11/11 Veteran's Day Message to Governor Brown about a reward for information about the Murder of my Mom, Catherine Lique in California.

My Mom was so proud of me. More than even my Dad was. She made my little choices out like they were spectacular. Many of you, knowing our life, have always asked how I made it out alive. My Mom and Dad are how. They were the creators of our effed up world, but also the lifters if we wanted it. I wanted it, and they elevated me. When it was something that could better my chances at a good life, they never said no. I was always such a sunny and happy person before all of this even under such extreme circumstances. I think only 3 people saw me cry about our life in all of my High School years. I cried over stupid boys more than the quality of my life. There wasn't anything that could knock me down. If you have known me my whole life, you would agree. The Stephanie that arose after losing my parents is a girl that I barely know or understand. But I am getting back to myself. I just want all of this to be over. Citizens against Homicide is amazing, but I have put all of my eggs in one basket before and regretted it. I am still writing Governor Brown because we need his support and a California needs to stop letting Murderers get away while crying about things like burglaries and stupid petty things that suck, yes, but suck a lot less than kids losing their Mom to a murderer who literally GETS AWAY WITH MURDER.  
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This is my letter that I wrote today on 11/11 to Governor Brown. Feel free to copy and paste and email to him, print out and send or create your own.

Dear Governor Brown and the team that supports him,

Today is Veteran's day. On this day, every year my mom would make us all get up and clean the house and cook a yummy breakfast for my dad. To thank him for his service and for honor all who have served with him. When I was little I just wanted to be so much like him. My mom nourished my dreams. She might have been told by someone else, it was impossible, but she never let on to us that we couldn't be what/who we wanted to. Even if society told us different. She always supported us having a better life and more control over personal choices than she herself had the strength for. But, with her encouragement and steadfast resolve for my future, I joined the US Coast Guard after College and I served. In less than two years I was awarded the Coast Guard Achievement medal for my role in a massive plane crash that garnered no survivors and a lot of sadness. I cried for four days straight. I was pregnant with my son. My Mom's only grand-baby. I barely slept, everyone barely slept. It was a nightmare on the grandest scale for our station at that time. People left the Coast Guard over the things they saw during that time. Because they had to deploy any and all crew members, I was the obvious choice to stay back and handle the Comms. I did so without a break for almost 24 hours straight. Then for 3 more days after that. I talked to my mom, every single day during that time. She kept me on the upper part of how I was feeling. She helped me hold on, so that I could continue to be the person that my crews could count on for information and extra help. I was the only person handling other sea emergencies that were still coming in during that time and having to be selective about who gets help is a very heavy decision for anyone (as I am sure you understand. I earned that medal. Faster than most people who are in the Coast Guard for a long time and go on many rescues. I am proud of my achievement and I am proud of the many men in my family who have done the same and much much more for our country.

I know that my achievement is small compared to many others, but it is still proof of my service to you. To your families and to your colleagues. I have never asked for anything in return for it. I even used private insurance instead of my VA Benefit because I felt I didn't need to ask for assistance as a Veteran. I am not asking you to give me money. No one in our family is. But, I got a medal for my achievement, you probably get them too. And you probably have bazillions, I am sure considering your good works and your long career. The person with knowledge about my Mom's passing should also be awarded for helping the government put a murderer behind bars. This person has to go against years and years of desert dirtbag brainwashing and fear. They will have to really put themselves out there for justice. Without having the military as backup. This person who comes forth (and needs to)should be awarded and allowed to move away from such a scary place. I fully believe that the person or persons will come forward with the promise of a reward and the chance to escape the desert. I think that is fair. I think it is a long shot, but it is better than no shot. Which is what we have been staring at for almost ten years now.

Please, as a supporter of your Veterans and Justice, activate a reward for my Mom. Catherine Lique.

Thank you,
Stephanie DeWolfe

October 11th 2013 letter to Governor Brown about Catherine Lique

Good Morning Governor Brown and/or Office,

I am just writing because it has been 11 days since my last letter and I haven't received a reply.  I know you guys are busy, but this is an important issue for me and a lot of other people and we have been writing since April.

Like I wrote before, it has been almost ten years since she went missing and was a victim of homicide.  That is just too long to go without having some things done on her case at a local level.  Local meaning California. I can imagine how helpless you would feel if the tables were turned.

My mom made her choices and some murderer made theirs.  Now we need you to make yours, so that the murderer gets his choices revoked just as she did. 

I really appreciate all that your office does and I know there are a lot of positive pressing issues right now.  But this would be massively positive to us and inspiring to other families feeling uncared about by the very people they elected. 

She was a beautiful human being.  Under all of her bad choices, she was such a sweet person whose intentions were almost never selfish.  She always had an end game of helping someone no matter what her current road was.  My parents weren't the best, but they stayed together through all of our growing up.  They were consistent in their love for each other and for us.  When we all left the nest, my mom was lost.  Some people take that experience and run with it.   That experience crushed my mom.  I look at my own son and I still have 5 years but I die inside a little each time I think of being here in this house without him.  Can you imagine that times 3? 

She shouldn't be ignored because of her choices that showed only her bad.  She should be remembered for the good she did do and the love she did spread around.  The children in Yermo she helped raise, to the tortoise she would stop a speeding car to make sure he crossed the road safely.  Her life shouldn't be only left to a dusty shelf and no one caring. 

Have you ever stared up at the stars out in the Mojave?  It is like nothing else in the world.  My mom taught me that.  She taught me that the things people hate about California are the very things that she loved.  The way the wind carried the smell of the creosote bushes after a quick sprinkling of rain, or the way the sky felt like velvet when you get up in the mountains because of the swirl of hot and cool in the wind.  She taught me that to cure a broken heart, you drive up into the hills and go rock hunting.  She also never made us feel bad for her choices.  She owned what she did, but she kept us together.  She cooked better pork chops than anyone on the planet and that is no lie. 

I am rambling, I know, but I want you to feel her as a person and not a case file or mug shot.  She is important to us.  She is important to our detective.  She is deserving of justice. 

Thanks so much!

4-19-2013 Letter to Governor Brown

4/19/2013 Dear Governor Brown, My name is Stephanie Thompson (maiden Lique), and I grew up in a tiny town 20 miles East of Barstow, called Newberry Springs. I graduated high school, went to college, joined the Coast Guard and then eventually settled down in Oregon. Newberry Springs is a charming town, it's old and desolate and the people are few and far between. It is actually a great place for people who like solitude but still require some sort of civilization. It is my hometown and it always will be. But like all towns, big and small, it holds many peoples deepest darkest secrets. There is a lot of crime and poverty. A lot of unreported crimes happen out there. Because it usually takes the police so long to get there, sometimes it is not worth even calling. So the bad people are getting away with the bad stuff. Newberry Springs is close to Yermo/Daggett/Ludlow and Barstow. If you live there, all but Barstow is treated as pretty much the same place. The landforms merge into each other, the vast expanses have no clear boundaries and people move about through all of the towns and families are spread throughout that entire portion of that part of the High Desert. Barstow is our version of "going to town." But that is not my issue. My mom is Catherine Lique, who went missing from Barstow in late November in 2003. She was just 43 years old. Married and a mother of three. Because of the draw at the chance of being alone in the desert can make some regular people walk away from their lives for a break, the consensus was that she walked away or was just somewhere visiting with no phone (not uncommon out there). The PD didn't put a whole lot of importance on her case because it seemed like she intentionally walked away. I am mature enough to understand their reasoning for being so relaxed about it. But it wasn't the same scenario on mine and my two brother's side of things. We were frantic and upset. We had already let a month go by to give her time to come home if she did just need some time away. But after she didn't contact anyone for Thanksgiving or Christmas we finally asked for a well check at the last place she was known to be living as of the beginning of October that year. While the well check was happening I called hospitals, mental health facilities, jails, gas stations... you name it, I called. My parents had split up after 29 years of being together in 2002. My Dad moved up here to Oregon so that I could care for him as he had COPD and a few heart attacks. My mom stayed in Yermo (they were living there when they split up) and couch hopped. She dated a couple of guys and stayed with friends. She began using prostitution as a means of making her own money and not having to rely so much on others. It was a high risk lifestyle but she stayed close to home and always kept in touch with friends and family. Not very many people even knew she was doing it, most of us found out after the private investigator uncovered it from the guy she was staying with in Barstow. No one ever corroborated it until years later. The only thing we knew is that she supposedly left for work one day right before Thanksgiving. She usually would go out to the Vegas Truck Stop which is on one of the four corners in Yermo near the High School (my Dad's old employer) . Her brother in law works at Peggy Sue's the fifties diner diagonal to the truck stop. I put my life on hold to look for my mom. For 6 years I scoured the coroners website, I traveled to California to chase leads, I stumbled around in the remote desert just hoping and looking for a sign. I met many other people with missing loved ones and was introduced to the world of Missing Persons. That is a really awful club to join. I barely slept, my son was put on back burner status, I rarely dated, and I didn't have a single person near me who understood what I was going through. It was a really sad and dark time of my life and my families'. I went places in my soul that no one should ever have to go to, especially when it concerns their Mommy. She was found in 2008 by some hikers in Death Valley National Park. Pieces of her bones were found and her skull. Inyo County Sheriff's Department has the case now, since she was just inside the Inyo County Line. They conducted very thorough searches in the area and were able to give most of her back to us. Her remains were scattered all around by years of being out there, high on a hill with not even so much as a grave. There is no indication that she was clothed, but it was a relief to find out that she hadn't been cut up and thrown into multiple mine shafts. The detective on my Mom's case has been back out there many times. Sometimes just to see what, if anything he can find that might help him. Inyo County is a neighbor of San Bernardino (as I am sure you know) but it is still pretty far away. So the investigation into her death has hit a slow point. There is a lot of possible scenarios and many different theories that could have led to her demise. But I live way up in Oregon, my brother's aren't really capable of running a murder investigation and the detective is very far away from the people who would know things. We have requested a reward for information regarding her murder and disappearance. From your office. I don't think we were denied but I know we haven't been approved yet and it has been years. After my mom was found, I stepped back to try to regain some sort of semblance of a normal life. I try to be patient with law enforcement this time, because it was too stressful to always be making sure the pd is doing their job, but mostly because I believe in our Detective. I feel that he really cares what happened to her. He really cares that we still cry about our mom and wants to give us the justice we deserve for losing our Mom so young. He never treats us like what we tell him is crazy or makes us feel like we are alone now. We have a good support system with Inyo County. I couldn't feel more relieved that she was found in their jurisdiction after my bad experiences with Barstow. I am writing you now to beg you to please authorize a reward for information. Money is the only thing that speaks to dirtbags. If you will authorize the reward, a billboard will be put up near Barstow. Hopefully in a place that people will see going from Yermo to Barstow. Ideally close to the truck stop in Yermo. The group offering to help with this, won't do it until we have a reward offered. I know California is having financial issues, I can appreciate that, but I also know that it is rare for someone to actually collect on a reward, so I am hoping that you will approve reward, so that we can move forward to getting the billboard up and get some leads going. This year will be ten years since she was murdered and left all alone out in the middle of nowhere to be picked apart like garbage. I know that a drug addicted bludgeoned prostitute must seem like less of an issue than what you probably deal with on a regular basis and in the grand scheme I think some people would rather the reward money be used for someone's prim and proper parent. She wasn't prim and proper, she wasn't mousy and she wasn't sugary sweet.... but she was My Mom, Greg's Mom, Doug's Mom. Steve's wife. Wanda & Herbert's daughter. Glenna and Raymond's daughter in law. Fontana High graduate. Jerry, Colleen, Al, Patty, Bobby, Phyllis and two brothers' Sister. Many sibling in laws' who loved her like she was their own sister. She was my son's Grandma and she loved him so much. She was loud. She was funny and nice and one of the best friends a person could hope for. She loved the sun and loved California like it was her Mother. She loved the 4th of July. She loved writing. She loved puppies and kitten and hated snakes. She was so much more than her case file and a description. She was so much more than a google search and a mugshot. So much more than a pile of dusty bones out in the middle of the desert. I will be getting married this summer and I don't get to have my Mom with me. Because someone took her. Not because she chose to be gone. I know I am asking for a lot. I know it. But it would make a tiny dent (if we are lucky) in the finances of California but a huge, gigantic, gift for her family and a great big help for our Detective. Thank you for taking the time to read through this, and please remember us when you are approving or denying rewards. It would really make a huge difference for us. Thank you Stephanie Thompson on behalf of the entire Schwab and Lique families and friends.