ROWAN COUNTY, N.C. — While officials believe the body of Maddox Ritch, the missing 6-year-old with autism, has been recovered near a Gaston County park, the mother of another local child who disappeared is revisiting her own painful story.
Carolyn Parsons talked to Channel 9 on Thursday to explain how she's dealt with guilt and grief after her daughter never came home.
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"To the people whose little boy is missing, my heart goes out to you. There's nothing worse than not knowing," Parsons said.
Parsons said she suffered for years before she finally learned what happened to her missing daughter Erica.
"Her remains were found two years ago today," she said.
Parsons couldn't take care of Erica, so her relatives, Casey and Sandy Parsons, adopted her.
Erica was living with them in Rowan County when she disappeared in 2011, when she was just 13 years old.
"There's no more of an empty feeling inside and out to a parent who loses a child," Carolyn Parsons said.
Erica's adoptive parents were charged with murdering Erica after one of them led police to her skeletal remains in 2016.
Warrants show Erica was tortured repeatedly before she was killed.
"I've had my moments already this morning of tears," Carolyn Parsons told Channel 9.
Carolyn Parsons said she hoped Maddox's family gets the closure she will never have.
"I hope that they have positive answers. I hope that this little boy just ran off and is in the woods and just afraid to answer anybody because I understand he is autistic," she said.
Maddox's father Ian Ritch said he's struggling with guilt because he didn't catch Maddox after he ran away from him at Rankin Lake Park on Saturday afternoon.
Erica's mother says she knows what it's like to live with regret.
"I say, ‘What if I would've known? What if I could have saved her?’" Carolyn Parsons said.
Carolyn Parsons said she learned to cope with her guilt and grief by writing letters to her daughter and by singing songs to her.
She said Maddox's family will have to find their own way to deal with the pain.
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