My Nonprofit Reviews

From Karen Krepps, Board of Directors: LostNMissing Inc. A public claim of harassment made against someone is a VERY serious matter that could work to not only destroy a totally innocent persons reputation, but can also have a very negative impact on the lives of everyone that surrounds that person. Such a claim therefore must be substantiated with factual, verifiable proof, not rumor, gossip, innuendo or simply a belief in the claims of ones family. While it may very well be true that some of your family did "feel" harassed... IF they weren't factually being harassed those feelings are NOT valid. Correcting the record or correcting a printed falsehood on a public forum or social network is NOT harassment even if the person or persons posting the inaccuracies or falsehoods repeatedly ask not to be corrected. Posting "A" message in response to a message that has been placed on a board in public forum or on social network page is NOT harassment. Sending someone "A" private message via a social network, and responding to their responses is NOT harassment. Accepting "A" phone call from someone and asking that they have their wife call them so that they can explain the organizations services, is NOT harassment Fact is there has not been one single ounce of evidence presented by any of the negative review writers (or anyone else any place) that would support a claim of harassment or bullying done at the hand of Cynthia or LNM, because neither Cynthia or LNM has EVER harassed or bullied anyone. . That you included the following in your "review" reveals to me the real root cause of the issues that you and your family have with Cynthia and LNM....quoting you: "My biggest complaint is that Cynthia took into account the word of only one member of this very large family, and took those words at gospel truth. All the family is asking for is some open-mindedness and a willingness to consider that the real truth may be something other than what she is hearing." As in those two sentences you have stated that it wasn't that Cynthia or LNM did anything wrong, it was that she/they DID in fact maintain their professionalism by keeping their focus directed on the hope that Jennifer would be found alive at a time when your family's focus was apparently only on the alternative (finding a body, and not an alive Jennifer). Perhaps your family found it antagonistic that we would be willing to work directly with the person that you and your family had decided was responsible for Jennifer's death (please note that this was decided by your family several weeks before LNMs involvement in the case)??? And perhaps what antagonized your family most was that for reasons they apparently did not understand Cynthia did in fact publicly express a belief (in regard to Jennifer's husband) that opposed your families own belief??? But for the children's sake, for your family's sake, and most especially for Jennifer's sake we hoped first that she would be found alive, and when she wasn't we prayed that her murderer would be found to be a complete stranger. We could never have maintained a focus on finding an alive Jennifer had we capitulated to your family's apparent desire for us to view her husband as a murderer. Can you not see how the two positions directly conflict with one another...how could we keep her children, her family or the public hopeful that she would be found alive if we had already decided that he was her murderer???? And what if your family was wrong? What if she had been found alive? How professional would it have been for us to capitulate to your family's desire for us to treat her husband as a murderer and had we willingly hopped on that 'let's judge, try, and convict him through social network media bandwagon' only to have her found alive? Even after she was found deceased it would have still been extremely unethical for us to jump upon that bandwagon. As what if the autopsy report combined with LEs investigation had cleared him completely of any and all wrong doing or had netted them an arrest, confession and conviction of someone else? What would be said of our "professionalism" then?? That is not to say that we did not recognize that it was possible that Remy could be found responsible for her death, but we also recognized that it was possible that someone else connected or unconnected to her life could be found responsible for her death. As I said we had no pre-existing bias and had been provided no greater reason to suspect him for her murder than we were given to suspect anyone else of being responsible for her murder. If there were reasons of substance for why your family so strongly believed that Jennifer had been murdered and that Remy was responsible, those reasons were NEVER shared with us by anyone from your family. As everyone in your family rejected our involvement from the moment we became involved which was a full 6 weeks after Jennifer went missing. Fact is we reached out and provided contact information to members of your family and requested to speak and meet with them and (outside of the very brief exchange between Cynthia & Jennifers mom) the ONLY person who responded to that request was Jennifer's father and that phone conversation had to be cut short because he called while Cynthia was driving to an appointment that could not be broken. Please, please, please understand that none of what I am saying is being said with the intent of disparaging anyone, but instead ONLY for the specific purpose of clearing up the record by trying to get you to see things from another vantage point. We wanted nothing more than to find an alive Jennifer, and are heartbroken for your family that our hope did not become a reality. We wanted very much to work with your family, yet understood ahead of time that the possibility existed that Jennifer's mother's, father's, and sister's pain & feelings of vulnerability would be so intense that the only people they may have wanted to work with was LE. We did not take any offense at that, and were very respectful of those feelings. But it was our hope that they would have welcomed our assistance. We cannot be blamed that they didn't. Beyond knowing that in most cases like this it is common for the husband to be the first person looked at with suspicion, we don't know how or why this division between Jennifer's family and her husband even existed. As there was no evidence available to us that supported or revealed that this division existed prior to Jennifer's missing. In fact on the face it appeared that the family was very closely knitted as Jennifer and her husband lived next door to her parents and it seemed like they all had a good relationship. Looking over the information we were able to access from all outward appearances Jennifer was living within a safe and stable environment that was filled with family and love. And up to and until her body was found no one from her family ever suggested the opposite existed. In fact each family member picked up the brush and helped paint a portrait of a very happy, very content, well loved, very stable, very honest, very outgoing, highly thought of, highly respected, very intelligent, very active, very talented (even taught knitting classes), very faithful, very accomplished, very personable, very protective and "Mommy" oriented (and hands on children involved), very devoted, community minded, Girl Scout involved, church involved (even taught Sunday school) one who had strong and bonded relationships with all who loved her and all whom she loved, was hard working, fun, spiritual...in other words EVERYONE in your family has painted a portrait of Jennifer that presented her as being the exact OPPOSITE of a controlled, living in fear, beaten down, weakened, victimized, trapped, or abused type of individual. The facts are what they are, and the facts are that we had NEVER been given any reason whatsoever for not maintaining the goal of finding an alive Jennifer. Because LE never attached to the case a suspicion of "foul play", never named anyone as a suspect, have kept tight-lipped throughout the investigation, discouraged any public searches, etc.... they gave us no reason to alter or rethink that goal. Because all the information available us presented to us a well functioning, close knit family and presented Jennifer as the exact opposite of a controlled, living in fear, beaten down, weakened, victimized, trapped, or abused type of individual, it gave us no reason to alter or rethink that goal. Because your family refused to work with or even talk with us, they to gave us no reason to alter or rethink that goal. So we held strong to that goal and remained focused only on finding an alive Jennifer. Not because we took sides in anything. Not because we refused to be open minded. Not because we refused to consider a negative outcome. Not because we refused to consider the possibility of a guilty Remy or a guilty friend or relative....but instead ONLY because we had been given no reason not to continue to hope that an alive Jennifer would in fact be found. It has been thrown at us numerous times that we did not know Jennifer. No we didn't... however fact also is that we did not know her family, or her friends, or her husband either and therefore we did not have any pre-existing bias regarding anyone. And it needs also to be noted that for every person who did know them and had expressed to us a belief that Remy had murdered her, there was another person who knew them who expressed to us a belief that he was a victim himself and had nothing to do with her missing status or what turned out to be her murder. And having what some have called a goofy, a gregarious, a narcissistic personality and an obsession with running and working out makes no one a murderer. Nor does committing adultery make anyone a murderer...if it did considering the current divorce rates and rates of infidelity in this nation, we would have more people in prison than out of prison. Yes, it is morally wrong to commit adultery, but it is not a crime, and it makes no one a murderer, but instead just an adulterer. It also HAS to be understood that we have had cases where the loved ones left behind are 100% certain that their loved one simply ran away, as they had ran away several times before, only to find out later that they had not ran away, but instead had been murdered. As well, we have had cases where loved ones are 100% certain that their missing loved one met with foul play (because they believe to know for a fact that they would never ever leave them, their children, their ailing mother, handicapped sibling, their successful business, etc.) and are 110% certain that they know who is responsible, only to later find out that their loved one was alive and well the entire time that they were absolutely certain that they would never willingly go missing. You name it we have had it or at least heard about it. It is not EVER us that is not open minded in regard to the numerous possibilities that exist in missing person cases. Let's face it, if we hadn't remained open-minded as to ALL of those possibilities in regard to Jennifer's case and instead had closed off our minds to limit our thinking only to Remy murdering her as being the only possibility, no one in your family would have had a problem with us or anything that we were doing. To conclude; there is absolutely no reason for anyone to harbor so much ill will for Cynthia or LNM. Nothing that Cynthia/LNM did or didn't do had anything at all to do with Jennifer's missing status or death. Cynthia/LNM harassed no one. They disparaged no one. They bullied no one. They did not hamper the investigation in any way (but may in fact have inadvertently aided it). They did not cause your family's pain, they did not exploit it, nor did they do anything to either intentionally or unintentionally intensify or trivialize it. They DID try to protect your family from having their pain exploited by an unlicensed, unprincipled, self-appointed, rogue who refused to even identify themselves. They DID fully identify themselves and offered to work with the people running the JFJR site. (side note: since there are at present 1,100+ members of the JFJR site and all except one person has their name identified with each msg they post, don't you think that trying to use the excuse of fear for her safety as an excuse for hiding her identity/utilizing multiple aliases kind of raises eyebrows and falls short as being a rational excuse??) They DID try to protect your family from having their pain commercialized for profit by un-vetted, unregistered, unknowns who use multiple aliases to skirt around and avoid the legal requirements and accountability involved in taking in donations and holding fundraiser's, etc. They DID recommend that professional SAR's be used. They DID try to discourage public searches from being done so that any and all possible or probable evidence would be protected from removal or contamination. They DID try to prevent the whole investigation process from being turned into a three ring circus by overzealous crime solver wannabes (my goodness Tracy was encouraging people to ignore LE's request of no public searches and was even arranging for 4-wheelers etc. to be brought in by anyone who wanted to take part. Thankfully Joann was able to get through to her as Cynthia had tried to no avail). They DID tell people not to donate through the JFJR site (where there is no accountability at all in place), and told them to instead to donate either directly to the family or through an account set up by the family and offered help in setting up such an account (apparently that didn't sit well with Tracy as she admitted on her latest "review" that this was the reason she blocked Cynthia from the JFJR site...Quoting her: "You were highly vocal about and against people donating to the family via our site. You posted numerous posts telling people NOT to donate to the family via our site. Then, and only then did I block you from that site...." Why should that have even bothered her, let alone caused her to block Cynthia?) While I can't claim to speak for all, I know I speak for most in saying that your family does have the family of LostNMissing's deepest and most heartfelt sympathy. While we know for certain that someone is guilty for having murdered Jennifer, and want desperately for justice to be served, we continue to hope and pray that the guilty party is not Remy as we can't imagine a more horrific ending to Jennifer's life than to be murdered by the one person who vowed to both her and God, that for the remainder of their own life, to always love, honor and protect her. We can also not imagine a more horrific thing for their children to have to bear for the rest of their precious lives than to have to carry with them the burden of the knowledge that their father murdered their mother. Having said that, while we do not "want" him to be guilty IF in fact he is guilty we also and most definitely hope and pray that he will be made to answer fully, and in the most punishing of ways, for this horrific crime! While Remy has in fact been charged with this inexcusable and horrific crime, from all outward signs it appears that the case against Remy is built entirely on circumstantial evidence meaning that not even the Sheriff's Dept and investigators, can say without any reasonable doubt that Remy in fact murdered Jennifer. So how can we?? This may or may not change depending upon the evidence collected and presented in a court of law (which despite the claims of the rumor-mills has NOT been released and is only in the hands of the DA and Defense Attorneys). Therefore we must all wait until trial, listen to all evidence and then put it in the hands of a jury to determine if in fact they believe that the evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) is so overwhelming as to support a guilty verdict. As in our system of justice one is not required to prove their innocence, so innocence must be presumed in the absence of having evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) to support a determination of guilt beyond that of a reasonable doubt. Regardless, no matter what one may believe or not believe, whether he is determined by a jury of his piers to be guilty or not guilty, …..no matter the outcome of all of this…..LNM and Cynthia Caron, and her staff, have nothing whatsoever to do with Remy's or anyone else's guilt or innocence. May God be with your family and comfort them through this very trying time. Karen L. Krepps, BOD-LNM