Webb: The story behind the book I’m writing about Brenda Keller

October 1991. I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. I remember that year because it was a difficult one. My parents’ marriage was falling apart, my grades were as bad as they ever got, and I was your typical irritable, moody teenager.

The highlights included being fired by my father and being grounded from my car for a semester after a report card that featured five C’s, prompting another of the old man’s pearls of wisdom: “My sons are not average. Don’t ever bring home a report card like this again.”

The only other thing I remember about that month in 1991 is Halloween. A snowstorm blanketed the state that day, a Thursday, which traditionally was the final day of the regular season in high school football. I remember that day because Burlingame was one of the few schools playing in that weather and won a double-overtime game on a snow-covered field to clinch a playoff berth.

As I was stumbling and bumbling through life, a 12-year-old girl 15 miles away in tiny Dover was coming into her own. She was smart as a whip and wise well beyond her years. She was devout, but didn’t judge those who weren’t. She was kind and thoughtful. Years later, many of her friends describe her as “a gift from God” and “special.”

Twelve days before Halloween, that 12-year-old, Brenda Keller, rode a school bus with her teammates to the last volleyball tournament of her life. Most of her schoolmates, coaches and teachers remember little about the tournament on that Saturday, but several have vivid memories of Brenda smiling on the way home.

In a matter of hours, Brenda was gone, the victim of one of the most notorious crimes ever in northeast Kansas. Her life ended at the hands of a man who should have been in a mental hospital in Osawatomie. Jon Mareska was staying with relatives on Oct. 19, 1991, when he kidnapped Brenda. Six months later, he was convicted of several awful felonies, including murder.

I was in my own world at age 15. Though I read about the crime in the paper, I only knew of Brenda because two of my best friends, Valerie and Grace, went to school in Dover before moving to Burlingame. Brenda’s death hit them, like so many others, hard.

The media was all over the story for a while, covering it until Mareska was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison in April 1992. After that, at least outside of Dover, you didn’t hear about Brenda again. That was the case for me until 1996, when I was a sophomore in college.

Brenda’s name came up randomly during a conversation I had with the parent of a friend in Burlingame. I thought about Brenda the rest of the day. The next morning, a Sunday, I was still thinking about her. I drove to Dover. I had no idea why I was doing it. Something told me I had to be there.

I remembered hearing that she’d died in a barn just off a highway, so I looked for that. I drove down dirt roads around Dover for several hours. Finally, I decided to stop by the cemetery I’d passed several times.

It didn’t take long to find Brenda’s headstone. It’s the crown jewel of the cemetery, a beautiful, heart-shaped marker with animals on it and a concrete bench nearby. I stood there for a while, tears welling in my eyes. I still had no idea why I was there.

I was 19 at the time. Every year since, I’ve stopped by to see Brenda at least once. When I worked in Texas in 2003 and came back to town to visit my family, I made a point to stop by. In 2007, while home from Virginia, I introduced my girlfriend at the time to Brenda and explained why we had to stop in Dover.

As the years passed, I always checked the Internet to see if there was more information about Brenda. Outside of Valerie and Grace, I didn’t know anything about her. Unfortunately, there was virtually nothing online about her or her case. That always bothered me. It still does.

There still wasn’t much information on the web by the time I was three years into graduate school in 2016. A few months before, I’d finally realized that I felt a connection to Brenda because I needed to write about her. In a class that spring, I built an extensive marketing plan for a book about her.

By the beginning of 2017, I needed a capstone project to graduate. I had three ideas: A story about my dad, a study on the Epstein-Barr Virus I was battling at the time, or a story about Brenda. I vacillated for a few days, but Brenda was always on my mind.

The first step was a no-brainer. I had to call her father and ask for permission. Maybe her parents, Bob and Tracy, didn’t want to relive this story. I knew Bob was a pastor at the church in Dover, as he had been for decades, so I called the church, which still had a landline, and left a message.

I didn’t hear back, so I found Bob’s mobile number on a church pdf online and called. That conversation went like most of the calls about Brenda do: a long pause, followed by the polite “I need to think about it. Can I call you back?” I’ve heard so many times in the past three years from the people of Dover.

Bob called back a few hours later: “I’m sorry … I’m just not ready yet. But thank you for calling and asking us.”

Disappointed, I thanked Bob for his time and honesty. When I got home a few hours later, I wrote him a long email explaining that I did not do a good job of telling him why I wanted to write about Brenda. I told him about visiting Brenda every year until I finally realized that I’d been put in this place to tell her story. I wrote that I felt like it was God’s work that I wanted to write about her.

When I wrote that email, I did not expect the Kellers to call me back. I felt bad that I’d approached them with the equivalent of a cold call. And I’d already started looking for the papers I’d written about my father earlier in grad school.

That evening, Bob called me back: “Ernie … I talked to my mom, and she told me, ‘You need to do this.’ So, my wife and I would like to work with you on this.’”

That was the beginning of an incredible journey. By April, I’d written a 90-page paper for my capstone project. By the time I’d received a master’s degree the following month, I knew I was going to write a book.

Three years, more than 80 interviews and thousands of hours later, the work continues. I’ve written some extremely rough drafts for a few chapters. There are several interviews left, including the man convicted of this crime. Much work remains.

But there has never been a doubt that I’m going to finish telling Brenda’s story. Anytime I feel stuck, something good happens. The best example of that came last year, when I took a hiatus from researching the book to help care for my father.

A few days before Dad died, he said to me, “Son, I want you to finish this book. It’s a story that needs to be told.” He lost the ability to speak a few days later. At the time, the book was the last thing on my mind. But I also thought, “I haven’t interviewed Jon Mareska and I know nothing about him. I have to know something about him. I don’t know what I can do right now.”

A week after Dad passed, I stopped by to see him, as I’ve done hundreds of times through the year with Brenda. As I “talked” to him that day, I asked for help. I was at a standstill. I couldn’t find anything on Mareska beyond a few articles from 1991 and a couple of police reports. I asked if he and Brenda could give me a little boost.

A few days later, as I sat at my desk to work on the book, I read a blog I wrote about Brenda in 2015 for inspiration. When I logged into the website, I noticed that there was a new comment on that blog. I sat in disbelief as I read the note, which was written by Mareska’s stepsister. Within a week, we were on the phone conducting an interview.

I don’t believe this is a coincidence. My most recent interview summed it up nicely: “I know you say this isn’t your story. It’s Brenda’s story, yes, but you’re telling it. And it’s great that you’re doing it. You’re the one to tell her story.”

Brenda and I never met, but I feel like I’ve known her for years. I know her through the resolve of her mother and the kindness of her father. Through the reflection and humor of her older brother and the decency of her younger brother. And through the loving, passionate words of so many people she continues to have an impact on 29 years later, including a 44-year-old who was stumbling and bumbling in 1991.