The Father of Donna Jou's Plea for Justice

The Father of Donna Jou's Plea for Justice

I have a missing child case which repositioned by California Court recently.

A convicted child molester, has drugged my child, killed her, and dumped her in Pacific Ocean. He got only 5 years (2.5 years with good behavior)—NO JUSTICE, for more information please click on WWW.DONNAJOU.COM

Please read my “Victim Impact Statement”

Respectfully,

Reza Jou, PE (missing Donna Jou's dad)
International Space Station - Space Exploration



Reza Jou’s Statement to the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, California, May 18, 2009


My name is Reza Jou, I am Donna Jou’s father, and I am here to be the voice for my innocent child who is not here to defend herself.

I am here to plead for your help finding my missing child and address difficulties I have encountered for the past 23 months.

Donna has been and remains an integral part of my being; her beautiful image at all times is in my mind.

I was blessed with her presence for short nineteen years. I will never forget the day she was born. I was in the birthing room, a proud father, seeing his daughter for the first time, her beautiful face with her big bright eyes. Unlike other newborns, she did not cry; instead, she opened her eyes upon arrival in this wild, unpredictable world and just stared at me. I fell in love with her that exact moment, such a beautiful day it was, one of my best days ever. She brought sunshine to my life. I lived and breathed for her, I had so many dreams for her, many already accomplished and the others yet to be.

Donna is a simple, loving, giving person, an intelligent, artistic, hard working, and ambitious college girl. She trusted people and made a decision based on her trusting nature. It was a decision made out of naïveté but it was well intentioned.

I always admired her for her selflessness, kindness, generosity, and big heart. She worked as a volunteer in Battered Women Shelters and participated in other charitable works she came to love. She wants to be a physician and promised to be my personal doctor in my old age.

Donna played basketball for Clear Lake High School during academic year 2004-2005.

She was tutoring mathematics during her last two years of high school, donated many hours of her time to help her fellow students.

Donna worked full time as a volunteer in St. John Hospital's Pathology Laboratories under direction of Dr. Moore, summer 2005.

During her senior year in High School, she took a course named "Independent Study Mentorship (ISM)" Under direction of her mentor NASA senior scientist/Dr. Deborah Harm, she studied Neurophysiology, Vestibular System, Spaceflight negative effects on astronauts' balance upon their return to Earth. This was at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas.

Donna was admitted to the NASA's Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program or “SHARP” for Summer 2006.

Donna graduated form High School in May 2006, GPA 4.4, SAT scores of 1,570 out of 1600.

She went to San Diego State University, planning to satisfy her pre-med requirements in 3 years and to attend Harvard or Johns Hopkins Medical School. She wants to be a neurosurgeon.

Donna completed her freshman year, was a straight “A” student and made it to the Dean’s List. I was always so proud of her accomplishments.

I was also very involved in her day-to-day life. We exchanged e-mails regularly and spoke daily; she used to call me every evening to wish me good night.


Her disappearance
My normal, happy life came to an end on June 23, 2007 when my daughter, Donna disappeared. It has been 693 long and grueling days since I last heard her gentle laugh. She was ripped away from us senselessly, for unknown reasons. With never a good-bye, all I have to rely on are my wonderful memories of our good times together. She vanished so violently, torn away from us without a trace.

Her absence is unbearable; I am in constant pain. She was the sun and the sun has now stopped shining. Hardly anything interests me anymore except finding her and bringing her back home. Only then I will be able to start living again.

I try to put on the face that others want to see, that hopefully provides them some comfort as they too confront the same tragedy. Inside me, there is a total void--a void that leaves me unrecognizable to myself. My face that once smiled readily and often is now stained with tears---a face that looks, waits, and hopes for a miracle.

There is little emotional reserve left in me. My world consists of feelings of loss and loneliness. Every day is as agonizing as the next if not worse than the one before. The helplessness I feel frequently makes life almost unbearable. each day I awaken, my will to live seems to weaken, kept alive only by the hope that Donna may still come back home to us one day.

Donna had her whole life ahead of her. She was abruptly taken away from us. The last family member to see her, my son waved what was to be the last goodbye to her as my daughter departed with a man who, until that time, she had never met personally. That man was later identified as John Steven Burgess, a person who my daughter met on Craigslist and who, we later would learn, had a dark and sinister past as a convicted child molester.

Shortly after Donna’s disappearance, Mr. Burgess fled the area, later to be captured by police across the country in Jacksonville, Florida, charged with possession of crack cocaine. Arrested at that time, he was subsequently extradited to California and afterwards sentenced by a California Court to three years in State Prison on charges unrelated to Donna's disappearance.

Throughout his incarceration, from the time of his capture to early March 2009 (for almost 20 months), he had absolutely refused to say anything about my daughter's whereabouts even though it was clear that he acted suspiciously in so many ways immediately following Donna's disappearance.

On every occasion provided him until early March 2009, Mr. Burgess has steadfastly refused to reveal what he knows about Donna's whereabouts. In the meantime, for nearly 2 years now, the family has suffered and continues to suffer daily without knowing where Donna may be or whether or not she is even still alive. It has been an agonizing, excruciating experience for us all and each day it seems we suffer more than the last. We live in a constant state of dark depression not knowing if or when we will ever see our child again.

As Mr. Burgess was due to be released from prison on March 14, 2009, it was critical that the grand jury review the details surrounding this case and determine whether or not he should be indicted or released back into society as a free man.

The investigative grand jury led to Mr. Burgess’ confession and subsequently, based on his statement, he was charged on 4 counts consisting of Involuntary Manslaughter, Concealment of Accidental Death and 2 other charges).

Despite his confession, the facts of this case in no way FULLY support the statements given by Mr. Burgess as to what happened between my daughter and him after the mid night of June 23, 2007.

The fact of the matter is that Mr. Burgess’ confession serves ONLY one person in this case ---- and that is Mr. Burgess himself. His confession has gained Mr. Burgess the least severe sanction he could possibly have received, a charge that will keep him in prison for a minimal time only and that will, once again, provide him license to commit whatever heinous crimes he will choose to perpetrate upon innocent victims in the future. This human predator will be looking for his next victim the day he walks out of prison! What better reason than for him to fabricate a self-serving story that has no basis in fact.

Nothing has been developed in the course of this investigation to back up Mr. Burgess’ story as to what really happened to my child AFTER the mid night of June 23, 2009.

There are very few known facts in this case. There are no witnesses to address what happened between Donna and Burgess after midnight on June 23, the date of her disappearance. No DNA evidence has been detected.

In fact, nobody has seen my daughter dead or alive after midnight on June 23, 2007, and a body has yet to be discovered. The system is using Burgess as the sole source of information and, as such, Burgess, for all practical purposes, has been enabled by the LAW OF THIS STATE to "pick" the severity of the sanctions allowed, given the severity of the crimes he would like us to believe he committed.

Allowing Burgess the opportunity to "fictionalize" his crimes in order to minimize his culpability and resulting sanctions is terribly distressing to all of us who love Donna so dearly and are desperate to find out what really happened to her.

The situation is that, despite any tangible evidence, we are expected to believe whatever Burgess says happened to my daughter. We are expected to accept his story as if it were based in fact. But where are the facts to support his story? The answer is that there are none.

As a father, let me pose a question to the court and the investigative team and other legal authorities who have been involved in this case…..
- Would you, as a father or a mother of a missing child, accept an explanation from a convicted criminal as to what happened to your loved one, to a daughter of yours who just happened to vanish off the face of the earth?
- Would Burgess’ confession be credible to you and your family?
- Would you quit looking for your daughter if Burgess presented a story to you as he has done to us, if he told you a similar story about the fate of your loved one?
- Would Burgess' story give you “CLOSURE”?
- Would it give you “PEACE”?

As a responsible father, I tell you today that I can not live with his “CONFESSION” because it is baseless in fact and it demeans us all and leads us further away from the truth. It is a cruel, cruel joke that Mr. Burgess is playing on us, his evil laughter falling on deaf ears. Today, I ask the court and the legal authorities involved in this case to continue to keep this investigation open and active until we discover the truth about what happened to our dearly loved daughter.

Justice is only being PARTIALLY served today, in that we are taking John Steven Burgess off the street where he can not harm another person, at least for awhile. But our Donna is still out there and she MUST be found.

I, as a devastated father, plead today to this high court and to the respectable authorities to ensure justice for Donna Jou and our family by continuing their efforts in full force to find our beloved Donna and to bring her back home to us.

My grief, rage, and searching continues. If it takes my entire life to find the truth of my daughter's disappearance, so be it. I will continue to search for my child until she is found, until my last breath.


To Mr. Burgess,

You took my daughter’s life and tarnished her reputation in death, and permanently scaring my family grieving her death, As much as I would like to address you today as a father, which you and I both happen to be, I know my words about the heartache your actions have caused my family, my telling you of the terrible sadness you have caused will not resonate with you.

You are incapable of being sympathetic or empathetic with another human being and, for that, I can simply say, one human being to another that makes me sad for you. If you are unable to feel love yourself, then my telling you how much Donna was loved and how much she is missed will be of no consequence to you.

When I tell you what a grand human being she was, all the things she aspired to in life, all the good deeds she was doing and planned to do, none of this will mean a thing to you. I know this and it makes you a very sad human being and it makes me sad for you.

All of your actions are destined to harm others in unspeakable ways. When I tell you that the only way we have, as a society to control your behaviors toward society, is to incarcerate you for the rest of your life, that makes you a very sad human being, and I am once again saddened for you.

Mr. Burgess, I suspect your mind, your emotions, your feelings are just as incarcerated and as dead as your body has and will be. There is an old cliché you must have heard that before "the truth shall set you free". The only freedom you can ever truly count on in life is to be free in your mind and in your heart and in your soul. Even for you, Mr. Burgess, as sick a man as you must be, there is a possibility to be free. I hope somehow, someday soon you give yourself the opportunity to be free in your mind, in your heart and in your soul by telling the truth about what you really did to Donna.

I will try my very best to forgive you. I know it will take time but it will come. Of this I am sure. I wish you no ill will today. I only wish for the WHOLE truth, nothing less than the whole truth. He must tell us the truth, he must tell us what torture he inflicted on my lovely baby before he killed her. Perhaps some day, you will understand the value of the truth and you too will finally be set free, not in body necessarily, but certainly in your heart and soul.

Thank you for letting me have the opportunity to address you today.


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