Cheryl Jones
Appearances
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
We are not a family that is all up in each other's business. We never have been. We are very close without having the need to talk or even see each other on a regular basis. It's like I live my life. She lives her life. My brother lives his life.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
My sister kept a part of her life private from the family. Talena, I believe, comes from that secret part of her life. The secret part that we all knew was a secret part. We just didn't know the details of the secret.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
Yes, we kind of got it that it was something along that line, yes.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
Her and Chantel had been communicating throughout the day on Facebook. Jana had signed off. She was going to lay down for a while and said that she would chat with her later.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
We figured it out through clues. Amongst us, we didn't talk to her about it. And when I say us, I mean me, my mom, and my three daughters. We had figured out that that was the secret life.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
When I first heard her saying Talena, I'm like, Talena. And I finally got up enough nerve to just flat out ask her, you know, where does Talena come from? How did you come about choosing that? And she was very evasive about it.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
To me, it spoke of the acknowledgement that she had two different identities. She still identified with Jana because Jana was her identity to family. And then the Talena. I think that was probably the first time I kind of really saw the duality and her embrace of the duality.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
We thought we were respecting her privacy. She said she wanted this to be a private part of her life, and we accepted that because that's the kind of family we are. But I have to wonder, did she ultimately maybe feel a little alienated because of that, too? I think that's why she kept it from us. She thought that maybe we wouldn't love her or accept her, maybe.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
And the thing was, it wouldn't have changed it at all.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
My birthday is November the 4th, and her birthday is November the 3rd. She was born one day before I was one year old. So we were raised a lot like, almost like twins.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
We grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. And then when I was 12, where she would have been 11, my dad was transferred to a place called Washington, Indiana. My parents joined a Pentecostal church and that's the way we were raised. It was strict. You know, we didn't have TV in our home growing up. You went to church and you went to Sunday school and those kinds of things.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
I remember getting in fights. Growing up, because somebody would pick on her if they called her a name, I would have to be the one to go and kind of shove them around when we were kids. And then the funny thing was, when we got older, as we grew up, I am only five foot tall, and she was five foot ten. She ended up being much taller than me. But I was a big sis when we were really young.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
Even though there's only a year between us in our personalities, somehow she seemed to be a little more free spirited. Whereas I was always like very task oriented and goal oriented, that kind of thing.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
I had four kids, and so many would be tight, especially around Christmas time. And, you know, she always made sure my kids had a good Christmas. That was one of her deals. She would bring a whole van full of presents, and that was a good relief to us.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
They would spend weeks at her house and they always did fun things. She'd take them one at a time, but everyone got a turn to go and spend a couple of weeks with Aunt Jana and do all of the fun things that Aunt Jana could.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
Jana came through Indiana every two, three, four months, three, four times a year.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
It just happened that her and Chantel, my middle daughter, have been communicating throughout the day on Facebook, which is something they often did.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
She was going to lay down for a while and said that she would chat with her later. The next day, she's not online. And then the next day, she's not online. And then the next day, she's not online. And so then she began to try to call her. Didn't get an answer. Didn't get an answer. She then contacts Cherie, the oldest one. And she's telling Cherie, I think something's wrong here.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
I'll catch up with everyone on the other side. That's when they decided that they needed to tell the family that something was going on.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
Doesn't work. What makes you think it's not Jana? She said this was sloppy. Not at all. Not at all like anything Jana would have written or the way she would have written it. She was alarmed immediately.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
And now we're up to near two weeks later. My immediate gut response was, this is not good. I just knew this was not good. Of all the crazy things my sister would do and flighty things and harebrained things she might do, just totally dropping off the face of the earth is not one of them.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
They did a probably close to two hour talk with the both of them. And it was the questions that you would normally expect. Is there any place you can think of she might have gone? Are there any friends somewhere that she might have gone to visit? What would she normally do? And of course, you know, when did you last talk to her?
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
You know, so we had to wrestle around, well, do we stay here and wait? Does somebody go out there? That was really hard, and we were torn about it.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
She made it clear her life with these group of friends were her and Tom's private matter. And that's what's made it so difficult because we don't know this part of her life.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
She talked about Marty Alpine. She had 100 pictures of Marty on her phone. They were the best friends. They were so close.
What Happened to Talina Zar
If I Go Missing - Talina Zar E5
And she says, Marty and I are not friends, and I don't want to talk about it. I'm like, oh, we've heard about this Marty for freaking the last five years. And all of a sudden, boom, Marty's gone. No explanation. No, this is what happened. Marty's gone.