Melissa Adams says she was worried about her family's reaction to the news because Gary Thibodeau had already been convicted.
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Cousin of 1994 kidnapping victim Heidi Allen explains silence over mysteriously returned bracelet
By John O'Brien |
jobrien@syracuse.com
This is the gold bracelet that Melissa Adams says she gave to her cousin, Heidi Allen, as a graduation gift sometime before Allen was kidnapped in 1994. Allen's body has never been found. Adams says the bracelet mysteriously appeared in her mailbox sometime after 2008.
OSWEGO, N.Y. - A cousin of 1994 kidnapping victim Heidi Allen kept quiet for years about the mysterious return of a bracelet she'd given Allen because she didn't want to upset her relatives, she said in a new court filing.
The cousin, Melissa Adams, says
a gold bracelet she gave Allen more than 21 years ago inexplicably appeared in Adams' mailbox sometime after 2008 -- at least 14 years after Allen was kidnapped from a New Haven convenience store.
A lawyer for Gary Thibodeau, the only person convicted in Allen's abduction and presumed slaying, cited the bracelet two weeks ago as possible evidence that someone else committed the crime.
Adams, whose maiden name is Searles, never told police or her family about finding the bracelet in a plain white envelope in her mailbox.
She was worried about her family's reaction "because it was so many years later and they were convinced the Thibodeaus were guilty and Gary was already in prison and Richard had been acquitted," Adams said in the affidavit.
Sisters Shawnacy and Melissa Searles, cousins of 1994 kidnapping victim Heidi Allen, stand together as reporters question New York State Police officials about progress in the search for kidnapping victim Sara Anne Wood in this 1994 file photo. Melissa Searles Adams told authorities this month that a bracelet owned by Heidi Allen mysteriously showed up in her mailbox at least 14 years after Allen was abducted.
Adams also cited the fact that she didn't know who'd put the bracelet in her mailbox. And she didn't think Oswego County sheriff's investigators would have done anything, she said.
"I was fairly certain that the sheriff's department would simply take the bracelet and not do any followup investigation because I never felt as though they listened to anything I had to say during the initial stages of the investigation," her affidavit said. "I was very close with Heidi and the bracelet was very special to me."
Adams said she wouldn't have come forward if she hadn't seen the notes of a new possible suspect, Michael Bohrer,
posted in July with a story on Syracuse.com. Bohrer's notes say a psychic told Bohrer that Allen had hidden a bracelet in the vehicle she was kidnapped in.
Adams contacted Thibodeau's lawyer, Lisa Peebles, about the bracelet after reading Bohrer's notes on Syracuse.com, Adams wrote.
"I was very upset after I read Bohrer's notes because years after my cousin was kidnapped, the ID bracelet I bought her for a graduation gift was left in my mailbox in a plain white envelope," the affidavit said.
The gold bracelet had "Heidi" on one side and "Love Missy" on the other.
It's unknown whether Allen was wearing the bracelet when she was kidnapped.
Bohrer has denied any involvement in the crime and has not been charged. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for interviews.
Adams had refused to sign an affidavit until last week. It was filed with Oswego County Court this week. She initially didn't want to provide an affidavit "for the exact same reasons I never came forward when the bracelet showed up in my mailbox," she wrote.
Adams mentioned the missing bracelet in 1994 to her sister at a bar while Bohrer was listening, her affidavit said. Adams' sister Shawnacy Searles was bar-tending there, Adams said.
Adams and her sister were "very close with" Allen before the kidnapping, Adams said in the affidavit.
Adams told her sister she wondered whether Allen was wearing the bracelet when she was abducted, the affidavit said. Shawnacy Searles died in a motorcycle crash a year later.
Bohrer approached Adams in the bar parking lot many months after the kidnapping, Adams wrote. She didn't know who he was, she said.
"I just remembered some creepy guy who kept inserting himself in my path and lurking around the bar where Shawnacy was bartending, " Adams wrote.
Bohrer wrote notes on the case after he became a self-appointed investigator into the kidnapping, he has testified. He has said he became obsessed with the case.
Oswego County District Attorney Greg Oakes could not be reached for comment about Adams' affidavit.
Adams' family has stopped speaking to her since her revelations about the bracelet became public two weeks ago, she wrote. The relatives are "very upset," she said.
"I do not have an opinion about the Thibodeaus, but I decided to come forward regardless of the consequences and provide a statement because I am interested in seeking justice for my cousin," Adams wrote.
Her revelation about the bracelet was the first time anyone in Allen's family has offered evidence that could help overturn Thibodeau's conviction.
Allen, 18, was kidnapped Easter morning 1994 while working at the D&W convenience store and has never been found. Thibodeau, 61, is serving 25 years to life in prison for kidnapping.
Bohrer mentioned jewelry when sheriff's investigators interviewed him two years ago. He told the investigators he'd heard that Thibodeau or his girlfriend had mailed jewelry related to another possible homicide to Allen's parents or to Thibodeau's girlfriend's parents to get a reaction out of them.
At the time of that interview, Bohrer could not have known whether the investigators were aware of Adams' claim that Allen's bracelet had been returned, Peebles wrote in a letter this week to acting Oswego County Judge Daniel King.
Bohrer brought up the idea of Thibodeau mailing jewelry early in the 2013 interview with sheriff's investigators.
"Bohrer's immediate statements regarding jewelry appear to be a preemptive strike by implicating the Thibodeaus in a prior jewelry-mailing scenario in a different homicide in an effort to throw investigators in a direction away from him," Peebles wrote.
After Adams' revelation about the bracelet two weeks ago, sheriff's investigators James Pietroski and Carmen Rojek confronted her about it, she said. They wanted her to go with them and give a statement, she said.
"They appeared to be rather confrontational and accusatory when they approached me so I became defensive and refused to accompany them," the affidavit said. Adams gave the bracelet to the investigators.
Peebles has asked King to let her call Adams as a witness in a hearing to determine whether Thibodeau should get a new trial. The judge has not ruled on Peebles' request to let call Adams and other witnesses regarding Bohrer.
Bohrer is one of three new possible suspects in Allen's kidnapping. Thibodeau contends jurors would've acquitted him if they'd known of the n
ewly discovered evidence implicating those three men that has surfaced over the past two years.
Thibodeau also claims his conviction be overturned because prosecutors withheld evidence that would have benefited him.
The hearing has been in recess since April. No date has been set for it to resume.
Tonya Priest 
Jennifer Wescott.
