June 2009:  The idea has been tossed around to relocate the memorial, off the Mountain Road Property, because the new owner does not like momentos/flowers/anything left at the site, and new "No Trespassing" signs have been put up, allegedly.  So, if you plan to visit there, be advised....

On February 4, 2001, Tina was 34, and her daughter, Bethany, was 15, and they vanished...they haven't been seen or heard from in eight years! Since my sister and my niece have been gone, so has a part of me. I haven't ever been the same. My heart is broken and so is my spirit. My mother has gradually crumbled as time has passed without her precious daughter and granddaughter. The anger, hatred, confusion, nightmares have shredded through me and made me into a person I don't even recognize anymore! Our family was divided at first for a long time, as nothing was the same. The holidays, birthdays, family gatherings were like a bad dream because Tina and Bethany weren't there.

December 4, 2008

STOLEN MEMORIAL

During the Holiday seasons, we all have our rituals of decorating, shopping, celebrating with family etc. Itʼs usually fun and exciting at least to some degree for most of us, and promotes a feeling of loving and giving, peace, harmony and genuine compassion and kindness toward one another.

For the last seven passed Holiday seasons, my family has added new rituals and readjusted the old ones in an effort to maintain the happiness we had shared in previous years. You see, in 2001, we lost two very significant and very loved people. My sister, and her daughter, my niece.

Tina and Bethany Sinclair, vanished from the home they lived in on Mountain Road in West Chesterfield, NH, on February 4, 2001.

I wont repeat details of the case, because its been covered so repetitively at this point, I think its etched in most peoples minds, but for those who arenʼt familiar with the story, you can read exerpts from articles, case facts, see photos and hear peopleʼs thoughts on a public forum, at www.missingtnaandbeth.org

During the course of the year, every year, since Tina and Bethany came missing, many of us, friends, family and community members, go to the place on the Mountain Road, in West Chesterfield, where a memorial was erected that has been adorned with flowers and gifts and prayers, to leave something, if not a small token to let them know that we wish they were here with us, and how very missed they really are. The Holiday Season, is no exception to this, in fact it is a tradition now.

This year, like several years since, my Mother was taken to the memorial that sits on Mountain Road next to the CT River, to leave decorations, prayers and let Tina and Beth know in some spiritually connecting sort of way, that she misses them. Usually I bring her, and we do this together, often with other friends and family members, but on that day, two days ago, she insisted she wanted to go and had collected some items to decorate the memorial with. So with friends she went on her merry way. As usual, approaching the road, and the area where Tina and Bethany once lived, and most likely died, with great anxiety and sadness, but even more so, when they approached the spot where the memorial was, and my mother found that the memorial was gone.

It is no longer there. Unscrewed and unbolted from the post where it was so proudly and beautifully displayed, it was gone. Even the decorations, adornments and gifts that have been left are gone!

Imagine how much her heart sank. How she struggled to hold back tears, as she has learned to do over these horrifying years of her lost Granddaughter and Daughter. She had just given me bulbs to plant, when I put mums in the ground there just over a month ago! How could this have happened?

Now, this is not the first time that something very similar has occurred. Last fall the original one, a simple wooden cross with morning glory vines that were planted and grew up around it, surrounded by a little wreath of stones that the kids (Bethanyʼs friends and cousins) built, and was covered in several years worth of gifts, cards, angel ornaments and statues, flowers, wreaths and ribbons, was removed as well.

 So, in response, hurt and angry as we were, we had a new one erected, in a new spot where Mike Lacroix, the current property owner, was kind enough to offer to us and even to help us to install. The new one was larger, and sturdier. It was a beautiful plaque, created by McCarthy Signs, of Hinsdale, NH, and was mounted on a steel post and cemented into the ground. Purchased by donations of friends and family members and presented at the Candle light Vigil that was held on Mothers Day weekend the spring before, the timing and location turned out to be perfect.

In the spring we decorated it with flowers and butterflies and a cross of lilies for Easter. Then in the Fall with pumpkins and Mums.

Last Christmas, my Mother and I hung a lighted wreath on it, with ornaments, including a little angel that said ʽTinaʼ and a little snowman that said ʽBethanyʼ on them. It glowed brightly at night next to the river in the snow.

Now it is gone, almost as mysteriously as they are.

How could someone do this? Why would someone do this? What an awful, atrocity, insult, desecration to the only place that we the family, friends and community members had to go with our love, prayers and hopes for resolution for Tina and Bethany. We didnʼt have a funeral like most people do. We donʼt have a cemetery to go to when we miss them. We have only the memorial on Mountain Road in West Chesterfield, NH.

If anyone saw anything suspicious in the last month, has any idea what happened, or has had trouble coming forward with information, and wants to now...please, please do! We will be relieved to hear from you! And you will be relieved to have finally let the burden off your chest.

Please contact the Chesterfield Police Department, Lester Fairbanks, at 603-363-4233, or the NH State Police Troop C, in Keene, NH

In the meantime, we will try to figure out how to have another one made by Mr. McCarthy, probably not till after the holidays, or until finances will allow, and we will start all over again.

This is so hard! So awful. It sure doesnʼt feel like itʼs been almost eight years of the pure hell it has been. It seems like only yesterday I was picking out a doll for Beth for Christmas and trying to choose a pair of earrings that Tina would like. I miss them, we miss them...PLEASE give us back our memorial!

Tearfully,

Sharon Garry

***DONATIONS can be made at:  Chittenden Bank, Brattleboro, VT where a fund has been set up for "Tina and Bethany Sinclair"