73-year-old Bernice Abetya has spent the past 30 years of her life asking questions and looking for answers about her missing son, Christopher.
When Christopher Abetya was just seven months old, he was abducted from his own crib, from the safety of his own home. The last memory Bernice and her daughter, Christopher's sister Denise, had of the young boy was giving him a bottle before putting him down to sleep. According to Denise, Bernice "changed forever" after they discovered Christopher was missing.
Denise said, "It makes me sad to remember seeing her the days after Christopher went missing when she was curled up crying saying, 'I need my baby.'" Even though the search (conducted with the support of the Colorado Springs Police Department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) almost always proved to be fruitless, Bernice never lost hope.
In May 2016, Bernice was diagnosed with a rare, terminal gallbladder cancer. She has just four to eight months left to live, but she's still determined to find her son.
When asked by news reporters if she'd ever lost hope, Bernice admitted, "I've always felt very positive that even though it's been 30 years, it would happen. I think that's what kept me going in trying to find him. There's no way we were going to forget him."
She speculates now, "Christopher, maybe it's time for you to find us.' Maybe it's more convenient for him to find us than us find him."
Denise acknowledges that unanswered questions about Christopher's life might not be what their family has spent years searching for, but she hopes that at least some information will be uncovered so her mother can "leave knowing and we can be at peace and finally put [Christopher] to rest."
The case of missing Christopher Abetya has now received fresh attention from various news media outlets, and is gaining more traction each day on social media.
If you know anything about Christopher, please reach out and help ease a mother's heart.
