BlogTalk Radio Transcript
Program: Bring Them Home Now 12/18/2012, Part 1
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bringthemhomenow/2012/12/19/alexandria-ali-lowitzer-is-missing-lets-bring-her-home
Key to Participants:
H: Host
CH: Co-Host
JA: Jo Ann Lowitzer
J: John Lowitzer
H: We have a very, very, very special family with us tonight. I think we're going to have to have John call back in because John has the static monster tonight on his phone. We're going to see if maybe we fixed that issue. We've got John and we've got Jo Ann Lowitzer, which is Ali, Alexandria Joy Lowitzer that's missing out of Spring, TX. And, Jo Ann, are you there?
JA: Yes, ma'am.
H: How are you tonight?
JA: I'm fine.
H: Oh, good. And John, are you with us?
J: Yeah, can you hear me?
H: I can. You know, the static is gone, we're doing great, and welcome to the show tonight. Where are you calling from?
J: Yeah, thank you. I'm in Spring, TX.
H: You're in Spring, TX, and Jo Ann said that you may be calling in from the road tonight, and I just appreciate you taking the time and coming on the air with us. And tonight is your daughter's show, and Kim and I are here to help you guys through, but this two hours, they're for you and they're for your daughter and, to get her story out there for you and for her and to bring awareness to your story. It is a different kind of story and, from what I understand, Ali is also included in the Missing Texas Forty, correct?
JA: Yes, ma'am, she is.
H: Yes, and that's an interesting story, and a lot of people in the United States do not even know about the Missing Texas Forty. I was talking to Max Shardin (sp?) the other day and he said that, in the United States per 100 miles, there's 1.2 people missing per 100 miles per capita. But in your area, down in four counties in Texas, they have on average, what was it, 48 people missing per 100 miles.
JA: Wow, I did not know that.
H: And, yes, and I was like wow, Max. It was such an eye-opener. Such an eye-opener.
J: That's a, yeah, that's a staggering statistic.
H: I may be wrong, 42, but even so. I mean, I was like, are you serious? So that's something definitely, Kim, we need to look into and get these families on board with us and get them on the air with us, and start talking about these cases.
CH: Oh, absolutely.
H: And start doing some research with our research team and start bringing awareness to America with this. But tonight is Ali's turn. It's Ali's turn tonight. You've been on several other shows. Am I correct, John and Jo Ann?
J: Yes.
JA: Yeah, that's correct. We've been on radio, we've been on TV, national TV. You name it, we've probably been on it.
H: And last year around this time you were on Nancy Grace as well, right?
JA: Yes, ma'am, she had a special on so many missing people in so many days, and we were fortunate enough for her to pick Ali.
H: And how did it feel to be able to go on Nancy Grace?
JA: Wow, all kinds of emotions. Well, of course, you're going to be nervous and, you know, Nancy is a little intimidating, to watch her show but, when we'd speak to her off the air, she seemed like a very genuinely caring person, and I think John feels the same way. The first time that we spoke with her, she put us a little more at ease, speaking to her.
HL Sure. And, you know, she (unintelligible)
J: It was a great experience, and it was also great to get that national coverage because it really got a lot of people talking, you know. It got a lot of exposure.
H: And that's what's so important with any case, with a family of a missing loved one, is to keep the name out there and keep the case out there and get that exposure until we can get some resolve in that case, and to make sure that their loved one, up until the day we know the answers and their loved ones brought home, we need to know the answers. And then tell them, it doesn't matter if it's been five years, ten years, keep the name out there until that family knows what happened to their loved one. Am I correct?
JA: Absolutely.
H: And how long has Ali been missing?
JA: Two and a half years.
H: Two and a half years. And you just had a major change happen in your family too, with your son Mason, right?
JA: Yes, he spread his wings and he moved to the state of Washington. Even though my mom lives here in my house with me it's still, you know, I guess it has an empty nest syndrome. I talk to him as much as I can and then, you know, just hope that he's doing well. It's a little nerve-wracking.
H: Oh, I know that feeling. I know that feeling. My daughter spread her wings and left. But it's different for you because Ali's missing, and you have two children.
JA: Yes.
H: Your son and your daughter, and he's the oldest. And Ali's missing and then your son is moved to Washington, so that would have to be kind of detrimental on you, am I correct?
JA: Yes, it was really hard at first. I didn't want him to leave, of course, but he'd just turned 22 and I know that he's got to grow up sometime and can't live with me forever.
H: Sure. And, John, how are you doing?
J: I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited for Mason, you know, for doing what he's doing. That's a big step to be as young as he is and to move as far away as he did and basically just kind of start a new life. He didn't have a whole lot of means to get out there, so I'm real excited for him and I'm proud of him for doing that. And I understand wanting to get out, get away and trying to start a new chapter in your life. But it's difficult, you know. Yeah, I miss him, and I talk to him as much as possible, and he seems to be doing pretty good. But it is hard to have multiple missing, you know. Well, maybe not missing, you know what I mean. Not being so close to home. You know, with Ali being missing, that's hard enough and then to have him gone, it's kind of like, okay. It's kind of hard to explain. It can be emotional.
H: So let me ask you, most girls growing up are Daddy's girls. Was Ali, is she a Daddy's girl or is she a Mama's girl? How does Ali play into the dynamics of the family?
JA: Well, she's definitely a Daddy's girl.
H: Yeah.
J: We were very, very close. She was always involved in things that I wanted to do and we shared a lot of the same interests and so, yeah, she was very much a Daddy's girl.
H: And can you tell us about some of the fun times with Ali, John?
J: One of the best things that we did together was, we got her involved in softball and that's something that she really took a liking to, you know, and me being a guy, being her dad, who doesn't like baseball? So, to be able to do that with her was one of the best things that we've done together, I think. Yeah, I was able to practice with her in the backyard, starting from just barely tossing the ball to each other to all out, you know, throw it as hard as you can, and it's such a pleasure and a joy to watch her progress from not knowing anything about the game to being a major player on her team.
H: What an amazing feeling.
J: Yeah, it's (unintelligible)
H: <snip O/T> One thing, I'm going to have Kim lead you in because one of the things that we like to do is bring that missing person off of a flyer and bring them into the hearts of America. With Ali being a Daddy's girl, Kim's going to kind of lead you through Ali's life with us, because we all want to hear about her.
J: Okay.
CH: All right, first of all we're going to go ahead and we're going to start with the basic details. Ali's full name is Alexandria Joy Lowitzer, nickname Ali. She's been missing since April 26, 2010 at 3pm. She's missing from Low Ridge Road in Spring, TX. She was born February 3, 1994. She has braces on her upper and lower teeth. She is five foot two, 145 pounds, hazel eyes and brown hair which is dyed auburn. She does have a faint scar from chicken pox between her eyes. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, a dark hoodie, black and white checkered skinny jeans with black tennis shoes. She was also carrying a blue slide cell phone and checkered multicolored backpack.
H: Thanks. One of the things, we wanted to get the basics out there. We do the flyer and let everyone know the flyer itself. What we want to do now is we're going to start asking you about Ali growing up.
JA: Okay.
H: I want to talk about when Ali was little and she was born. Can you lead us into that and kind of lead us through as she was growing up?
JA: Well, maybe John should start, since he got to hold her before I did.
H: Oh!
J: Yeah, that was undoubtedly the best day of my life ever, was to hold her for the first time. She was born at, I think it was about 1:20 in the afternoon and, because I remember taking a picture of the clock on the wall. And I brought her out of the hospital room to where they take them, you know, with all the little bassinets or, you know, all the little beds they have the babies in and all that, and all the family was standing there and, even though I had a mask over my mouth, they could just see that I was smiling from ear to ear.
H: Aww!
J: Yeah, and she was a fighter. You know, she actually came out and had a little cold, so she had to get IVs put in her to fight the infection or whatever.
H: Oh!
J: Yeah, they tried to put it in her hand but she was such a fighter that she wouldn't allow it to be in her hand. She'd always get it knocked out, so they ultimately had to end up putting it, like, I think it was on the top of her head.
H: Oh, wow!
J: That was the only place they could put it to where she wouldn't take it out. So that was probably the most memorable event from her birth that I can remember. So, you know, it was pretty special.
H: And, as she was growing up, was she a girly girl or was she a little tomboy? What was she like?
J: I think she was kind of a mix.
H: Yeah?
J: Yeah, I think she had her moments where she wanted to be girly, but she had no problem playing on the swing set and jumping off of it as you're swinging from four or five feet in the air. She didn't have a problem doing that, so she was pretty adventurous. But she had her feminine side to her, too. She liked makeup and fingernail polish and putting makeup, quote unquote, or markers on her dolls, marking up their faces and stuff like that.
H: Did she have a lot of friends as well?
J: She did, but I would say that her friends are very close-knit. It wasn't a very broad spectrum of friends. All her friends were very close, so I guess the friends that she had that she considered really close were her best friends, so she had a handful of those. And she had her acquaintances and stuff like that throughout school, but all of her really close friends were kind of few.
H: And, now did you always live in the same place or did you just move to that area before she went missing?
J: Well, she was born in Pasadena, TX, which is not very far from Spring, probably 30 or 40 miles or something like that, and we moved to Spring in January of 2000, and we've been living up here ever since.
H: Okay, okay, and I want Jo Ann to come in. Jo Ann, tell us some special times about her growing up and some memories.
JA: I'm sorry, I'm already upset.
H: It's okay, Honey. Deep breaths, deep breaths. It's okay. You're her voice tonight.
JA: I do fine on interviews except for when I talk about her directly.
H: It's okay, Sweetie.
JA: Well, we, um, I don't know where to start. I guess this time of year, I really miss making Christmas cookies. We would do that every year. I had quite a large selection of cookie cutters and that's one thing that we made sure that we did every year was cut and decorate Christmas cookies. When I was little, I was always into Barbies and, no matter how many Barbies I bought Ali, she refused to play with them. She would rather play with Mason's toys than all the little pink frilly things that I'd buy her so, yeah, that's when we got into softball. And I really liked being a softball mom, watching her and John play. I guess what I miss the most about her is her singing. She had a beautiful voice and I would tell her that all the time, and when she would catch me listening to her singing, she would stop. And anything to do with music and art, from the time she knew what a pencil or crayon did, she was constantly drawing something, and I still have a lot of her artwork. I have artwork from her, I guess before she was in school because it didn't have a date on it, but I remember this this crazy little pumpkin that she drew me and I always had it hanging on my wall at work, and I still have it.
H: You say she had a beautiful voice. What type of music does she like to sing?
JA: Well, she didn't like country music very well but when Taylor Swift first came out, she did like her and of course we had to buy her CD. But she mainly liked, I don't know if you'd call it alternative? What kind of music would you call that, John?
J: Yeah, like alternative rock. She was really getting into that into her teenage years, but one of the things that I always remembered her singing was just about anything from any Disney movie. That was a big thing of hers.
JA: Yeah, any Disney. I mean, she even liked some of the musicals, old musicals that I would watch, but she liked, what was that? Nightmare Before...
J: She, uh, yeah...
JA: Yeah, Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim Burton movie. She knew every verse in every song in that entire movie.
H: What is up with that? My daughter loves that too and it's like, why? I never could understand that. I couldn't.
JA: I think it's because it's not ordinary. Ali liked, she liked to be different. She liked different things. I guess she started maybe at fourteen or fifteen, she started wanting to do her own hair. She even experimented with it a couple of months before she went missing, and the hairstyle that's in the photograph with the dark red hair, she cut that herself. You know, she just always liked to do her makeup different than anybody else and wear clothes that was different from anyone else. She didn't really like to stick out like a sore thumb, but you just couldn't help looking at her. Of course, that's me talking as her mom but, as much as she didn't like to be in the limelight, I don't think that anybody could not notice her. From my own opinion, but
H: Looking at her pictures, she's just so beautiful, and I am just so amazed by her, and those eyes, to see, artistic, you see just by her makeup and everything, you can just see that she's an artist at heart. Just by her makeup and the way she does her hair and her clothing. You know, the pictures I've seen of her, she's such a little artist. You can see that. She's eclectic and different, and I love looking at her pictures. And that's why I came to you and like, Jo Ann, it would be an honor to do this for you. And I'm so glad that you're joining us from Spring, TX tonight. And one of the things, the hard part's going to, we need to lead into is on what happened. How old was Ali when she went missing?
JA: She was sixteen. She'd just turned sixteen in February, so it was like three months after she turned sixteen.
H: And, can you go back like a day before she went missing and talk to us what happened?
JA: Yeah, she went missing on a Monday and the day before was just a typical Sunday. She didn't have to work that day, so she called over one of her guy friends that, uh, I don't remember if they became boyfriend and girlfriend that day or if it was a couple of days before that, but it was a brand-new boyfriend. And, um, really sweet boy. They spent a lot of time (unintelligible) the street in front of the house. He was trying to teach her how to ride a skateboard.
H: And you say she invited him over to the house?
JA: Yes.
H: How old was he?
JA: I think he was the same age. If he wasn't sixteen yet, he was close to being sixteen. They were in the same grade and had a lot of the same friends.
H: And did she seem really happy that day and excited?
JA: Yes, she did. It was a really good day. Just a regular day. I don't know how else to explain it. There was nothing that, no big event that sticks out. They came in and watched a movie, and fixed them some food, and back and forth going in and out, and the later that evening we took him home.
H: And, Jo Ann, could you run us through her normal daily routine on a school day?
JA: Yeah, on a school day, well, she would get up at the very last possible minute to be able to get dressed and grab her books to run out for the school bus, and she would get on the school bus. I gave her her first cell phone that Christmas, so she'd only had a cell phone for just a few months and we did have to have a couple of talks, you know, she needed to turn it off at night because of staying up into the night until 1:00 from texting, and texting during school, and she would text me during school and just ask me silly little questions, you know, like if so-and-so could do this this weekend or whatever. And that day that she went missing, it was just a regular day. She still texted me during the day and asked me if she could walk to work, to see if she could work and pick up her paycheck. She never walked to work before, even though it's a quarter of a mile away. My mother was usually here at the house waiting for Ali to get off the school bus and to drive her to work if she needed to go. And, that day, my mother wasn't available to be here at the house with her. But, other than that, every morning was, it was the same. I'm sorry, I kind of got off track, but every morning, she would rush to get dressed, get her makeup on, and rush out to the bus.
CH: Okay, and can you walk us through the day she went missing?
JA: Yeah, the morning was just as I described and, during lunch, she texted me and that's when she started to, I guess make her plans for the afternoon when she got off, and she wanted to walk to work and get paid. It was her very first job, she'd just turned sixteen, and she was just really excited to go to work. I mean, she got to cook hamburgers so, what kid wouldn't want to cook hamburgers? Ali, you know, you get a french fry here and there, I'm sure. She got off the bus and she turned around the opposite direction than the other kids did, because the school bus stops at a T from our street and the kids were walking down our street and she would have to go the opposite direction in order to walk out onto the main street to go to work. So the other kids didn't, I mean, they noticed she lagged behind, but they didn't notice anything at all, and nobody saw her after that.
J: I'd like to interject real quick.
CH: Oh, sure, of course.
J: Okay. I had actually had to, you know, in the few days after her disappearance, I actually had to go to the school and look through their video surveillance, and we found pictures of her during that day. It just seemed like a very normal day for her. You know, her and the young man that Jo Ann was just talking about, were walking through the halls. They were laughing and joking so, you know, everything seemed normal there. Also, I had to go and view the bus footage to confirm that she was actually on the bus and, while she was on the bus, she was texting on her phone and she was smiling and laughing and talking to the person next to her, so everything was very normal. There was nothing that seemed out of normal. She didn't seem upset or anything like that so, like Jo Ann said, it was a very good day. So, everything that we've seen, you know, doesn't point to anything being wrong.
lease: Praying for Ali's safe return home to her family - what a joyous Christmas celebration that would be! 
