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Web site honors victims of violence
Photo
Belinda Puchajda
Columbiana County has about 20 unsolved cases involving homicides and people who have vanished.
SALEM — They say the pain never goes away.
But the people who have lost loved ones to violence also say they will never give up in their search for answers.
They come together to talk, grieve and keep alive the memory of those who are gone.
Belinda Puchajda of Lisbon started the Web site www.victimsofhomicide.blogspot.com after her cousin, Mike Williams, 37, was found dead in his car on Greenwood Road, Rogers, near his home on Aug. 30, 2005.
His homicide case, like others, remains unsolved.
Some cases are pending trial, some are under investigation, and some are more than 30 years old. There are now some 20 such cases, including missing people.
Puchajda said she wanted to do something for her aunt. A Web designer, she put up a memorial page and helped arrange a $20,000 reward for information through a foundation. But the case remains unsolved.
“People forget and don’t remember,” Puchajda said.
The Web site and activities, she said, “are not so much in anger as in loving memories.”
The organization, Victims of Homicide in Columbiana County, recently had a memorial for the victims at the Lisbon Village Square. Puchajda weekly sets up at the Rogers Sale to raise funds. The organization is in the process of becoming a private, nonprofit charity.
“These are loving people who have their lives taken away from them,” she said.
She passed out more than 1,000 business cards during Salem’s recent Italian Fest, and the Web site got 200 hits a day.
She has met at length with County Prosecutor Robert Herron.
“The program can do a lot of good, but if they aren’t careful, it can do a lot of harm,” he said.
Herron warned of the perils of investigating violent deaths, and Puchajda said she only passes on information to authorities. The program’s fliers ask people with information to call police.
Barbara Davis, now of Lisbon, was a cousin of Louise Davis’ when they were 17 years old in East Liverpool. Louise disappeared June 21, 1979.
According to the Web site, a woman named Debbie Taylor, also from East Liverpool, was questioned by the police. She initially said she did not know Davis, then said they were friends. Two days after speaking with police, Taylor along with two of her three children were murdered. A man is serving a life term in prison.
Barbara Davis said that for 29 years, she has told the parole board not to release him.
Louise’s clothes were found in a basement, but the body was never found.
The Web site, Davis said, “has given me a positive instead of a negative.”
Davis, who said she had dug for bones in the woods in the hope of finding Louise’s remains, became extremely careful of her own children’s safety.
“If you haven’t been through it, you wouldn’t know what’s it’s like,” she said.
Craig Roberts was found shot to death in his Wellsville home.
His sister-in-law, Shelly Roberts, said the six-year anniversary of the shooting just passed.
He was shot on the 26th of August and died the next day.
“You think about it every day,” she said.
XFor more information, visit www.victimsofhomicide.blogspot.com.