Some claim they've seen Jacque Waller alive; police dismiss notion

The first time Joe Landam ever laid eyes on Jacque Waller was in photographs that were televised on Nancy Grace's CNN talk show.

The second time he saw her, he says, was a few days later -- alive in the lobby of a Phoenix apartment complex.

"She looked just like the person I saw in the picture," said Landam, who is a lifelong Phoenix resident. "I swear it looked like the girl on the news. I was like, 'Wow, maybe this is her.'"

Her posture also struck him as unusual -- anxious, adrift and unfamiliar with her surroundings.

"There seemed to be something terribly empty about this person," Landam said. "She seemed nervous. Sort of lost."

Landam reported what he saw to the Jackson Police Department but never heard back. He acknowledged there's no way to be certain it was the 39-year-old mother of three who has been missing since June 1.

But Landam wondered if police here have considered the possibility that the woman who was reportedly last seen walking away from her husband's home on foot simply kept on going.

"Maybe she's not really missing," said Landam, 48. "Maybe she's alive and well in Arizona. I don't know."

Police say they have received a small number of calls from people in different parts of the country who reported seeing Jacque Waller alive.

In some cases, the callers left insufficient information to follow up, said Jackson police chief James Humphreys. In other cases, police made inquiries that led them to believe the information was false, he said.

But they're not investigating the case under the assumption that Jacque Waller disappeared of her own accord. They have said they suspect foul play and named her husband, Clay Waller, a person of interest in the case. Clay Waller remained incarcerated Wednesday on charges unrelated to his wife's disappearance.

"She had no reason just to walk away from her life," Humphreys said. "At this point, I think it's highly unlikely she will be found alive."

Lt. David James with the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department said he was not even aware that there were Jacque Waller sightings other than a few local ones.

But he doesn't believe she walked away, either.

"I would say I'm 99.999 percent sure that's not what happened," James said.

Police continue to search for Jacque every day, James said. While he wouldn't comment specifically, his comments suggested the searches are focused on places where they think her body could have been disposed of. Police have previously talked about their interest in concrete at construction sites where Clay Waller worked.

"When you have a person of interest, you center your searches around that person," James said. "You slowly start eliminating areas that are known to that person."

James doesn't think Jacque Waller will be found alive. The bigger concern may be that she will not be found at all.

"There's always a possibility that it could become a cold case like the one you read about that becomes 10 years old or whatever," James said. "It's always a possibility. But we don't like to think that way."

Jacque's family members don't think she's alive, either. Cheryl Brenneke said that she's "110 percent" sure her sister didn't walk away from her life. She said Jacque was looking forward to starting a new life without her estranged husband. The two had supposedly filed for divorce the day she disappeared. Jacque had rented a house, and it was being painted that day.

"She couldn't wait to get home and see it that night," Brenneke said. "And she never would have left her kids. Her world revolved around them."

But Clay Waller's attorney, Scott Reynolds, said it is certainly a possibility that Jacque is still alive.

"That happens all the time -- runaway brides, someone gets a new identity," Reynolds said. "I'm not saying that's what happened, but it is possible."

Also not to be discounted, Reynolds said, is the possibility that a third party had something to do with Jacque's disappearance and not Clay. Or she could have been hurt somewhere and police haven't yet found her body, he said.

"All we know is that we don't know what happened to her," Reynolds said.

Neither does Joe Landam, the man from Phoenix. But the image of the woman he saw still nags at him, making him wonder.

"Honestly, I thought it was her," he said. "I really did. It'd be a nice story if she turned back up alive and everything was OK."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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