Kriti Mehrotra
When 17-year-old high school senior Jessica Cain suddenly went missing on the evening of August 17, 1997, it left not just the state of Texas but also the entire nation baffled to its very core. That’s because, as explored in ABC’s ’20/20: Highway Hunter’ plus Netflix’s ‘Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields,’ she was among the four young women to go missing from near this area within months, and it led to a serial killer coming to light. Yet for now, if you simply wish to learn more about the two loudest voices to have always demanded justice for her — her parents, Suzy and CH Cain — we’ve got the essential details for you.
Who Are Suzy and CH Cain?
It was on August 28, 1979, in Baytown, Texas, when Jessica was born as the only child of Suzy Johnson and CH Cain, just for them to do their best to give her the best possible life imaginable. This family thus had a great relationship filled with mutual care, respect, and understanding, which is how the latter knew something was awry the second their teen missed curfew in August 1997. They already knew she had a school drama/play in Dickinson followed by a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant, so her not returning on time without any prior information didn’t make sense.
That’s when CH decided to go out looking for his little girl Jessica, only to soon come across her abandoned truck on the shoulder of I-45 Highway without any signs of her or of a clear struggle. “I had been to all the places where I thought she might be,” he candidly said back then. “…I was on my way home, and it’s actually just three or four miles from the house, on the side of the road.” Hence began an actual search for this missing teen with the help of police officials, volunteers, federal forces, as well as loved ones alike upon a frantic 911 call, but to absolutely no avail.
The truth is no stones were left unturned, yet it wasn’t until William Reece confessed and led officials straight to Jessica’s place of burial that she was recovered almost two decades after the fact. Though by this point, her parents were still holding onto the hope she was alive — that maybe the hypothesis of her having been trafficked to Mexico instead of having been brutally killed was true. But alas, on March 18, 2016, her cold skeletal remains were recovered from a muddy field on E. Orem Road near Hobby Airport — she was positively identified following a few weeks from dental records.
Where is Suzy and CH Cain Now?
“The initial shock of [Jessica] at first not coming home and anticipating th at at any moment she is going to walk through the door, I think those year s were harder,” Suzy has since expressed in ’20/20.’ “As it went on, I think we had accepted whatever God had in store for us. That’s why I think the closure [of what’d happened] when it came [in 2016] was a little harder on everybody else maybe than us because we’d already expected whatever God’s answer was.” They were desperately hoping their daughter was still alive no matter the kind of life she was leading, but they ultimately had to face reality.
Coming to Suzy and CH’s current standing, from what we can tell, the loss of their only child does hang over their heads like a dark cloud to this day, yet it seems like they’re doing their best to move on. In fact, it appears as if they’re now focusing on the positives of life instead of the negatives, all the while keeping Jessica alive in their hearts as well as through their verbal actions to attain justice. As for their physical whereabouts, this loving couple has long since relocated far from the town of Jessica’s vanishing to Liberty County, which is where they’re planning to enjoy their retirement too.
