A Simple Man: Where is Israel Ray Smith?
“All I have is a big hole in my life now and it will never be the same.”
Debbie Sexton has nightmares about her son, Israel Ray Smith. He comes to her in the form of his childhood self, pleading for her to save him. All Debbie can do is wait to wake up, hoping the real world will be of some comfort. Unfortunately, for the past thirteen years, her reality has been far worse because Israel was only 28 years old when he vanished without a trace in 2008. Unlike in her nightmares, she has no idea what happened to him, or if he called out for help that fateful March day.
The first few years without Israel were extremely difficult. There were times when, out of habit, Debbie picked up the phone to call him (he loved talking to her on the phone) only to remember that she couldn’t do that anymore. Whenever she drove across a bridge, she imagines her son’s body, hidden in the murky water below. In an interview with SWVA, she describes thinking “somebody could have been driving over that bridge and just threw him over the side.”
Not only did Debbie lose her son, her grandson also lost his father. Shortly after Israel disappeared, he asked her why his father was absent from his eighth birthday party. At first she wasn’t sure how to break the news to the young boy. However, as the boy grew…
