Search and Rescue Canine Team
2075 Hwy 97 E •Nixon, Texas 78140• (830)582-2117 • grandmadawg@yahoo.com
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Heidi Seeman
Photo Courtesy of Heidi Search Center
11/16/78 - 8/4/90
15 years later, group visits spot where Heidi was abducted
Web Posted: 08/05/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Once the crowd squeezed under the little shade available on the side of Stahl Road, Vanessa Tate-Winn composed herself before reading a short statement.
The group of almost 50 adults and children had just walked several blocks in the unforgiving sun, retracing the final steps of Heidi Seeman, who was abducted from the Northeast Side spot 15 years earlier.
"Remember who you're doing this for," Kate Kohl whispered to Tate-Winn.
Kohl is the executive director of the Heidi Search Center, a nonprofit operation dedicated to finding missing children that was created in the aftermath of that incident, and Tate-Winn is the organization's board president.
The spot where they stood was where search dogs lost the 11-year-old girl's scent.
"She became everyone's child and united a city," Tate-Winn said.
Twenty-six balloons representing how old Heidi would've been this year were released in her memory.
On Aug. 4, 1990, Heidi was abducted as she walked home from a friend's house where she spent the night.
Jessica Caldwell had been invited to that sleepover also, though she didn't attend.
"It's hard, but it's very important," she said of being at the same spot 15 years later. "Heidi is still my best friend to this day. I feel her inside of me."
Heidi Search Center officials backed away from an expected announcement that the center would be scaling back some of its services because of money woes.
Funding remains a problem, Tate-Winn said, but an influx of donations this week has bought the center's board a little more time and breathing room to discuss how and where to make changes.
Since Monday, area residents donated $6,000 to the center. The center also received an offer for rent-free office space.
The center learned last week it would have to move out of its Windsor Park Mall location by the end of the month.
"Without Heidi, everyone would be lost," said John Joseph Torres, who volunteered at the center during its inception in 1990.
In 1999, his own granddaughter, Mary Bea Perez, was abducted and Torres turned to the Heidi Search Center.
"They opened their arms and started to help us out," he said.
Like Heidi, Mary Bea was found dead, but the center's help was instrumental, Torres said.
"A lot of people who really need help would be running around in circles" without the center, he said.
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