Her fears confirmed

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, January 16, 2005

OAK HARBOR – Elaine Sepulveda saved her summer babysitting money to buy pink and green Converse shoes and a black Kurt Cobain T-shirt.

Elaine, 15, wore the T-shirt at least twice a week. The shoes rarely left her feet, even when she wore her long black skirt.

Her mother, Mary Jimenez, knew Elaine wouldn’t go anywhere without them.

Julie Busch / The Herald Mary Jimenez of Oak Harbor hugs her daughter’s security blanket on Sunday. “She took it with her everywhere. This is all I have left,” says Jimenez.

The shoes and shirt were found in her boyfriend’s bedroom Nov. 7, one day after her parents reported her missing.

Her mother began to feel the first prickles of fear that her daughter wasn’t coming home.

“The day they found her clothes, that’s when I knew,” Jimenez said. “I knew she hadn’t run away.”

Her daughter was found dead Friday. Elaine’s boyfriend, James Sanders, 18, was arrested in connection with her murder.

Her family credits Bob Dennis from the Florida-based Klaaskids Foundation and Bob Walcutt of the Texas-based Laura Recovery Center with coaxing a break in the case.

They asked Sanders’ grandfather for permission to search his back yard. The grandfather agreed, and Sanders allegedly confessed to him early Friday.

Elaine’s body was found buried there early Friday morning.

Plans for the future

Elaine’s mother and stepfather Juan Jimenez, celebrated Elaine’s arrival in Oak Harbor a year ago.

Elaine had stayed behind with her father in El Paso, Texas for a few months when her stepfather was transferred to Naval Station Whidbey Island in Oak Harbor.

When she moved here Jan. 16, her family worried she’d hate the rain. But Elaine, whose family nickname was “Mandi,” seemed happy.

“She never took life for granted,” her mother said. “You could just see it in her. She loved life, and she’d do anything to make you laugh.”

Her grades slid from As to some Cs during the end of her freshman year at Oak Harbor High School, but the 10th grader still spoke of attending Princeton or Yale.

“She was so smart, we know she could have made it,” Juan Jimenez said.

Elaine would have been the first in her family to go to college, her mother said. The 4-foot-11 teenager wanted to become a professional athletic trainer.

Growing up

Elaine traded her band clarinet for an acoustic guitar. She strummed it in the garage, teaching herself the chords to her favorite Nirvana songs.

During the summer, Elaine volunteered for the Oak Harbor library and earned money babysitting.

“She was so kindhearted,” her mother said. “She babysat for lots of kids in the neighborhood. Everybody loved her.”

Elaine often watched her younger sisters, Maegan, 7, Alyssa, 4, and nephew Jaycob, 1. She was also close with her older sister, Angela, 17.

“At the beginning, Maegan would look at (Elaine’s) picture and say ‘I want to be lost,’” Mary Jimenez said. “When I asked her why, she said it was because she wanted to be with her sister.”

Her parents promised Elaine a huge party for her 16th birthday in March, but to them the teenager still seemed like a girl.

“She’d always do goofy things,” Juan Jimenez said, recalling how she once melted the counter when she was trying to clean the stove. “We called it pulling a Mandi.”

She kept a green Care Bear and refused to stay overnight without her white-and-pink security blanket. Her great-grandmother gave Elaine the blanket, which had a penguin on front, when she was a toddler.

Her parents didn’t know she had a boyfriend until Nov. 6, the day they reported her missing.

Elaine apparently sneaked out of her house to meet Sanders early that day. She’d told friends she was pregnant.

The search for Elaine

A dozen pictures of Elaine hang in the dining room. The girl in pigtails offers a shy grin. An older Elaine holds the clarinet she played in honor band.

Next to the photos are “Missing” posters.

“Searching for her was our full-time job,” Mary Jimenez said. “That was all we did.”

Even though her family feared the worst, they prayed Elaine would come home. They bought her Christmas presents, including a telescope to watch the stars.

Elaine’s parents plan to bury her in El Paso, fulfilling a promise her mother made during the search.

“I would go and dig and look through bushes, and I would tell her if she came home, I would take her home to grandma,” Mary Jimenez said.

She now sleeps with Elaine’s security blanket. Her husband drapes it around her at night.

They haven’t decided whether to keep the blanket or tuck in Elaine one last time.

“This is all I have left,” Mary Jimenez says softly, wrapping her arms around her daughter’s blanket. “This is all I have left.”

Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@heraldnet.com.