by Robin Cremer

April 26, 1976 is a date that will be forever branded into the minds of many Highland Park High School students, especially the class of 75. That was the day when a special friend of ours was tragically taken from our lives.

Read over some of the comments written about Tirell Ocobock on her In Memory page on the Highland Park High School, Class of 1975 website, and you will find that those who knew her have nothing but good things to say.  Pam Goodman writes about an emotional time in writing class when Tirell wrote about the color of her red hair. Robin Hyle Weston recalls laughing with her in Home Economics class. Karen Bodeheimer Beckley adds that, “her laugh could light up an entire room.” Doug Hailey remembers her as “a sweet, caring soul who didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone.”  Margaret Maddox Brown describes a shared art project, when she and Tirell had to draw pictures of each other. Margaret says, “it turned out mine looked like a goofy stick person [of Tirell] and she did this awesome drawing of me. She laughed so hard at my drawing.”

Anybody familiar with Terill’s death knows the details so to go over them at this point would be superfluous. Needless to say, her murder at the time caused a citywide upheaval.

The question on everybody’s minds was, “How could somebody do something so cruel to someone who was so loving and kind?”

For weeks after, her yearbook picture appeared on the front page of the paper nearly every day, the reporter always rehashing the grisly aspects, but no conclusion was ever reached. For decades after, the media would report a “new investigation” into the story, so that every five or ten years you’d pick up the paper and Tirell would be there, staring at you, forever 18, and still no resolution to her murder.

I saw an article about a new program called “Capital Cold Cases,” which focused on her murder and the 1981 abduction of five-year-old Jackie Hay, in the July 25 edition of the Topeka Capital Journal. I read the article with a mixture of optimism and cynicism, the same way I’ve read just about every other story in the paper over the years.  It’s a good idea, I thought, but it’s been almost 34 years since Tirell’s been killed.

Although I had little hope that the program would help after all this time, I felt compelled to view it. Noting that a screening was planned at an upcoming Crime Stoppers fundraising banquet, I thought first, I’ll crash it, I’ll stand in the back, and nobody will notice me.

But after talking with my wife and considering the possible consequences of such an action, with the help of Leah Sewell, editor of seveneightfive magazine, I found myself at the Ramada Inn, Wednesday night, seated at a table of young Police Cadets, eating blueberry cheesecake and watching the debut episode of “Capital Cold Cases,” produced by KTWU.

Watching this program was a bittersweet experience.  Tirell’s unresolved death has always hung like a cloud over my life, like it has for others I’m sure. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to remember her life, and what that life meant to me. Even though her murder was the subject of the evening, I was silently overjoyed to watch images of my friend unfold on the screen that I had never seen before. The only photograph I’d seen of Tirell since her death was of her well worn 1975 yearbook picture. To see her free of that Mona Lisa-like image was like a trip back through time.

The segments with her mother and sisters recalling her childhood and teenage years were priceless, and made me want to tell them stories about their sister and daughter that they may have never heard. Like the time she and I snuck into the Drive In movie in the trunk of a car. Or another time she tried to teach me to play “Let it Be” on her parents piano.  Tirell was such a joy to be around. She told corny jokes, liked corny movies, and when she laughed, she made you laugh with her.

Whether or not the “Capital Cold Cases,” program brings closure to those left behind remains to be seen, but the producers and law enforcement agencies should be commended for continuing their quest to find justice for those victimized by these hideous crimes.

For those of us who remember Tirell, and I know many who do, her segment of the program is a time capsule that will bring a smile to your face and hope to your heart. The episode brings Tirell back into focus so that we can recall the beautiful life and wonderful time she shared with us, and not the horrible death that was thrust upon her, and that can only be to the good.

Thanks to Leah Sewell and Detective Douglas Searcy for giving me a chance to revisit a part of history.

Capital Cold Cases will premiere on KTWU Monday Aug. 2 at 8 p.m. Anyone with information regarding the cases of Tirell Ocobock or Jackie Hay or who wants more information regarding Capital Cold Cases should email Detective Douglas Searcy at dsearcy@topeka.org

[ July 2010 | Robin Cremer | photo courtesy www.TopekaCrimeStoppers.com ]