One year ago today, Kelly Currin Morris, a 28-year-old mother of two, vanished from her Stem, N.C., home. Despite an ongoing police investigation and multiple large-scale searches, Kelly has yet to be found. The reality of the situation is all too familiar for her friends and family members. Time, in this case, does not heal all wounds. Instead, it eats away at one's very soul, overshadowing all hope and replacing it with a sorrow that, no matter how hard one may try to ignore, simply won't go away.
"It has been a terribly frustrating year," Kelly's step-mother, Juanita Currin, said in an interview with Investigation Discovery. "Not only with Kelly's disappearance, but also in doing what is right for our family and children. I think that, while a lot of our focus has been on the search effort and continuing to keep the story out there, our efforts have also been to make sure her children are ok. The balance is difficult. I don't think any of us thought when this happened that it would go on this long. Initially, I was thinking no more than a week or two. Never in our wildest dreams did we think it would be a year."
Not only is the passage of time difficult, but, add to that the multitude of promising tips and discoveries that turn out to be nothing – such as the case with a recent discovery of human remains in a nearby county that turned out to be those of another missing person.
"Every time that happens, it all resurfaces – everything we have been through the last year," Juanita said. "We get our hopes up and then we are left disappointed. It's very sad when the best you can hope for is to find her remains. It is very emotionally draining to have close calls or potential finds."
In an effort to make sure the community does not forget Kelly, her family has scheduled a vigil for 7 p.m. tonight in the daycare lot of Creedmoor Baptist Church at 119 South Main St.
"We are going to have music, speakers, the reading of a poem and a dove release," Juanita said. "We are determined to keep the story out there and we are determined to follow up on anything we need to follow up on in our ongoing search. I understand from law enforcement there are still things that they are following up on, so that brings us a relief that the investigation is still fairly active."
Officials with the Granville County Sheriff's Department and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation will not comment on the case, other than to say that it is an "ongoing investigation." The most recent developments occurred last month, when Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood authorized the search of a Road Runner e-mail address that belonged to Kelly. What, if anything, was found in it remains unknown.
In regard to the ongoing search effort, search coordinator Al Mignacci says that, despite having searched every area within a 15 mile radius of Kelly's home, he is not yet ready to give up.
"We continue to revisit areas that have already been searched, while, at the same time, expanding into new, unexplored areas," Mignacci said in an interview with Investigation Discovery. "In addition to wilderness areas, we have also searched lakes and streams, and over 100 wells. We sonar the waterways, whereas, with the wells, we drop a camera down inside and check if there is any loose stuff down in there. We also have a probe we can use if they are not too deep."
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