A Cleveland mother’s fears bring her to the scene of a serial killer’s crime

Bernadette Jackson adds her daughter's picture to a board advertising missing persons. Jackson's daughter, Fasania, went missing on Oct. 1.

Bernadette Dawn Jackson hugs her brown paper bag as if it were her child. In a way, it is.  The bag is filled with fliers about her daughter, Fasania.

The girl disappeared more than three weeks ago. It wasn’t the first time, and like always,  Jackson filed a missing person report.

But that was before police found 11 decomposed remains in a modest, white two-flat in Cleveland. That was before the resident, Anthony Sowell,  was charged with five counts of aggravated murder. That was before the corner of Imperial Ave. and 123rd St. became clearing house for folks looking for missing loved ones.

So today, a month after she last saw Fasania, Jackson stands on the spectators’ side of police tape. She pulls the bag to her chest, and wonders whether to add her daughter’s picture to the wall of the missing.

“It makes me worried,” she tells me. Am I putting my daughter’s life in danger?”

“Will someone see her poster and say, ‘we’ve got this child’…” her words trail off a bit. She looks at the house. “Could she be in there?”

Jackson said her daughter is bipolar and is on medication. The girl, now 18, has been victimized before. “A man 27 years old had sex with my daughter, ” Jackson said.

The wind picks up and the leaves swirl. Spectators come and go, gazing at the fliers stapled to piece of white poster board. There’s Nancy Cobbs, missing since April. Her family and friends were among the first ones to show up on the corner because Cobbs was last seen near the house. There’s Michelle Mason, who lived about 10 blocks away. Her family, like Cobbs’, plastered the neighborhood with photos begging for information.

Finally, Jackson she makes up her mind. She runs to get tape from the corner store. When she returns,  she puts Fasania’s picture  right underneath the flier for Georgina “Gina” DeJesus.

DeJesus was 14 when she disappeared in 2004.

Please share tips and information on missing persons with Cleveland CRIME STOPPERS 24-hour hotline at 216.252.7463