Toni James-Doyle shares the following story about her missing son and the heartbreak she experiences.
I remember the day quite well, actually, October 30th, 2019. It was a dreary day, Gray and hazy outside, with misting rain. The kind of day when the weather changes from intense humid heat to cool fall bonfire and hoodie weather in the South. My oldest son Bradley Chase Stracener, who was 30 then, woke me up with breakfast in bed. After about an hour of conversation, I followed him to the door, and he said, “I love you, mom. I’ll see you after a while.” I returned the sentiment and watched as he got into the car, then I closed the door as he drove away unbeknownst to me for the last time.
If, for one moment, that day at 1:47 PM, I thought that I was closing the door and never seeing my son again, I would have gotten into the car with him. But, you know, he was only driving about 10 miles to return the car to his girlfriend and back home to work on his pick-up. He never came back. He never even made his destination.
About nightfall is when I began to get an uneasy feeling. Bradley’s girlfriend called and called asking if I had seen him. I knew something was wrong when I realized he had never gotten there. I paced the floor and watched the clock, hour after hour, minute by minute. The silence was deafening. By morning, I could feel panic starting to set in. Yet, I tried to stay calm by telling myself he was a grown man and wasn’t required to report his whereabouts to mom anymore. However, he typically did so out of respect. That’s not to say he didn’t worry me plenty of times, but something didn’t feel right about this situation.
Against my better judgment, I tried to go on with my routine but never left the house because I wanted to be there when he showed up to give him a piece of my mind. After I called everyone I could think of, no one had reported seeing him. His girlfriend was still calling my phone, wanting to know where he was in her car. Finally, I began to shake uncontrollably and remember thinking, “No, no, there’s no way anything has happened to my son.”
It was then that I realized I was in uncharted territory. But I knew I would have to call my son’s uncle, who worked for the Sheriff’s Department, to let him know that Bradley was missing. It was at that precise point I think time stopped for me.
An officer from the Sheriff’s Department was sent to my home to take a report. Then I heard from no one. Even though the information was coming from the same Police Department, no one had the same story about what they were doing to locate my child. Had it not been for my degrees in psychology and criminal justice, perhaps I wouldn’t have known how negligent the authorities were in investigating this case. I tried to look at this outside the box to keep my sanity. I wanted to challenge myself to separate my attachment to my son mentally and figure out what it was I needed to do. It soon became apparent that law enforcement wouldn’t spend extra time or bend backward to try to locate Bradley. So in my panic, I was reminded of something Bradley told me about ways to make it through or how to make it through things you never believed you would. He always used to say to me, “mom, it’s mind over matter. You can’t let yourself panic; you have to breathe and think! You have to think about how to get out of your situation or solve whatever it is you were looking at, no matter how hard it Is. So the number one rule was not to panic, think, and use your brain.
The worst thing you can do in this type of situation would be to allow yourself to go into a frenzied panic; it will do nothing but debilitate you. So I decided it was time to treat this like a standard investigatory case. And I will say there has been very little research on missing persons. In that respect, there have been very few studies on why some missing persons get more media attention or exposure than others and why some seem more critical than others. After all, every missing person, every non-missing person, however you want to categorize it, is still a person. That person is someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and I could go on and on. But, more importantly, that person is always someone’s child. That child is a living, breathing human being with all their strengths and weaknesses. Their faults, their triumphs, their failures, their successes, their quirks, their pet peeves, their goals, their challenges, their problems, their worries, their hopes, and their dreams all rolled into one.
When I began searching online for someone outside the Police Department, little did I know I had much learning to do. It didn’t take me long to realize that not one single person would feel the pain and anguish I felt about the unknown regarding my son. Unfortunately, there is very little accurate information online to point you in the right direction in this instance. There are plenty of missing persons sites where you can post a missing persons poster, but to have someone to calm fears, reassure you, to say we’re here for you, it’s not going to happen. At least that was my initial perception.
Then, of course, as luck would have it COVID-19 strikes. Those that showed even a tiny fraction of interest were unable to help me because of not being able to cross state lines. In addition, their organization was losing funding because they could not perform their duties due to COVID, like going out of state to search for the missing. There were many reasons why people told me we’re sorry we can’t help you. I felt defeated, helpless, and like a total failure, but then I was reminded of what my son said don’t panic, THINK! I knew then if I, as his mother, didn’t stand up and fight and refuse to give up, then all hope would be lost, and I couldn’t live with the fact of never knowing what happened to my child.
Bradley Stracener
Then I was referred back to CUE Center for Missing Persons (CUE). I had sent in a registration in the very beginning to them about Bradley. I missed a phone call from Monica Caison, or perhaps it was someone else, but I couldn’t meet until COVID precautions were lifted. After that, we were able to move around again. I contacted someone in Louisiana who told me they still couldn’t help. They said if anyone in the United States could, it would be CUE, that they were the best at what they do and were top-notch; I needed to contact them. So once again, I took my chances, and I did.
While I was on the CUE website completing the paperwork again and looking at the services they provide, I thought back over the 16 months and the roller coaster I had been on. I started to empathize with others in my situation. It only takes once for someone to look on the United States Department of justice missing person page called NAMUS and look at the faces of those that have just disappeared. I scrolled through pages and pages of confirmed missing persons. I looked into their eyes and thought about each mother feeling the anguish I was feeling. I decided if I could do one thing in my lifetime, it would be to try and lessen another mother’s heartache.
The things that I had to muddle through and learn because there was no one there to tell me, I had to figure it out on my own regarding my missing person. There is no rule book. Unfortunately, very few law enforcement has received formal training in “missing persons,” much less adopted protocol. While on the website, I registered Bradley’s case and decided in his honor that I would also volunteer with CUE and do everything I could to help others with missing loved ones.
I became a state director for Louisiana for CUE. As such, of course, I couldn’t handle my son’s case but got assigned my case manager Tracy Jones who lives three short hours from me. I don’t have sisters or brothers. I was an only child, but if I were to be able to put a picture of what I would consider a sister would be, just a portrait of Tracy would do. She has been nothing but supportive from day one. We have become so close that she said she feels like Bradley also belongs to her because I’ve made him known to her. My kids know her, and it’s AUNT Tracy to them. We talk on the phone and sometimes until all hours of the morning. Sometimes about Bradley, and a lot of times about a lot of nothingness that we feel comfortable sharing. I guess you would say random girly talk, and I hope one day she will realize precisely how much I love her and how she came to me just in the nick of time. She came to my rescue when I was getting so weak I thought, if only for a moment, I would give up and fall because I couldn’t go anymore.
CUE has restored some of my faith in humanity because they’re real. They’re genuine; they don’t sugarcoat things; they’re always there for you. On May 13th, they started arriving for a massive search for my son. I spoke with Tracy when they all got checked into the motel. They held their meetings, and I couldn’t go because I wasn’t privy to all the information discussed. So I was assigned other jobs like ensuring the food was on location. I made sure I got porta potties and silly things like cool towels for their neck, which they said I spoiled them because they weren’t accustomed to that for a search, but that’s OK. They deserve to be pampered. They earned it as hot as it was in 100 degrees sweltering temperatures.
They came from Florida, South Texas, West Texas, maybe Arkansas or Missouri. I can’t remember where everyone was from; there were so many. But– I remember their faces, each of them making a point to speak to me, their kindness and kind words, and I remember their dogs. I remember that none returned from any search sector that they weren’t bleeding from the briars, underbrush, stickers, and downed trees. Everything was left in the wake of hurricane Laura and hurricane Delta that hadn’t been cleaned up in South Louisiana. Still, they gave it their all — they didn’t give up.
I would hope you never have to have CUE services. I hope you never have to lace up the shoes I wear now. I would have thought one crazy to have told me this years ago; that I would ever have to walk through such an ordeal. I can’t say I embrace it because I don’t, but I had to find my way of dealing with it. I must say the first morning of the search, May 14th, 2022, I was, as always, fashionably late. As I came to the top of the hill where Incident Command was set up, I saw the vehicles and the canine vehicles, the “stay back,” and K9 dog vests, and the dogs, the handlers, and the searchers in gear; I busted out crying because for so long I had tried, and you came through Tracy.
They all came through for me. They made a trip here for someone they didn’t know without pay or reimbursement just because that is their contribution. These people are so selfless; they all volunteer, so they will never get rich doing it. It was over 100 degrees outside, and they couldn’t have enjoyed it. They did it out of love. Love, love for another person that they didn’t even know, and although we didn’t find my son in the two days they were here, I do have the promise that they will be back as soon as deer season is over when it’s safe for them to enter the woods again because we at CUE, never give up, never give in, we’re all CUESTRONG!
We ask that you join us in sharing this story on your social media profiles in the hope it generates the tip that will help us find Bradley and bring him home.
Details on Bradley’s case: https://ncmissingpersons.org/bradley-chace-stracener/
If you have any information on this case, please contact CUE Center for Missing Persons at (910) 343-1131 or call the CUE Center 24-hour tip line at (910) 232-1687. All information submitted to CUE Center for Missing Persons is confidential.