This evening friends and family of Amy Bridgeman and Shonda Stansbury gathered at Centennial Park in Roanoke Rapids to offer a prayer they will get closure in the cases. An invitation was also extended to the family of Jalesa Reynolds.

“We wanted to do something before Easter,” said Kim Wallace, a longtime friend of James Bridgeman. “The more you have a gathering, the more you remember.”

John Whichard, who is neighbors with the Bridgeman family and organized the event, said he and others concerned have gone as far to take classes to learn search techniques so they will know what to do and how to handle evidence should anything come up. “Human beings deserve more attention than this in Halifax County.”

Bridgeman's memorial.

Mr. Bridgeman offered his wife's DNA from a razor to investigators, but it was refused. He learned he improperly put it in a plastic bag rather than a paper bag. He said investigators have retrieved DNA from his wife's son for the investigation.

He said, however, he has exhausted all his search efforts. “I've been everywhere I can think of — Greenville, Raleigh, Chesterfield. I just don't where else to go.”

He believes something happened to his wife in Weldon, the last place she was seen. “If she was alive she would have come home.”

As her case nears a year in June, Mr. Bridgeman said his emotions vary. “It switches back and forth from feeling sorry for myself to what I could have done different. It's tough.”

Both Bridgeman and Wallace say one promising lead, a tip that Mrs. Bridgeman left the area with a long haul truck driver went cold when he was reportedly cleared after taking a polygraph.

His wife a cosmetologist, Mr. Bridgeman is letting his grow in her honor, “Until I get an answer or can't take it anymore.”

Stansbury's memorial.

Friends of both families joined hands in a circle at the park as Shonda's father, Jack, said a prayer. “It's up to you,” he prayed. “We put everything in your hands that one day you will answer our prayers.”

He continued, saying, “It's been over seven years for our family. We don't ever give up. We just don't give up on it.”

Wallace believes the cases, especially Mrs. Bridgeman's, haven't been taken seriously because of the women's pasts. “I just think Amy is being labeled a drug addict. Amy was recovering. She got her cosmetology license. She would have given her last dollar to you.”

She has learned through her involvement not to judge. “There's more to her story. Just because she was at a house one day doesn't tell the whole story,” she said in reference to a house in South Weldon known for drugs and prostitution.”

Jackie Stansbury, Shonda's sister, believes there is more to her sister's story as well, especially in an account give by a witness that she was being chased by two men down Thelma Road.

Said Jack's wife, Diane, “I believe that was get the law to other side of 903.”