Pepper found deceased - He was killed and returned

"The knowledge that we were not alone in this and the support that we received from every single one of you that took the time to take a second look, to send an email or to post a flyer held us up and kept us strong." Mindie

A heartfelt thanks and the story of Pepper

As most of you may recall, on October 9, 2004 my 8 year old daughter Paige's horse Pepper was stolen from his pen in Stromsburg, Nebraska. The Sheriff's department was notified immediately as there were fresh trailer tracks leading to the pen and horse tracks disappearing at the trailer tracks.

An intensive search began, with the help of two local news stations and SHI. As a family we were pretty upset and felt quite alone and helpless until SHI came into the picture.

With Debi's help, one email turned into thousands of pairs of eyes all over this country and an outpouring of support that helped us to deal with Pepper's disappearance by knowing that we were not alone and that there were wonderful people all over the United States that were willing to post notices and take a second look to watch for Pepper.

The day after Pepper was stolen, we chose to move our mare to a safer location where she could be seen by several people all the time. We had been sharing this horse pen with some friends who chose to move their horses to a different location as well, not knowing if the horse thief may come back for theirs. Our friends moved their horses the following week. About a week and a half ago, around October 20, they decided that they were going to move their horses back to this pen for the winter and went over to ready the barn and pen area for their horses again. They worked for two days in the barn and in the pen.

Last night, November 3, 2004 we received a telephone call from our friends needing us to come over right away. When we got there we knew something was wrong. Whoever had taken Pepper had brought him back, killed him and dumped him in the feed bunk.

As I write this I am still in shock that there are people that sick and cruel in this world. I am very disheartened by the lack of help we have received from our Sheriff's department and am sickened by the fact that this man is still out there and will strike again at some point.

I know that I did not respond to every email personally, I have never really been good at that, but I also can tell you that the emails came pouring in from all across our country, Washington, Maine, Wyoming, Arizona, Montana and everywhere in between. The knowledge that we were not alone in this and the support that we received from every single one of you that took the time to take a second look, to send an email or to post a flyer held us up and kept us strong.

We needed your prayers and we received thousands of them. We will be forever grateful to each and every one of you for your efforts. Without NetPosse and SHI, we would have not received the support that we needed and most of you would have never known that this type of crime exists in the world.

We may not know all of you but we will never ever forget you and will always be thankful that there was a way to get this information out to the public quickly and effectively.

Debi, I am so thankful for you, during those first couple days when we were really at the bottom, your phone conversations really helped me to keep the faith and stay sane! Thanks doesn't really say enough for all that you have done, but that is really all I can say right now.

It is time for some healing now for our family and we ask again for a few prayers for Paige especially, to help her to deal with this tragedy and help her to heal. Right now, she needs that very very badly. We can stop looking, we know where he is. Now we can miss him, heal and go on.

With great thanks and love,
Mindie, Jesse, Paige and Jacob