Through the Rain

A True Crime Memoir of Murder and Survival

In a motel room on the east side of the city, a little girl is brutally murdered by her mothers sadistic boyfriend for failing to know her ABCs. The family disappears, along with the childs body, and the scene of the crime spans over 1,000 miles. Despite the lack of a body, the detectives of the 1020 Squad obtain a conviction but it will take another eight long years before the little girls remains come home to rest. In a twist of fate, the 1020 Squad no sooner closes the final chapters of this case when the headless body of a tiny girl is found discarded in a makeshift dump site in the woods Sgt. David Bernard and the 1020 Squad will work over four years, following 1,500 leads and conducting the single largest area canvass in the history of the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department before finding the true identity of the seemingly orphaned little girl known only as Precious Doe. Through the Rain is a candid and touching account of the painful impact that these brutal murders had on Sgt. Bernard, his family and the KCPDs 1020 squad. It chronicles the all too frequent stories of child abuse, failed social services, a flawed court system, and battered women who sacrificed their own children to shield their abusive lovers, echoing the same preposterous explanations of but I love him. It is the story of a family, a group of committed volunteers and a community who reached out to embrace Angel Lea Hart and Erica Michelle Marie Green aka Precious Doe and give them in death the humanity and affection they so desperately deserved in life.