The Last Place You'd Look Read Online Free PDF Page A

information, so-called psychics, and others who want to snipe or gossip. What was once a normal, everyday life for the Berg family has turned into a struggle for normalcy ever since the pretty, brown-haired high school student vanished.
    “There are some days I think that the only way I will ever see her again is in heaven,” says Hope.
    “I can’t say that I can put things in perspective until I know what has happened to her. All I do is keep hoping and praying that something will break in her case and we will find out some answers. We will never give up on her. We try to remain sane, but sometimes that is easier said than done,” she says.
    Hope Berg’s raw and ragged honesty has produced in me an unintended consequence: it makes me overprotective toward my own children, and I suspect every parent who reads or hears stories like Kayla’s or Jesse’s or Brandon’s reacts with the same feelings. Some of the stories I’ve read or heard broke my heart. One example in particular stands out. Author Matt Birkbeck chronicled it in his book, A Beautiful Child — The Story of Sharon Marshall.
    Marshall, who went by the name Suzanne Davis as a small child, was raised by a sexual predator and convicted felon named Franklin Delano Floyd. Floyd passed himself off as her father. Authorities don’t know where Floyd obtained the child. Birkbeck says that during a jailhouse interview Floyd claimed a prostitute gave him the girl, but Floyd also told officials he rescued her after her biological parents abandoned her. One thing that’s for sure—the little girl was not related to Floyd by blood.
    Floyd moved around a lot, taking the child with him. When she entered high school, she was known as Sharon Marshall, a straight-A student who moved often, much like I did as a child. Upon graduation from a high school in Forest Park, Georgia, Sharon received a scholarship to Georgia Tech to study aerospace engineering. She never used it.
    Sharon, a beautiful natural blond with a brilliant mind, next surfaced in the Tampa area, still in the company of Floyd, where she gave birth to a little boy. Although Floyd claimed the child was his, later tests proved he was not the father. Sharon was using the name Tonya Tadlock at that time and worked as an exotic dancer. After an exotic dancer with whom she was friends was found murdered, Suzanne/Sharon/Tonya and Floyd fled the area. Floyd then married her, but in 1990, she was killed in a hit-and-run accident that remains unsolved.
    Her little boy, Michael Hughes, then in foster care, was abducted by Floyd and has never been found. Floyd refuses to tell investigators what he did with the child.
    Although his book was published in 2004, Birkbeck continues to search for the boy, as well as the true identity of the child who went by the name Sharon Marshall. I understand his obsession. The stories of the lost, missing, and those found but still unidentified—and their families—will remain with me long after this book is finished.
    In putting together this look at missing persons and those who search for them, I spoke with officials from many agencies, as well as the families and many individuals who feel the call to offer help and support to those who search for the lost. I have talked to parents whose children were abducted by noncustodial parents, families whose loved ones vanished while visiting foreign countries, and scientists trying to match the bodies of the unknown to their identities so they can be returned to their loved ones.
    I learned a tremendous amount—searching for a missing person is not a simple endeavor. There are many who work to help guide families of the missing through the maze in which they’ve been thrust. Kelly Jolkowski, whose son Jason’s story is told in chapter 11, has opened many doors for me and offered guidance born of her painful personal journey. It’s something she does for many families of the missing, but there are others who are in it for a much different