By Tim Rowden
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/28/2005
Bertha Propst sits at her kitchen table, patiently answering questions from a reporter about her missing daughter Amanda Jones, who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared two weeks ago.
In a tidy yellow house on Highway TT in Festus, she fights back tears and tells her story.
She has told her story to police, to relatives and friends and a seemingly endless parade of local and national media.
She talks about her daughter and hopes for the best.
Propst uses words like “joyful, compassionate” and “tenderhearted” and says she believes Amanda is still out there, somewhere, possibly being held against her will.
“She’s going to come home,” Propst said. “They’re going to find her. I believe that.”
People that Propst hasn’t heard from in 10 years, old classmates from Amanda’s 1996 class at Herculaneum High School, call on the telephone to express their concern and ask what the family needs.
“Prayers,” she says. “That’s all we need right now.”
Jones was last seen Aug. 14 on the horse show grounds of the Hillsboro Civic Center on Highway 21 in central Jefferson County.
Since then, her friends and family have prayed and worried, plastering fliers with Jones’ photo on them in store windows and on car windshields throughout Jefferson County, hoping for some word and wondering what could have happened.
Jones, 26, who is divorced and has a 4-year-old daughter, had decorated a bedroom of her mobile home in Pevely in a teddy bear and ocean theme for the son she planned to name Hayden Lucas. She was due to deliver last week.
She was giddy about the prospect of having another baby, said Sonya Smith, a neighbor in the Kenmon Valley mobile home park where Jones, a loan administrator at Eagle Bank, lived with her daughter.
Police and relatives say Jones went to Hillsboro to meet with Bryan Lee Westfall, the man her family says is the father of her baby.
Jones and Westfall met at a party at the Civic Center in December. Propst described that encounter as “a one night stand” and “a mistake.”
Westfall, 36, a farmer and former instructor at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, has denied that he is the baby’s father.
Police have described Westfall as “a person of interest” but say they have neither identified nor eliminated anyone as a suspect in Jones’ disappearance.
Last week, Joe Mammana, a Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist who has gained fame for putting up rewards in criminal cases, posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Jones’ disappearance.
Hubert Propst said he was hopeful that the money would prompt someone to come forward. “Money talks,” he said. “A person can do a lot of things with $100,000.”
Westfall’s attorney, Kevin Roberts, says Jones called Westfall in January to tell him that she was pregnant and that the child was his. Westfall didn’t believe her, the lawyer said.
Roberts says Jones and Westfall had no further contact until about Aug. 9, when she called to tell him she was due to deliver. Roberts said the two of them had agreed to meet Aug. 14 at the Civic Center.
Propst said her daughter had told her she wanted to talk to Westfall to find out whether he wanted to be part of his son’s life. She wanted to know whether she should give the boy Westfall’s last name or her own, Propst said.
Friends and relatives say Jones was particularly excited the morning before she disappeared. Her mother described her as “very excited, very bubbly.” Propst and her daughter joined their family that Sunday morning, as they did every week, for a service at Calvary Assembly of God in Festus.
Shortly after noon, the service had ended. Propst and Jones walked out of the church and parted in the parking lot.
That was the last time Propst saw her daughter.
“We were standing at the car, and she told her little girl to go with Grandma, she’d be back in a couple of hours, and she hugged and kissed me and said, ‘Mom, I’ll see you in a couple hours.'”
Propst and her husband, Hubert Probst, started to worry when they didn’t hear from their daughter. That evening Hubert Propst called Westfall to see if he knew where she was. Around 9 p.m., they called police.
Now, two weeks later, sitting at her kitchen table, Bertha Propst says her granddaughter is asking where her mom is. Bertha Propst doesn’t know but says she talks to her daughter’s photo.
“I tell her just to hang in there, that we’re going to find her and bring her home.”
Police describe Jones as 5-foot-8 and about 225 pounds. She has blue eyes, blond hair and a dolphin tattoo on her left upper torso. When she was seen last, she was wearing a pink shirt and pink sandals.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call 636-797-5515.
Official Website | Help Find Amanda Jones 