The Last Time We Saw Her. Robert Falcon Scott

      That same Thursday afternoon, eleven members of Brooke’s extended family held a press conference at OSU. They not only were there to thank all the people searching for Brooke, but to tell more about her as well. Brooke’s brother-in-law Zak Hansen said of Brooke, “The sisters and their mother are very close. They do a lot together. I used to take Brooke snowboarding. She picked it right up.”

      Brooke’s mother, Cammy, spoke about Brooke’s language skills, which had developed later than most children. Brooke was four or five years old before she said any words that were comprehensible. Despite this late start in that area, it did not hold her back later in school. By the time Brooke was in high school, she was getting almost all A’s. Cammy related, “I’m a teacher, so I keep track of this stuff. She had one B in high school in Advanced Placement American history. That was very frustrating for her.”

      Brooke wasn’t good just in academics; she had fun in extracurricular activities as well. During Spirit Week in high school, Brooke dressed up with Super-man children’s underwear over her black tights and wore a cape. She was a foundation board member in the Children’s Miracle Network drive and helped raise $20,000 that year for the charity. On another occasion she got her parents to drive her to Seattle, Washington, to pick up one thousand Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which she then brought back to Elmira, Oregon, and sold at a fund-raiser.

      In high school Brooke coached a soccer team of seven-year-olds, and she competed in soccer and track. Erin Shankle, one of Brooke’s classmates, spoke of how good Brooke was in track, especially the long jump. And Erin added about the relationship between Brooke and her mother, “I remember her mom would always be right there. She was like a volunteer coach. She was definitely there every single track meet.”

      Brooke’s father, Greg, addressed Brooke’s decision to go to Brigham Young University in Utah. He said, “We were really kind of surprised when she picked BYU. All the other kids went to Oregon State University.” It came as even more of a surprise to Greg when his daughter took up country line dancing in Utah. Brooke had never shown any interest in that while she lived in Oregon. She was always open to trying new things.

      Cammy related that the family wasn’t rich, and Brooke had to save up her money to go to college so far away from her hometown. Cammy noted that Brooke had jobs every summer and was doing dining service at BYU. Part of Brooke’s responsibilities in that job was to make food deliveries. She had to drive a large truck, and Brooke was very proud of that fact. She once called her mother and said, “Mom! I drove it in the snow!” For petite Brooke, this was quite an accomplishment.

      Zak Hansen added that at BYU Brooke “definitely had goals. Schooling is very important to her.” Then Zak spoke of Brooke’s boyfriend, who was also an LDS member. Her boyfriend was on a mission in South America, and Greg noted that Brooke had spoken of going on a mission herself.

      The family members concluded the press conference by stating that they wanted Brooke to know that they loved her and were going to keep looking for her. Cammy Wilberger said, “We would do anything to bring Brooke home. We feel that families are forever. We know that we will see her again.”

      It’s important to note that Cammy Wilberger didn’t say that she knew they would see Brooke again soon or even in this life. Families are very important in the LDS faith. It’s believed that when a person died, he or she would meet up once again with other family members in the afterlife.

      After the Wilberger press conference, Lieutenant Ron Noble told reporters that no substantial clues had been discovered as of yet. He said, “We’ll continue to follow up on tips from the phone calls to determine if we have a potential suspect.”

      Soon thereafter, Greg Wilberger told a reporter for the Statesman Journal that his family was in constant touch with Elizabeth Smart’s family in Utah. Elizabeth Smart had been abducted by a crackpot zealot in 2002 and had been held captive for several months. To some degree, her abductor had brainwashed Elizabeth into believing that he was a prophet. Elizabeth probably did so, in part, as a survival mechanism often known as the Stockholm syndrome. The abducted person becomes grateful to her kidnapper for not killing her; as a result, she starts to identify with the abductor. The victim will do anything to please the abductor. One prime example of this was Patty Hearst, who, after being “brainwashed,” identified with her captors in the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), and eventually joined them in their criminal activities, such as robbing banks.

      Elizabeth Smart was reunited with her family in March 2003. Elizabeth Smart’s parents were giving the Wilberger family invaluable advice about how to cope and stay positive under extremely difficult circumstances. Authorities in Utah who had worked on the Elizabeth Smart case let the Wilbergers know that in three days of searching around Corvallis, the Oregon volunteers had accomplished what it took three weeks to do on the Smart case in Utah.

      Greg said, “People have been asking, ‘How do you feel?’ You don’t feel. You don’t think. You can’t have any feelings. You just go forward.”

      Cammy added that she and her daughters had planned a “girls-only trip” to San Francisco in the summer months. All of that was, of course, on hold now. The primary thing in everyone’s mind was getting Brooke back.

      Despite the statement by Cammy Wilberger in which she didn’t mention if they would see Brooke again soon, the Wilberger family did not give up hope that Brooke would be found alive. During another press conference, Greg Wilberger sounded more optimistic than in previous days. He said, “If she wasn’t alive, we’d have found her already.”

      In fact, Ron Noble seconded this feeling of Greg’s by saying, “We’re a little more optimistic. We’re approaching that time if she wasn’t alive, we’d have found her.” The implication was that if someone had kidnapped Brooke and intended to kill her, he would have done so in a matter of days after the initial abduction. And because traveling with Brooke very far would have been risky, her body should have been found in the area surrounding Corvallis, if she was dead. Since the search had been so thorough, with literally thousands of volunteers, the odds were that Brooke’s body would have been discovered by now, even in a remote location.

      Not that the search effort was abating at all. Zak Hansen told a reporter, “Hope comes from seeing five hundred people out there looking. No matter how long it takes to find her, we’ll keep looking. This is our life right now.”

      Jared Cordon did admit that the family was working until they were sleep-deprived. When he finally crashed on May 27, Cordon slept right through his alarm clock and missed the appointment for an interview on a national television morning show. Nonetheless, Cordon, as well as the others in the family, was still upbeat. “We think we’re going to find her soon,” he said.

      Over the weekend of May 29 through May 30, many students in the area didn’t spend their time relaxing or partying. Instead, they were out on one of the search teams or working at the stake center. This huge effort had even spread to other cities in the area, where it was deemed Brooke might have been taken. There were searches going on around Albany, Salem, and Eugene. In Eugene, a particular wooded area on the southwest side of the city was the focus of an intense search. A Times-Gazette reporter spoke with some of the people there, including Jim Webb and his son. Jim said, “We’re looking for anything suspicious—tracks, abandoned vehicles. It just touches the heart.”

      Members of Corvallis’s bicycle clubs were out that weekend as well, looking for signs of Brooke during their usual rides. They picked up search area maps and instructions at the main headquarters before taking off. Being on bikes, the riders could cover a lot more area than someone walking. They were instructed to look for anything unusual on their journeys, and they kept their eyes open as they pedaled down the back roads of Benton County and beyond.

      Bikes weren’t the only conveyances besides motor vehicles and foot traffic that weekend. On Sunday, May 30, the first large-scale organized horse team of searchers took off into the outlying areas. Being on horseback had several advantages over being on foot. Obviously, the rider could cover more ground than someone walking; and in addition to that, a rider had a height advantage over someone on foot. While on horseback he or she could peer down into vegetation that might