Rich Van Wyk/Eyewitness News
Indianapolis - A local family hopes a $10,000 reward turns up the heat on a cold murder case. It's almost two years to the day since Tracy Sissom disappeared. Her relatives and investigators believe witnesses now have thousands of reasons to start talking.
The brother, mother and sister of Tracy Sissom are looking for justice and the person who killed her. Holding Tracy's picture, sister Shelly Sullivan said, "We're pleading. It's been a long two years. A hard two years."
The 33-year-old Indianapolis woman, a mother of three children, the youngest a toddler, was murdered two years ago.
"Someone out there did this to her," said Rebecca Sandlin, Sissom's mother. "It's not fair. They are living, eating, breathing, having fun, acting like nothing happened. No; something happened. Something terrible happened."
The family scraped together a $10,000 reward for anyone who tells police what happed in September 2004. Tracy Sissom was last seen near her apartment in the area of 30th and Post road.
Two weeks later police spotted her car closer to downtown near LaSalle and Michigan. The red Blazer's driver and passenger bailed out and ran off.
Four days later a body was discovered along a secluded Brown County road. But it took two months to identify the remains as Tracy Sissom's. That cost investigators valuable time. While Indiana State Police Detective Sgt. Jeff Deckard denies the investigation is at a dead end, he concedes, "We've had a couple of low cards dealt to us."
Tracy Sissom had separated from her husband. Siblings call her big-hearted yet naive - the glue that kept the family together.
"The hurt never goes away. We learn to deal with it as the days go by, the years go by. But does it get any better? No. That's a hole you have in your heart and soul. And that hole is going to be there," said Sandlin.
Investigators say they are working the case and talking with people they haven't yet ruled either in or out as suspects.
They are counting on anyone with any information on Tracy Sissom to call the state police either in Bloomington or in Indianapolis.
"These children lost their mother. We lost our daughter and sister," said Sandlin.
