Family of Jessie Shockley are saying that Jessie was not in school for a week and a half before she was reported missing. The school was told that she had ringworm and would be absent. Neighbors said the last time they remember seeing Jessie was the week before she went missing. This is making the job of finding Jessie even more difficult for police, because they do not know the actual date she went missing.
There have been several signs that this case was not going to be a kidnapping case. The police called it that in the beginning, but now have a homicide detective as lead on the case. The police said that missing person and child crime are still working on the case, along with the homicide detective.
Jerice Hunter spent 4 years in prison in California for child abuse. She beat her 7 year old daughter and had George Shockley to hold the girls wrist while she beat her. Police said the girl was naked and beaten on her stomach, her private parts, her upper legs and her bottom. Shirley Johnson, Jerice’s mother, turned her in after seeing welts. The oldest, a 14 year old boy told her, his mother had punched him and beat the girls with an electrical cord routinely. Jerice was sentenced to 8 years but only served 4. Jessie was born before Jerice was sentenced. Jessie lived with 4 cousins, and the other children lived with Johnson. When Jerice got out, Johnson let her have the children and move with them to Glendale. She said she wanted the children and their mother to build a relationship. The cousins who had raised Jessie did not want to give her to Jerice, because she had never met Jerice. Jerice had the police come out and they said the cousins would have to give Jessie to Jerice.
Since Jessie has been missing, one of the cousinswho raised her, has come out and admitted that she called CPS because she thought that Jessie and an older sister were being abused. CPS went out and interviewed Jessie at the home and the other girl at her school. CPS reported to the cousin that the children denied being abused, so there was nothing they could do. It is not a surprise after hearing Jerice threaten her son by telling him that, if he told anyone about the beatings that they would all get taken away and it would be his fault, that this poor child would say she was not abused. One wonders if the CPS worker bothered ato tell either child that she was not going to tell their mother if they said they were abused?
Another cousin said the last time she saw Jessie, she saw marks on her and that she did not seem the same. The cousin said she believed that Jessie was being abused.
Jerice Hunter has been very vocal in her beliefs that the media were not reporting about Jessie, because she was black. There is no one who would disagree with her, it took the public writing and complaining before the networks picked it up. After her criminal record was exposed, she began to complain that the police were focusing on her, because of her backround. In this type of case, there would be no question that the police would look at the family first. With a criminal record for child abuse, there is no way a police department could ignore this. With the reports of alleged abuse against Jessie and her older sisters, the police would be very lax not to check it over and over.
Another strong clue that this was not a normal kidnapping, the three children in the home were taken by CPS the day after Jessie went missing. Jerice Hunter bitterly complained about the removal of the children saying the police were trying to make her children say she did something, that the children were wanting to come home and that the CPS were having to call her so she could tell them what to feed one of the children. None of this has been confirmed or denied by CPS. Jerice was 8 months pregnant when Jessie went missing and early last week she gave birth to a girl. The family has said that CPS has taken the newborn. The police have said that removing the children had nothing to do with this case, all signs point to the fact it does. If the children were abused, it would be very unlikely that Jessie had escaped being abused, as both cousins said they suspected. This would seem to lead right back to Jerice Hunter. If it is true that she has harmed Jessie and her sisters, she did not change her behavior, she just changed her location.