers, and I am talking at 100 mph, trying to explain what is happening. I can’t focus on anything Ceej is saying with these messages floating in.
Cristina La Cantante: “You were born Jennifer Maria Rivera and your brother Ceej, was born Christopher Andrew Rivera. Omg … I held you in my arms as a baby and I don’t want to overwhelm you but please call me … I love you … you’re my family ... I love you.”
I’m definitely feeling overwhelmed. I have no idea who these people are. Whenever Ceej and I would ask about our birth parents or our other family, we weren’t given any indication that there was family out there that wanted any contact with us. I’m so confused, and I don’t know what to do. For now, I’ll leave it alone.
Tuesday October 21, 2014: 2:15 p.m.
I woke up feeling sick the past couple of days, so I’ve decided to go to the doctor. I think it’s only a cold, but I better catch it now before it gets worse. I have only lived in Des Moines for a year, so I don’t have a regular doctor in the area. I Google a medical clinic and find one in West Des Moines with an available appointment time. Perfect!
I walk up to the counter to fill out my paperwork. Complete! I make my way to the extremely uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Just as I sit down, the receptionist calls me back up to the counter.
“Is something wrong?” I ask her.
She asks if I have ever gone by a different name.
I’m confused by her question, so I respond, “No,” but then quickly add that I was adopted as a child.
She responds, “Well I have a match to your birth date and social security number, but you have a different last name ...”
My heart has sunk into my stomach, and suddenly my breath is gone.
Hesitantly, I ask “Is it Rivera?”
“Yes,” she responds.
Oh my gosh. What just happened?
She is printing out all of my information from when I was a baby, and as I collect it, it has my mother’s signature on it.
“Lullie Kay Jones.”
What are the odds of this happening right after those Facebook messages? This is so weird. Is this a coincidence? Is this a sign? Should I be looking into this? Maybe there’s a reason this is happening. But what could it be?
Wednesday October 29, 2014: 7:22 p.m.
I’ve taken a few days to really think about my next move. The doctor’s office fiasco really threw me off. I think I’m going to call my “aunt” and see what she has to say. I mean, what’s a phone call going to hurt? I might be opening a door to a part of my life I have no great understanding of, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know about it; right? I’m a little scared, but I’m too curious to blow it off.
The phone is ringing. I’m so nervous. I can’t stop my right knee from continually shaking. The phone keeps ringing. No one is going to answer. Should I leave a message? Suddenly, I hear a faint voice.
“Hello?”
I respond quickly. I ask if I’m speaking to Cristi.
She responds, “Yes. Is this Jennifer?”
My heart is beating so fast right now.
Breathe, Jenny. Breathe. What do I say to someone I’ve never met, but is technically, my family?
I nervously say, “This is crazy.”
“I think it’s a miracle actually.” She responds.
There’s a sudden stall in the conversation. I have no idea what to say. I decide to just bluntly ask what I’m looking for.
How did she, my “aunt,” lose touch with us? This is the question that has been floating through my head for the past week. I lived in the same house for 18 years. How did she not know where I was? I don’t understand. So, I ask her.
There’s another stall in the conversation; dead silence. Finally, I hear a slight sigh from the other side just before she starts to talk.
“… I don’t wanna bad mouth anybody … but…you were kind of taken from me … um … kind of hidden from all of us …”
What does that mean? I ask her to explain anything she remembers from the night my parents died. She remembers everything—in detail. She explains the car accident from her view. I can hear the struggle in her soft Hispanic accent as she replays every detail while fighting back tears.
I don’t know what to say. I know how difficult it must be for her to talk about this. She explains how close she and my father were. For a quick moment, I’ve put myself in her shoes.
What if this was my brother?
I have no idea how I would handle a trauma like that. Talking to Cristi feels, almost, like talking to a future version of myself. She and I have several things in common, and it feels like we’ve known each other forever. But I’ve never met this woman before.
Cristi repeats things from the accident that I’ve already been told. But she also tells me things I don’t know how to process. For example, she says I have two other half-sisters out there somewhere.
Oh my gosh! Who are they? I wonder if they’re anything like me. Should I ask about them? I don’t know if I’m mentally prepared for this yet.
She continues telling me things about the accident that don’t match up to the story my adoptive mom told me. But which story is the truth? I have to find out.
Thursday October 30, 2014: 1:03 p.m.
My conversation with Cristi has fully piqued my interest in finding out the truth of my parents’ deaths. Cristi gave me the name of her attorney in the fight for custody against my adoptive family. Knowing my adoptive parents, I can’t imagine they would ever hide my brother and me from our blood relatives, so I’m going to look into it. I want to get every bit of information there is on that day and everything that followed it.
Ceej doesn’t share my enthusiasm. After a short phone call it is clear to me that he isn’t interested in digging up the past.
How? How can he not care about this? People have been looking for us. Our parents died, and we survived. Doesn’t he want to know how?
During a break between classes, I have planted myself in a computer lab to do some research. I find a phone number for Cristi’s Attorney, David Newell, and I grab my cell phone to give him a call. He answers quickly. How do I approach this conversation? It’s been 20 years; this man may not even remember the case.
I hear a man answer.
“Hello…”
It’s him! I introduce myself and ask if he remembers the 1994 case. He does. And he still has the original documents in a file. Holy crap! I ask to set up a time to meet with him at his office in Muscatine, Iowa, the following week. He agrees.
Sunday October 19, 2014: 10:01 p.m.
I am currently in my third year of college. It’s a normal Sunday night, and I sit in my living room listening to the Dallas String Quartet on my Pandora station while trying to catch up on some homework. I am three paragraphs in on a paper, but a Facebook message has just popped up on my computer.
Junior Reyes: “Hi, can I ask you something?”
Thinking this is a different person with the name Junior; I read the message hurriedly and don’t register the sender’s last name. I don’t hesitate to respond.
Jenny Jones: “Yes”
Junior Reyes: “This is kind of hard but I think we are related … Did your parents pass away in a car accident?”
Now I know this isn’t the Junior I thought I was talking to.
Jenny Jones: “Yes …”
Junior Reyes: “Your dad is my brother … you are my niece …”
Woah. I have no idea what to think right now. Should I block this man and assume it’s a random person messing with me? I’m really curious, though. I’ll test him.
3:16 p.m.
During the week prior to the meeting, I’ve decided to do some more research.
I’ve been calling libraries and collecting articles from every newspaper near the
accident location.
“Crash Kills 2: 3 taken to hospital”
“Names released in fatal crash”
“2 die underwater in car”
Many papers have my parents’ obituaries and several names I can try to contact
in the hope of finding more information. I even find the exact location where the accident
happened and where my father is buried. The accident took place only an hour away
from where I had lived most of my life. I have to see this crash site.
In one article, there is a name. Sandra Kay Peterson. This is the woman who hit our car.
Should I try to find her? I know this will be a sensitive topic, but I need to know what
happened.
I find a number and give it a call.
“You’ve reached the voicemail of Sandra Peterson,” I hear through the phone.
I leave a brief message. I never hear back.
More questions are running through my head. So many questions. They keep me awake at night.
How did the accident happen? Who was at fault? How did we … I, survive?
The main question that keeps lodging itself into my brain is whether my adoptive mom’s story is true.
Was she hiding something? What happened after the accident? Did she keep us from our other family?
4:45 p.m.
I think about my adoptive mom, Darline. She has no idea what I’ve been up to the past few days. Right now she’s on vacation, and I don’t want to call and disturb her. I think I’m going to find out as much as I can on my own, and when she returns home, I will need to talk with her. I know I’m diving into 20 years of murky history, but I can’t help it. I’m so far in; there’s no way I could stop now.
Wednesday November 5, 2014: 10:04 a.m.
Today is the day. I’ve made all the necessary arrangements to drive to Muscatine, Iowa and gather as much information as possible. My meeting with Attorney David Newell is at 2 p.m., so I have some extra time to stop at the Coralville Public Library on my way through the Iowa City area. I want to see if there are any news articles I missed.
The lady at the desk is wonderful. She’s found microfilm from the year of the accident and is getting me set up on a projector to view them. No luck. Not a single article about the accident. I’m so disappointed. Every article I’ve found, so far, has only been a couple of paragraphs with the basic information. I can’t imagine there wasn’t a bigger story on this. This is a BIG deal! Two people died, leaving three children behind, and we were in the car! Where is that article?
12:30 p.m.
My next stop is to pick up the police report from the Muscatine County Jail. Yes, they still have it. I called earlier to be sure. I walk up and ask the woman behind glass for the report. She tells me she remembers my phone call a few days earlier. She grabs the report and looks at me with heavy eyes. She knows. She knows I was in the car. I can feel it.
I look at the paper. On the front, there is all the drivers’ information and a detailed record of the cars involved. The date, time, and location are provided at the top.
I flip the page over. At the top there is a chart that denotes who was injured and indicates whether seat belts were worn. They weren’t. My parents and my half sister were not buckled in.
What? Why would you not buckle-up? Why was your 7-year-old unbuckled? I don’t understand.
I look further down the page and see a sketch of how the accident happened. Our car was hit on the driver’s side and pushed to roll through a ditch and land driver’s-side-down in a creek. I look at the lightly sketched cars and their path of impact and for some reason I feel tears rolling down my cheek.
2:02 p.m.
The next stop is to meet with the attorney from the Jones-Rivera custody trial. The receptionist goes to inform Newell.
A tall man in his mid-60s walks into the waiting room. He has a relaxed face and white hair, and his dark eyes are looking right at me. This must be him. I stand up and walk over.
“Mrs. Reyes and her husband are here,” he says. “They would like to meet you and discuss the case.”
WHAT? Oh gosh. I wasn’t expecting this. Mrs. Maria Reyes is my father’s mother, or I guess, my grandmother. She was the other party in my custody case. What do I say to her? Do we hug? Do I shake her hand?
I’m not ready for this. I haven’t even thought about meeting any of these people in person. I’m terrified. My hands are shaking, and my heart feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest.
I walk into the room and see a short, Spanish-looking woman with white hair and dressed in a red sweater. Next to her is her husband, a shorter man with dark hair and eyes wearing a wind breaker and a baseball cap. They both stare at me as I walk in. Maria stands up and opens her arms for a hug. I comply. As I pull away, she touches my face and gives a sweet smile.
It’s strange, but for some reason I feel completely comfortable. I have never met these people, but something about them just feels safe.
The meeting is going well. Newell made several copies from the custody file and is allowing me to keep them. I also have my original birth certificate with both my parents’ signatures. Maria is talking in her thick Spanish accent. Though I struggle to depict what all is being said, I feel comfortable. My nerves have escaped me, and I’m memorizing every word she and her husband say. They are a lot like me. This is so strange.
4:39 p.m.
I arrive at a large four-way cross. This is where the accident happened. I’m Westbound on Highway 6; driving the same route the “other car” would have been taking at the time of the accident.
I cross the intersection. The river we landed in is off to my left. I’m speechless. I need to pull off to the side of the highway and take a better look.
I get out and the sky is a dark blue-gray color. I feel strange. Cars are flying by me. The highway I drove in on has a speed limit of 55 mph, the same as it was in 1994 (according to police report). The county road my father would’ve been driving on is also set at 55 mph. But there is a stop sign on his road. The police report stated my father failed to stop.
Why? How? I don’t understand.
I walk over to the edge of the road where our car would’ve been pushed into the river. When I read “creek” on the police report, I assumed it was a tiny strip of water running along the ditch. No. It’s a river, the Cedar River to be exact. The water looks to be about 4-6 feet deep, and the distance from the road to the river is about 12 feet. We must’ve really flown off the road. My stomach twists as I envision the accident in my head, over and over again.
The intersection seems so familiar. But how? The last time I was here, I was only two months old. How could this be familiar to me? It doesn’t make sense. I’m standing here looking at the river that took the lives of my parents. All I keep thinking is that this is the place where my life completely changed.
Was it supposed to happen? Where would I be if we never crashed? Where would I be if they, my parents, never died?
5:32 p.m.
There is an old wooden sign on the side of the road that reads, “Greenwood Cemetery.” This is where my father is buried.
I pull up to the front office and go inside to ask for help. The man at the desk looks up my father’s name and pulls out a map of the cemetery. With a highlighter, he marks the path from the office to my father’s grave.
I’m nervous. I’m reading name after name. Nervously chewing the inside of my cheek, I finally come across it. It’s a landscape-shaped headstone.
“George Andres Rivera: April 27, 1965-April 15, 1994.”
“To live in the hearts of those we love is never to die.”
I love that. What a wonderful quote. I’m just standing silent, and staring. There’s a car engraved in the center of his stone, as well. I remember Cristi saying how much he loved cars, especially his Trans-Am. So out of love for her brother, Cristi had his car engraved on his tombstone. That’s something I would’ve done, too.
Yet I have no idea what to do right now, I kneel down and wipe the leaves off of the tombstone. When I finally speak, all I have is one sentence.
“I’m sorry we were never given the chance to know each other.”
Friday November 7, 2014: 1:02 p.m.
I think it’s time to talk to my half-sister, Elizabeth. She was the one in the car with Ceej and me. At the time of the accident she was 7 years old. I wonder if she remembers anything.
Elizabeth and I are the only two from our biological family that have occasionally kept in touch. After the accident, her birth father took her to live with him, so Ceej and I never saw her much growing up.
I start the conversation by asking what she has been up since we last talked (in 2012). She messages me back, and I get right to the point.
Jenny Jones: “I have actually been doing something a little crazy … I’ve been looking into the accident that killed our mother (and my father) and I was able to find a ton of information. But I was wondering if you remembered anything from that day?”
It’s been several minutes now, and she hasn’t replied yet.
Did I upset her? Was that too forward? I’ll message her again.
Jenny Jones: “Sorry, I know this might not be easy to talk about, but anything would help.”
Still no answer.
Great. There goes that idea. I hope she is ok.
Finally, a message from her pops up.
Elizabeth Nguyen: “I tried looking for information about that day but didn’t find much. I’d be curious to know what you found.”
I decide to tell her everything and begin typing—fast. Before I can finish, she messages me again.
Elizabeth Nguyen: “The little bit I do remember is waking up in the car and being half in water and seeing my stuffed animal-monkey, floating away. My second memory was being in the ambulance. They asked if I was hurting and I told them my shoulder (I had a broken collarbone).”
Oh my goodness. She remembers way more than I thought she would. Another message comes in.
Elizabeth Nguyen: “… and that a guy came and got all of us kids out.”
What? There was a guy who pulled us out of the car?
I’m grabbing the police report. In the “Narration” box, the last line reads, “A young child, a toddler, and an infant were rescued by passerbys from unit 1.”
Unit 1 was our car. Someone rescued us from the car! Why didn’t I think about that? I had read the line several times, but I never fully processed the “rescued” part, I guess. The only other name on the report is that of a witness, Shawn Kerr.
I set up a time to meet with Elizabeth. It will be much easier to discuss all of this in person. I also resolve to find Shawn Kerr.
Sunday November 9, 2014: 6:31 a.m.
I’m driving to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to visit Elizabeth. I want her to know everything I’ve done so far, and I want to talk more about what she remembers.
I arrive at a cute little house. She has a lot of artwork on the walls. The décor reminds me of my apartment. Strange. We sit down and get to talking. I show her all of the articles I collected and the police report. She reciprocates with some pictures and an article that was written about her in 1995, recovering her memory of the event.
In the article, Elizabeth talks about our mother and George, my father. We all lived together, and my father raised Elizabeth with our mother. She talks about how they used to play games and how she would help put Ceej and I to sleep at night. In the article, Elizabeth mentions that she remembered our mother being in the passenger seat of the car when we crashed. But as I am talking with her, she is telling me that she thinks our mother was in the back, left seat.
This makes sense. If Lullie was sitting behind my father, the driver, they both would have been sitting on the side of the car that took the impact.
I read on. Elizabeth talks about how my father tried to hit the brakes, but they didn’t work.
Could that be true?
I remember the Reyes family saying something about the breaks failing. They all believed this to be the cause of the accident. But I think this might have be their way of coping with the fact that the accident was George’s fault. He was also a “car guy.” If the brakes were bad, he could have fixed that, right? I double-check the police report, and it doesn’t say anything about the reason he ran the stop sign. All the news articles just say he failed to stop for unknown reasons. More unanswered questions keep rolling through my head.
Still reading through the beautifully written article, I arrive at the part where Elizabeth talks about the man who saved us.
“A man came and saved my brother, sister, and me, but he couldn’t save my mom or George,” she writes.
Tears are filling my eyes. What an awful thing to experience at the age of 7. I look up at Elizabeth, and at the same time she looks back. Her eyes are big and brown. I picture myself at 7 years old. There’s no way I could’ve handled something like this.
She offers to show me my mother’s burial site. She informs me that our mother was cremated, but that Elizabeth’s birth father wanted her to have a place to go in memory of Lullie. Therefore, he had a tombstone placed at the Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City.
My feelings at my mother’s grave are much like they were at my father’s. But I feel more comfortable with Elizabeth here. She tells me that she tries to come two or three times a year and definitely on our mother’s birthday.
Should I visit again?
4:39 p.m.
I arrive outside of my adoptive mom’s house. I’m here to come clean. I pull in behind her car and park, like I always do. I called ahead of time, so she knew I was coming and is at the door ready to greet me. I come in and make small talk. I’m trying to think of how to tell her why I’m really home, but she beats me to it. She asks why I’m in the area and I tell her I’ve been working on a project. I sit her down on the couch and show her everything I’ve been working on.
Over the course of my investigation I’ve been organizing my findings with page protectors in a large, black, three-ring binder. I pull it out and lay the weight of 20 years across her lap, as she thumbs through all the pages.
My adoptive mom is the sweetest person I know, and she has the greatest heart. Not only did she adopt me and my brother, but after having one of her own, she had adopted three more special needs children. I knew going into this that it might be difficult for her to hear or talk about, and I was afraid it was going to hurt her. I expected tears.
To my surprise, she’s handling the situation really well. She tells me she is proud of me for putting in so much time to find out what happened. This is definitely not what I expected.
She shares with me everything she remembers from the accident, but it’s nothing I haven’t heard already or figured out for myself. Based on what she is telling me, it’s clear she was more concerned about where Ceej and I ended up and not necessarily the details of the accident.
It feels good to know my mom is no longer in the dark. And I come away with a lead. She informed me of a file she had kept with all the information from the accident, but when she and my adoptive dad, Mike, divorced; she left it at the house. I need that file.
Wednesday November 12, 2014: 1:05 p.m.
Shawn Kerr. I have to find Shawn Kerr. But I have no leads.
I decide to track down Deputy Frank Draper instead. Draper was the first officer on the scene, and his signature was on the police report. I call the Muscatine County Sherriff’s Department and learn Draper has retired. But I’ve gotten a hold of someone who knows him, and they are passing my information along. While I wait, I continue my search for Kerr.
Hours have gone by, and I can’t find him. The police report has Kerr’s old address and phone number, so that’s no use. I begin calling every Kerr I can find living in the Muscatine area. No one seems to know Shawn.
Finally I reach someone who knows where the correct Kerr works. I call a plumbing company and indeed, they have a Shawn Kerr working there. I give the woman my information and ask her to have him call me as soon as possible.
Minutes later, my cell phone rings, and it’s a number with a 563 area code—Muscatine area. It’s not Kerr. I answer, and Deputy Frank Draper introduces himself. He tells me he remembers the accident and would be happy to discuss it. We set up a time to meet in Muscatine the next day. I don’t want to waste any time.
Thursday November 13, 2014: 10:01 a.m.
I am nervously awaiting Draper’s arrival. I know it’s him as soon as I see him. As if the name Frank Draper weren’t enough, he looks like a cop, too. He pulls up driving a baby blue Crown Vic. He’s wearing khaki pants, a flannel shirt, a black leather coat and black New Balance tennis shoes.
He walks over, and I introduce myself. He seems like such a nice guy. We get to talking. Unfortunately, Draper says he doesn’t remember much from the accident. It has been 20 years, so I can’t say I’m surprised. Nevertheless, I begin asking questions.
“Where was my mother sitting?”
“Did our brakes go out?”
“Was anyone buckled?”
“Do you have any information on the man who rescued us?”
Draper stares at me with sad eyes. He doesn’t have an answer for anything. I can hear in his voice that he wants to help, but he has no information to give. He explains everything on the police report to the best of his knowledge. But he’s telling me I need to contact the Iowa State Patrol and get a hold of the “technical investigation” files. Draper informs that this report should have pictures, statements, and a scale drawing of what happened.
As I’m leaving Muscatine, I think about what I still want to collect. I need to get a hold of the file my adoptive mom kept, my father’s autopsy, and of course to find Shawn Kerr.
On my way through Iowa City, I decide to stop at my adoptive mom’s office to say goodbye.
12:32 p.m.
I’m about to leave the office when my phone buzzes. It’s a text message from an unknown number.
Text: “This is shawn kerr. Is now a good time to call?”
It’s him! It’s Shawn Kerr! I show my mom the message. Her face lights up as I literally run in circles around her office. I’m going to call him. Why waste any time? He answers with a careful voice. I ask if I’m speaking with the man who saved three children from a car accident in 1994. It is!
Where do I even begin?
I tell him who I am and why I have been trying to contact him. I can see my adoptive mom out of the corner of my eye. Her eyes are filling with tears, and she’s holding her face.
I ask Shawn if I can give him a call later or talk to him through Skype. He agrees! Before I hang up, my adoptive mom begs me to give her the phone. I ask Shawn if he would be ok speaking with her.
“Of course,” he says.
While fighting tears, my mom tells him how thankful she is that he saved our lives:
“I’ve wanted to thank you for years—but I had no way of knowing how.”
1:03 p.m.
Before I head home, I stop at my adoptive dad’s house to pick up the file my adoptive mom told me about. It has so many wonderful things inside. My original birth certificate, hospital bands, ultrasounds, death certificates, and a journal she kept with phone numbers of people involved in the investigation. What stands out most is an article I haven’t seen yet.
“3 pulled to safety as water fills car”
This is the article I needed to read. The article recounts how a man living nearby rushed to the scene of the crash. But the man mentioned isn’t Shawn Kerr. It’s Mark Van Der Veer. In the article, Van Der Veer talks about getting in the water and seeing children’s faces through the glass.
“I could hear kids crying. A young man appeared out of nowhere with a pipe wrench, and we broke in the side window at the back of the car,” Van Der Veer says to the interviewer.
He got my brother, Ceej, out of the car first.
“Then I tried to reach the older girl,” he continues. “She wouldn’t come at first, but when I got closer, she lunged at me and held on tight, like she was never going to let go of me.”
He’s talking about Elizabeth. My eyes are filling with tears, but I can’t stop reading.
“Van Der Veer and another man (Kerr) carried two children to safety, with no sign of other survivors,” the author continues. “But Van Der Veer went back for another look.”There was some carpet or something hanging down, and I pulled it up, and there was the baby hanging upside down in a child seat."
That’s me. I’m the baby.
The article continues:
“The baby’s head was at water level and the water was still rising inside the car. Jennifer was rescued just in time.”
Tears. I can’t stop the tears. I was seconds away from drowning. If Van Der Veer wouldn’t have gone back to the car, they never would’ve known I was there. I would’ve drowned with my parents. I can’t even explain what I am feeling right now. I am thankful. I am thankful to Mark and Shawn for pulling me out of the car. I am thankful for my life.
6:57 p.m.
I have to find Van Der Veer. Maybe Shawn can help me with that.
Shawn and I have set up a Skype meeting, and I’m waiting anxiously in the computer lab. My computer is ringing. It’s him! I click the video button on the Skype page, and I see a middle-aged man with brown hair and a mustache staring at me through the computer screen. This is him.
This is one of the men who saved my life.
I thank him for agreeing to talk with me and tell him I want to get his perspective on the accident. I ask him to tell me everything he remembers.
He tells me he was sitting at the intersection opposite our car and waiting for traffic to cross (More specifically, Sandra). He saw George wasn’t going to stop and saw the collision coming. He braced himself. After the impact, our car spun down the ditch to the creek, just missing Shawn’s truck on the way.
First, he checked on Sandra to make sure she was out of her car and ok, he then went to the water to check our car. He heard children crying but he couldn’t pull the door open. He went back to his truck, still on the road, and grabbed a pipe wrench to break a window to our car.
Shawn was 20 years old when the accident happened. As I explain how grateful I am to him, he responds humbly.
“I only did what any other person with a heart, would’ve done,” he says. “I’m just glad I was there.”
I’m 20-years-old now. Listening to Shawn tell me what his thoughts were and how quickly he reacted, I don’t know if I could have done the same thing. I’m trying to imagine myself in his shoes, and I have no idea how I would’ve reacted to something like that.
He continues to explain the story.
Shawn returned to the water and there was another man (Mark Van Der Veer) already by the car, trying to rescue my siblings and me. He explains that Mark came on the scene and helped calm him down. Mark got the pipe-wrench from Kerr and took the lead in our rescue. Mark pulled us out of the car and handed us to Shawn, who carried us up to the road, where more people were ready to help.
Shawn is maintaining his composure.
Officers and first responders arrived on the scene, meanwhile a helicopter landed on the road to provide transport to the University of Iowa Hospital. However, my siblings, our mother and I, had already been taken to Muscatine General Hospital.
I knew from the police report that my father had been air lifted off the scene. What I didn’t know was how and when he was removed from the car.Shawn begins to explain.
I listen as the sweet man’s voice begins to break. Tears fall as he shares a trauma I never could’ve imagined:
“When they pulled the car out of the creek … there was still a person in the car. No one knew that. I assume it was your dad … then they did everything they could. I remember … oh …”
He stops. He’s drops his head in his hands, and the computer has gone silent. Tears are rolling down his cheeks, and he’s fighting hard to hold them in, but he can’t. He keeps trying to explain the situation, but his quivering lip and short gasps between sobs are making it difficult. I begin to cry with him. Eventually he breaks the silence:
“They ... they tried … they tried so hard … it had been an hour … or more, and they still … you know, they … but they knew ... But they tried their hardest— as if it had just happened.”
They removed my father from the car as they pulled it from the water. They determined he was still alive and loaded him into the helicopter. He died before they reached the hospital.
All I can do is thank Shawn for his courage and his fearless decision to get in the water and help. He is so kind and so humble, and I can hear the goodness in his voice.
“I actually live just a mile south from where the accident happened,” he says. “And I think of you every single time I pass that intersection.”
The tears return.
“I can’t believe I live here,” he says. “Because … every single time I go through that intersection … you know, I think about it. It never goes away.”
My heart is so sad for Shawn. I can’t imagine how haunting that must be. I wonder if he ever feels like he could have done more? But he couldn’t have, I know that. I want him to know that. He saved 3 people.
To me, that is amazing.
Thank you Shawn.
June 23, 1994
Shawn Kerr (right) and Mark Van Der Veer (left) recieved an award for their heroism.
Monday November 17, 2014:1:02 p.m.
I make a quick trip to the Des Moines Public Library. Shawn has sent me some pictures of an article about him and Mark accepting a state award for their heroic efforts. I want to find that article.
The librarian helps me look through the microfilm. Nothing. He asks what I am looking for, specifically. I give him a basic description and am sure to add that the man I’m looking for saved my life. I have the librarian’s attention.
He takes the pictures Shawn sent me and sits at a computer. With one quick search in their confidential database, he pulls up a Mark Van Der Veer from Clear Lake, Iowa. There is a phone number. I write it down, thank the man for his help and head out of the library.
I have already searched several numbers and locations for a Mark Van Der Veer, so I’m not feeling too confident with this new information. But I might as well try. I stop in a private reading room on my way out, dial the number, and a man picks up.
“Hello?”
I respond with the same worn-out explanation I’ve been using for the past two weeks. I introduce myself and explain that I am looking for a Mark Van Der Veer who rescued three children from a car accident in 1994. The man responds.
“That was me.”
A huge smile comes across my face. My heart is beating so fast. I can’t wait to meet him! We set up a time to meet in person and discuss the accident.
Wednesday November, 18 2014: 3:07 p.m.
After my meeting with Deputy Draper, I had made all the arrangements to getting the investigative study from the Iowa State Patrol. Trooper Milan James out of Stockton, Iowa, was the one who recorded the events from the day of the accident and for some reason, kept the file. When I called him he was extremely helpful and mailed it to the Des Moines location for me to pick up.
I arrive at the ISP building and walk in. Trooper Lundgren, whom I had spoken with prior to my arrival, greets me with a large vanilla envelope in his hand. Inside are the photographs taken at the scene, my father’s autopsy, the original notes and statements from the people involved, as well as an up-to-scale drawing of the accident.
Looking through everything is difficult. The pictures are almost too much to bear.
This folder gives me an answer to every question I have asked about that day since I began this investigation.
Tuesday November 25, 2014: 9:35 a.m.
I arrive at a large brick-house on a small farm. I pull around the back and see a big yard with three white barns and a fenced-in horse. This is where Mark Van Der Veer lives. I’m extremely nervous, and I can feel my hands shaking. I don’t know what to expect from this. Mark sounded like a really nice man on the phone but talking about a traumatic situation isn’t easy for anyone; especially when you’re talking to someone you’ve just met.
I’m getting out of the car, and I can see Mark coming out of the house toward me. His aged face carries a white mustache, and his blue eyes are staring at me through thick glasses. He greets me with a soft smile and a hug.
We walk to the house and enter through the garage. When I reach the doorway, his wife is waiting to greet me. Ellen is about 5’3’’ and also opens her arms for a hug. I reciprocate.
I sit myself down beside Mark and begin to make small talk. Ellen sits down off to my right and they both seem very grateful and excited to have me here. Their home is decorated much like the home I grew up in. The walls carry lots of family memorabilia in a modern-country style. As we talk, they seem like wonderful, big-hearted people and I am enjoying every second of their company.
There’s a brief stall in the conversation, so, I seize the opportunity and get right to the point. I start by asking Mark what he remembers from the accident. With a calm face, he looks at me and begins to talk.
Mark explains the details of the accident, some of which I already knew. He then goes on to explain that he and Ellen lived about a block from the crash site and were relaxing at home when someone came pounding on their door. A stranger explained that there had been an accident up the road and help was needed. While Ellen called 911, Mark jumped in his truck and headed to the scene.
When Mark arrived at the intersection, he recalls seeing Shawn helping Sandra out of her car. Mark immediately rushed into the water. When he arrived at our car, the dashboard was fully submerged under water and slowly sinking deeper.
“Everyone was just, screaming,” Mark said. “You kids were screaming and the lady in the car was yelling— it was a really sad sight.”
Just as Shawn had explained, Mark pulled Elizabeth out of the car first. He then carried her up to the road where a man and a woman had their mini-van open and were ready to warm her up. Shawn, carrying Ceej, followed. Mark returned to the car and pulled me out just in time. After taking me up to the road with my siblings, Mark returned to the car to look for other survivors.
“I could see your mother’s leg and ankle … and I pulled on it a little bit ... But she was really lodged in there,” he continues. “I called for help because I was afraid to pull too hard. But … no one wanted to get involved.”
At one point, Mark and Shawn tried rolling the car in the hope of rescuing Lullie.
“I knew your mom was in the car, but during the whole thing I never did see your dad … I never knew he was in there,” Mark said.
His eyes are watering now.
“When I rescued your sister she was lodged beneath the steering wheel, so I assumed there was no one in the driver’s seat,” he continues.
With the car slowly sinking to the bottom of the river, the weight was too much for both men to move. By this time, authorities had arrived on scene.
I sat and listened carefully as Mark recovered every detail of the accident. Ellen was also filling in gaps, while trying to hold back tears.
“April 15 has always stuck in my mind,” Ellen said. “It was so traumatic.”
The most traumatic part for Mark was trying to do more but needing help in order to do so.
“It wasn’t good for me,” said Mark, his voice strained. “The young boy (Shawn) and I were calling for help, and there were so many cars stopped … I didn’t think there was enough done — by people that could’ve been helping us.”
When authorities arrived on scene, Mark and Ellen had to walk away with frustration. After returning home and changing into dry clothes, the couple drove to Muscatine General Hospital to check on my siblings and me.
“We exchanged information with a friend of your father’s to keep up with you kids, but we lost touch after a few years,” Ellen said. “We always wondered what happened to all of you and where you ended up.”
I can see how grateful Mark and Ellen are to know that their stress and wonder after 20 years has finally come to an end. I explain how thankful I am to both of them for their courage and willingness to help on that traumatic night. Ever so humble, they smile at me with such open hearts.
As our conversation ends, Ellen and Mark insist on taking me out for some lunch. I don’t hesitate to say “yes.”
Spending time with the Van Der Veers feels a lot like finding long-lost grandparents. They are so kind and eager to learn all about me. I feel so at home with both of them. I will keep in touch.
1:18 p.m.
As I drive home I think about my journey and all that I’ve uncovered from this adventure. I think about all the people I’ve met and how one incident has completely changed their lives. I know now that I was supposed to take all the steps and meet all the people I did. I know that I needed every one of them to get all I had been looking for.
Everything has fallen into place, and now I’m beginning to feel some closure.
April 15, 1994: 8:45 p.m.
George Rivera, 28, and Lullie Jones, 31, were leaving a relative’s home in Iowa City. They were traveling with their three children; Elizabeth, 7, Jennifer, 2 months, and Christopher, 20 months. With Elizabeth safely buckled in the front-passenger seat, Lullie sat directly behind George and watched over Jennifer and Christopher, to her right. They were on Moscow Road headed south into Muscatine to visit family.
A woman driving a red 1989 Chevrolet Corsica was headed home from a visit with her daughter. Headed west on Highway 6, she came to a four way intersection. Before she had time to react, a 1981 Silver Toyota Celica ran through three sets of rumble strips and a stop sign- right into the woman’s path.
With both cars traveling at about 60 mph, the Corsica slammed into the left, rear side of the Toyota and pushed it to rotate counterclockwise. It then flipped and traveled through the air until it landed wheels down in the mud beach of a river. The car rolled to land driver’s side down in the water.
The Corsica also rotated counterclockwise and rolled once to land on its top in a nearby ditch. The woman driver removed her seat belt and climbed out of her car with the help of a witness.
The witness and a passerby ran into the river to check on the driver of the Toyota.
George Rivera was the driver.
Post impact, he punctured his lung impaling the steering wheel and suffered a fractured skull from the windshield. He did not have a seat belt on. Lullie Jones also failed to wear a protective belt and is thought to have died on impact. Both died with a probable cause of drowning.
Jennifer was hanging from her car seat; Christopher was strapped in his seatbelt while Elizabeth’s belt failed to work. All three children were rescued from the sinking car, sustaining mild to no injuries.
Neither road conditions nor weather played a role in the cause of the accident. Both vehicles were in good condition prior to impact. Each car had working lights and brakes with no signs of any malfunctions. Neither car used the brakes prior to impact.
All persons involved cleared a BAC test with .000. However, the driver of the Toyota tested positive for traces of marijuana.
The overall cause or reason for running the stop sign remains unknown.
Click image to expand
Click Here to watch the Documentary!
