July 31, 2002     Los Gatos, California Since 1881 Photograph by Kristopher Gainey Jess and Georgette Sanchez light candles at a special Saturday night candlelight vigil held for their missing daughter, Jeanine Sanchez Harms. A year passes by, and Jeanine is still missing By Gloria I. Wang It's been a year and four days since Jeanine Sanchez Harms spent an evening with acquaintances in downtown Campbell. It's been just over a year since Jeanine was reported missing from her Chirco Drive home, with suspicious circumstances. It's been a year filled with intense efforts of family and friends to find the 42-year-old woman and keep her disappearance in the spotlight. Despite those efforts, the police investigation has stalled and the two men who reportedly last saw Jeanine are still refusing to talk. And yet Jeanine's mother, Georgette Sanchez, is determined to keep the case alive and dedicated to pursuing the truth of what happened on July 27, 2001. Georgette's become the one who keeps in touch with various media outlets, delegates duties in the small "Find Jeanine" group, contacts different officials for ways to find her daughter, and is now pushing for a grand jury investigation. That way, Georgette says, the entire story will come out and the two men will be subpoenaed. "The gaps will be filled. There are a lot of gaps and a lot of questions," Georgette says. Georgette, 76, wasn't always this active in her daughter's case. Immediately following July 27, Jeanine's brother Craig acted as the family spokesman and kept his parents from the media for their protection. In September, however, Jess—Jeanine's father—and Georgette agreed to be interviewed, inviting this journalist to their Campbell home. Contributed photograph Jeanine Sanchez Harms Over the past few months, I've spent quite a bit of time with the Sanchezes and their extended family. Most of the time we sit on the couch to watch television and chat, which is what Jess and Georgette spend most of their days doing. "They were such fun-loving people," Jess's younger sister Lucy Sanchez Crumpton says of the Sanchezes before July 27. "Their whole life revolved around their children, especially Jeanine." Although Jeanine no longer lived close by, she called her mother every day and saw her parents at least twice a week. Now, Jess and Georgette tend to stay home and watch rented movies, avoiding family get-togethers. Visitors—including Jess's seven siblings and their spouses—come often. Only when their two granddaughters visit do the Sanchezes go out. And Jess and Georgette have gone to Reno a handful of times to play the slot machines. I once asked Georgette if the Reno trips served as a distraction from Jeanine's disappearance. "It's our only distraction, besides the kids, of course," Georgette answers. "It's really good to get away." Sometimes Georgette says she and Jess forget that Jeanine is gone. Usually it's in the middle of the day, since Jeanine was always either at school or working as a teenager, then later at her full-time job at Amdahl. But according to Lucy, Jess has said that at night, when things have calmed down, life is hard. That's when he and Georgette grieve and cry—though they do it differently. Georgette's been keeping busy, meeting with the women who are just as determined to solve the mystery of Jeanine's disappearance and making phone calls. "The people who took her away shouldn't be out there. We want to find her," Georgette says. Georgette gets together with Lucy and three of Jeanine's closest friends—Chigiy Binnell, Janice Burnham and Loretta Meyer—on a regular basis to figure out the next step in finding Jeanine. In fact, it's Georgette who called Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Chief Scott Seaman and asked him to say a few words at the July 27 one-year candlelight vigil for Jeanine. "Georgette said to me, 'You know, how can we find out anything if we don't do anything?' " Lucy says. "She just doesn't want Jeanine to think that she's given up," says Janice, Jeanine's best friend and former roommate who is practically a family member. Georgette's attitude, Janice says, is that "My daughter would want me to do this." Jess, 76, on the other hand, prefers not to get involved. While he loves to tell stories and is by no means a quiet person, anytime the subject of the case comes up, Jess remains silent. During the most recent interview that I did with the Sanchezes, Jess stayed in the family room and watched golf with their 44-year-old son, Wayne. "Jess is like, 'Well, she's dead and gone and we can't do anything about it,' " Lucy told me. "I guess he's doing it in a different way. Mourning, you know? Because that's his little girl." Wayne, who lives with his parents, is like his father, in that "he's kind of like, 'Oh, you guys are wasting your time,' " and is convinced that grassroots efforts will lead nowhere, Janice says. "Wayne? He doesn't say anything at all," Lucy says. He'd much rather not be the center of attention but does mourn for his sister, Lucy says; Craig, Wayne and Jeanine were always together growing up and hung out every time Craig visited from his home in Maryland. Georgette recalls the way her family survived immediately after July 27. "You know the biggest thing for Jess and Wayne and I for weeks and weeks and weeks was that we couldn't believe it," Georgette says. "For a tragedy to happen to someone in our family, it's unthinkable. It's incongruous." "The first three months, we were all there with them. Bringing them food, being with them," Lucy says of her many siblings. "Before, I didn't want to be in a big family," Georgette says. "Now it turned out to be a godsend." Janice, who was the first person to go looking for Jeanine when she didn't show up for work on July 30 after meeting a date in Campbell July 27, recalls being "horribly grief-stricken, finding the strength to keep the case alive" in the beginning. "I'm more angry than ever after having a year," Janice says. "More of an anger and more of a stronger determination to find out what happened and push people to find out what happened." The discovery of Chandra Levy's body also led Jeanine's loved ones to pursue the case with more of a vengeance. Georgette remembers watching the news and having to turn the television off after the discovery was reported. Chandra's case hit close to home since the Sanchezes had met the Levys at a vigil in March. "My hands were shaking," Georgette says, adding that she and Jess went to sit in the backyard to calm themselves. Jess was especially upset; I called Lucy a few days after to ask how her brother and sister-in-law were, and she told me that Jess wouldn't come out of his room. "When [Georgette and Chigiy] told me about Chandra, it was like chills were running down my spine. I felt like, 'Oh God, we're going to face that pretty soon,' " Janice says. "And then those mixed feelings of, 'Oh well, at least they know.' " And that's the most that the group can hope for. While Janice used to believe that Jeanine would show up, admitting that she had gone away with a boyfriend or fled from a kidnapper, now what she wants is "to find her body and find the person responsible." "As time goes on, you just kind of accept it, but you want to find the guy who did it," Lucy says. "Jess and Georgette and Wayne are dealing with it as best they can."