(Thread) We are waking up to the sad news that Don Ryce has passed - the man whose life in is defined in South #Florida by an unrelenting push for justice for his son Jimmy’s abduction & murder. It took 19 years from that 1995 crime to his killer’s execution in 2014 ...

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... one of the first cases I covered from its beginning to its end, including as a witness to the execution.
I wrote this personal look-back the night before. I hope you will take the time to read it, now as a tribute to Don Ryce.
I hope he is resting In peace.

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... 2/12/14 Starke, Fla -
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So this is the end of the story.
And we were there from the beginning.
That day Jimmy disappeared, we couldn't click his picture around Facebook, couldn't instantly put the collective call out on Twitter about a missing almost-10-year-old boy...

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... Instagram didn't exist either. Did we even have cell phones?
That September afternoon in 1995 (it was 9/11, years before that date would take on a new meaning), Don and Claudine Ryce became their own community organizers. And we responded. Their desperation was real...

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...Back then, publicizing missing children was not as standard as it is today. The Ryces made sure we noticed.
For three months, they kept at it. And so did we, with them. Jimmy became ours, too. Jimmy became everyone's missing son....

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...In 1995, I was a new parent, instantly infused with the cosmic connection that every parent knows. When Claudine pleaded for help in finding Jimmy, I felt that profound loss.
Putting up the emotional wall that all reporters have in the tool-box? Impossible in this case...

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..What no one could know, we & all those neighbors who joined to search for days & miles, is that after the first 4 hours, Jimmy was already gone. Every day of that 3 month search, Jimmy's remains were already concreted into planters, the end of a torturous ordeal ...
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... about which the details would emerge in the weeks and months following the arrest of Juan Carlos Chavez.
That was a Saturday morning in December when we learned they had the guy. I was working weekends back then.
I remember standing and pacing at my desk...

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...calling one of my go-to homicide detectives at #Miami -Dade police HQ, hoping to flesh out some details. There was that adrenaline rush, about to break the news of the big arrest, trying not to give in to the emotional gut kick that the news would be - that Jimmy was gone..
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...Detectives were deep into questioning Chavez, skittish about telling even reporters they trusted, well-aware they were on one of the biggest cases they’d see in their careers. "Big" in the sense that Jimmy Ryce had become the poster child for every innocent, defenseless...
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...child brutalized by a criminal, a community's treasure, and they were hyper-aware that a future defense attorney would look to seize upon any mistake to help Chavez.
The trial began, finally, three years later. I covered it gavel to gavel, spending weeks in Orlando ...

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.. where it had been moved because of the difficulty finding Miami-Dade jurors who didn't already want the man who killed Jimmy hung in a public square. To this day, I remember watching the Ryces sitting and listening to every heartbreaking detail of their son's last hours...
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...his pain, his fear, his confusion.
The pictures of the concrete planters did me in.
Some court observers were riveted on the testimony; I was riveted on parents who were resolute in being their son's physical presence in the court. I have come to understand ...

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... part of what they were feeling was guilt.
Every mom & dad wants to swoop in and make it all better for their child, internalize & shoulder the responsibility when they can't, no matter how unrealistic that may be....

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...Florida's Constitutional equivalent of that public hanging is scheduled. Juan Carlos Chavez has a date with the lethal cocktail used to administer the death penalty. A cell phone line to the Gov's office will be open during the proceeding in case of a last minute stay..

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...Justice has not been swift, a function of protections in a judicial system where the death penalty is an option. Though 18yrs on death row is less time than some inmates face.
Jimmy's father has made clear- Chavez’s death will mean justice, though not closure...

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..There is no closure for him. Ever.

Post-execution note:
From the witness chamber, the defining image is in the overhead mirror behind the gurney where Juan Carlos Chavez lay strapped under a sheet: the pained expression on Don Ryce's face as he watched. Unflinchingly.
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