Theresa gets a heartbreaking phone call

Part 6 of 7

For Melissa Mackey, the days dragged by. She was bored and tired. She worked at the second-hand store, tending the cash register. She was delightful to the customers. Melissa always aimed to please, and she was a faithful worker, straightening clothes racks and miscellaneous items on tabletops.

But in her down time, she'd think a lot about her 3-year-old daughter, being raised by grandparents in St. Louis.

For Vision House director Theresa Taylor, the minutes passed like the rolling numbers of a $3 per-gallon gas pump. She had a May 27 deadline for her grant, and she was behind.

Plus, she had the store up and running.

Not long after the store opened, a chapel started meeting in the clean concrete space of the store's basement. It was called the Vision Chapel.

The minister, E.D. Francis, had decided to leave his senior post at Iona Baptist Church to start the mission on Cape's south side.

Iona, Theresa's quaint country church out in the rural hills north of Cape Girardeau, had sponsored the Vision House and thought it would be a good idea to create a permanent chapel to complement the long-term transitional housing project.

But the church wasn't permanent. The second-hand store basement, it was later discovered, did not meet city code for group gatherings. The mission had nowhere to meet, so most of the women, who were required to attend a church service of their choice, wound up going out to Iona Baptist with Theresa.

The new church kept her busy for weeks; she also had to arrange for donation drop-offs for the store. She gave speeches and went from church to church asking for sponsorships.

Manager Karen Daugherty was busy, too, especially with the store. She was still having to keep up with 12 residents and all their schedules.

Melissa and Katie, a new arrival, picked up their friendship where it had left off. The girls had known each other for ages. The network of drug users in the St. Louis and Cape Girardeau areas is a bit fickle. Drug addicts compete for money, drugs and attention on the outside of the rehab walls. Like a reality show, users form alliances and leverage their friendships and allies to score as many drugs as possible. Nothing said can be trusted; no one high can be counted on; no act of violence or deception can be considered a surprise. But inside the drug-free walls of a detox facility, tight bonds can be formed, bonds that can exist and thrive if the women stay clean. Melissa Mackey had bonded with Vision House manager Karen Daugherty. And she had done the same with Katie Ruppel. Katie had shoulder-length blond hair, an innocent, squeaky voice and eyes as sincere as they are blue.

Melissa and Katie had met ages ago at the FCC. They were roomates there for a short time. Their bond remained intact, picking up again as soon as Katie moved in.

The two became like sisters. Both were outgoing and had come from respectable families. Melissa liked crack. Katie liked heroin.

Melissa was a big inspiration. Melissa was, only months ago, incredibly consumed by her addiction. But now she was attending meetings, giving testimony, working, repairing relationships and building a foundation for a real life.

Sometime in May things started to shift.

One night when Melissa returned home from a St. Louis trip, Karen thought Melissa looked a little uneasy. Her favorite girl was acting kind of odd, different.

Come to think of it, this wasn't the first time. Had it been anyone else, Karen would have dropped a drug test right away.

But this was Melissa. She wasn't using. She had come so far. She was so open about things. She wouldn't keep secrets.

But was she? There was the sex incident a few weeks ago, after all.

Karen's instincts knew. Karen knew that addicts, even ones who have been clean for months, are conniving and deceitful. That's the thing about addicts. You don't really know where the person stops and the illness begins.

But Karen wouldn't allow herself to believe it. She was just being paranoid.

Then the rumors started.

The girls down at the FCC who attended the 12-step meetings started talking. The rumors made their way back to Melissa, who said she was stunned by the back-stabbing.

She said she had done nothing wrong and couldn't understand why people were saying bad things about her. She said the rumors were adding stress to her life.

The phone rang on a Saturday morning, June 11. Theresa was at home. Karen Daugherty was on the other end of the line, the messenger of bad news.

Melissa, their unofficial favorite girl, the girl they had put so much love and time into, had taken another authorized trip to St. Louis.

But she should have been back at the Vision House long ago.

Theresa answered the phone.

"Melissa's gone," Karen said.

Karen didn't need to explain further.

Theresa knew Melissa enough to know that she would probably fall hard. She feared for Melissa's life.

Theresa could think of nothing else but to search for her friend.

"Let's go hunt for her," Theresa said.

The two women met in Cape Girardeau and, as if police officers, started tracking down leads. They started with one of Melissa's former McDonald's co-workers.

A couple of Melissa's friends were at the co-worker's house, and they gave Theresa and Karen an idea of where Melissa might be. A crack house on Sprigg Street.

Karen had done this kind of thing before, stomping into a crack house and pulling female addicts fresh from the FCC out of the house. All she had to do was threaten to pull out her cell phone and call the police, and the drug dealers would let the women go.

But Karen and Theresa didn't take that approach this time, because they didn't want to get their "informants" in trouble. Instead, they parked outside, down the street, prepared to wait for hours, to see if Melissa would come out the door.

Not long after they parked, Karen got a call from the Vision House's second-hand store.

Melissa was there.

A depressing chain of events followed.

Karen, who said Melissa was clearly high, took Melissa to one of the city hospitals, hoping she could sober up there and spend some outpatient time in the hospital.

Karen said her blood alcohol content was high. At first, Karen said Melissa talked of cutting her wrists and watching herself bleed. Then she said Melissa turned almost violent, cursing the nurses and the doctors who were trying to help her.

The hospital refused further treatment, and Karen was forced to take Melissa to a detox facility in Hayti, Mo.

Karen couldn't have been more hurt. In the weeks prior to Melissa's relapse, Melissa had started dating Karen's brother. Karen didn't detest the relationship as much as she did Melissa's previous sexual encounter with Karen's son.

But Karen knew her brother cared deeply for Melissa, and this would be heartbreaking for him. Not only that, Karen had put her reputation on the line by looking the other way when Melissa looked and acted strange in the days leading to her acute relapse.

In hindsight, the rumors that Melissa had denied were true. She had been drinking and partying during her trips away from the Vision House. It was rumored that Melissa met with a former boyfriend in St. Louis who provided the drugs.

Karen felt stupid for not testing Melissa before Melissa reached this sorry point.

"It was a bad, bad mistake," Karen said. Karen had done the very thing she had sworn not to do. She had become an enabler because she let her heart get in the way.

She wouldn't let that happen again.

In the weeks following, Melissa came back to Cape Girardeau. She did not return several messages left by the Southeast Missourian at the house of her "sponsor." Karen said Melissa had stayed with a woman named Jan, who knew Melissa and Karen well. Jan, a recovering addict, provided a home away from the Vision House for both Karen and Melissa when things got too stressful at the Vision House.

Melissa at first seemed determined. While booted from living at the Vision House, she expressed an interest in still meeting with the Vision House women and continuing her 12-step and faith-based programs.

Within days, she vanished back up into St. Louis. No one heard from Melissa for several weeks.

Those were dark days for the Vision House. But much more had to be done. The Vision House would have to move on, even without Karen and Theresa's favorite girl.

Coming tomorrow: The conclusion. Theresa gets an answer on her grant, and other girls move on.

ABOUT THIS SERIES: After 17 years of drug addiction and living in the streets, a Cape Girardeau County woman named Theresa Taylor was sent to prison. While incarcerated, she received treatment for her addiction and was clean for the first time in her adult life. She soon became a born-again Christian. A couple of years later, the judge who sentenced her became aware of how well Theresa's recovery was going and opened the door for Theresa to speak with youth and women at the Family Counseling Center. One day, while talking to a drug-addicted woman ready to leave the treatment facility, Theresa had a "vision." That vision was to provide a faith-based, long-term transitional living facility for homeless and addicted women. This series begins two years after the "vision" and on the opening day of the Vision House. It follows the progress of the facility as well as some of the women who tried the program. The reporter visited the Vision House more than 30 times over the past year, conducting scores of interviews. While some of the scenes were reported firsthand by the reporter, most of the story was re-created through interviews of the various sources mentioned in the story. When events could not be verified by other participating parties, those events have been attributed to the sources who gave the information.