http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/NEWS0201/512080358/1002/NEWS
It's four years since Sandy Poole's child disappeared
Mark Hare
(December 8, 2005)
Sharon Shechter vanished four years ago this week, but for her mom, Sandra Poole, the memories of her only child are as fresh as the morning snow.
"It's as if it were just yesterday," Poole says.
Sharon Shechter was 35, lived in Perinton and worked as an ultrasound technician. She loved cooking and crafts and polka dancing. She and her husband had separated; their three children Jake, Amber and Rachel were the center of her world.
Shechter was last seen on Dec. 9, 2001. She had planned to do some Christmas shopping with a friend on that day. She left the house and never returned.
A few days later, her blood-stained minivan was found in Gates; the blood was Sharon's.
Sandy clings tight to the memories and photos. Of Sharon when she was named Miss Pre-Teen Rochester, of Sharon at her Gates Chili High junior prom, of Sharon at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party.
Mom and daughter spoke twice or more every day. "Even now, when the phone rings," Sandy says, "I think it might be Sharon calling."
Sandy says that Sharon was the last baby born at the old Park Avenue Hospital (which later became Park Ridge Hospital in Greece). "She weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces," Sandy recalls. "She was just 19 inches long. I remember that my girlfriend and her mother snuck up the back stairs to visit us."
For Sandy, life has been suspended in time. "I remember when she was 2, we went to Hungary, where her father's family was from. We went to a Christmas Eve service and Sharon stayed at my in-laws' home. When we came back, my brother-in-law was running down the street saying, 'Sharon needs you. Come quick.'"
She had been crying, Sandy says, and the brother-in-law tried to comfort her. He rocked her and talked to her and changed her diaper, but she wouldn't stop. "All she wanted was a bottle," Sandy says.
It's funny what moments come to mind.
"When they had the Horses on Parade (the uniquely decorated horses on display all over Rochester), she decided to do Elephants on Parade with the kids." She bought seven ceramic elephants and the kids decorated them, with Mom's help and encouragement.
There are flashes of the last trip they took to Las Vegas for a wedding the summer before Sharon disappeared. "We stayed at Caesars Palace," Sandy recalls. "One morning we were going downstairs and the security guards brushed us aside. There had been a robbery at a jewelry store right in Caesars. They caught the guy. The kids thought it was pretty exciting."
Christmas was Sharon's favorite time of year, Sandy says. The day she disappeared, she left the homemade ornaments she was making on the coffee table. When I talked to Sandy two years ago about her loss, she showed me one of them a zebra with yellow, green and red stripes, standing amid huge purple and yellow foliage.
Sandy keeps close to her the reminders of her daughter's life. She never leaves the house without a button with Sharon's picture asking people to call the sheriff's department if they have any news of her fate.
No, Sandy doesn't expect to see Sharon again. She knows she is dead, but she can't quite let go. Last summer, Sandy's sister, Rosemary, died from cancer. "It was sad, but at least we know where she is," she says, her voice faltering a bit.
Sandy waits for the day when she can say as much about her only daughter.
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Sharon Shechter (more pics at link below)
http://www.nampn.doenetwork.us/cases/shechter_sharon.html