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Family Copes With 1st Christmas Without Missing Woman

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By MARCUS FRANKLIN, The Associated Press

Published: December 24, 2007

NEW YORK - It's been nearly seven months since Stepha Henry disappeared during a visit to Florida with her younger sister.

In that time, Henry's family have given up their summer barbecues, observed her 23rd birthday in September with prayer and held a sad Thanksgiving dinner.

"We were all in tears," Sylvia Henry, Stepha's mother, recalled of the Thanksgiving dinner at the family's home in Brooklyn. "It wasn't the same."

Now the Henrys are facing their first Christmas since the unsolved disappearance of the John Jay College honors graduate.

"This Christmas won't be much of a Christmas," said her father, Steve Henry.
Stepha Henry and her 16-year-old sister, Shola, flew to Florida just before Memorial Day to celebrate Shola's birthday. They stayed with relatives, who last saw Henry on May 29 getting into a black sedan driven by a man.

That night, Stepha Henry had talked to her mother by phone, telling her she was getting ready to go to a nightclub. Henry had made friends in South Florida during numerous visits to the area, her family has said.

Miami-Dade County police have examined abandoned cars and traced signals from her cell phone but still haven't figured out what happened to Henry. The case remains open and investigators are still following leads, officers said.

Last Christmas, Henry had a gift for seemingly everyone, even for aunts, uncles and cousins in New Jersey, her mother said. She also did much of the cooking. The family listened to music such as soca, reggae and R&B, she said.

This year's family celebration will be more low-key, with a scaled-down dinner and not a lot of gift exchanges, Sylvia Henry said.

"It's going to be very sad," she said. "We are not in the mood right now to celebrate anything. We're going to be mellow and prayerful. We will not celebrate in a big way as when Stepha is here."

Sylvia Henry had vowed to stay in Florida until she found out what happened to her daughter, but returned to New York in November.

She refuses to entertain the possibility of her daughter's disappearance remaining unsolved. She said she talks with Miami-Dade police detectives on average three times on weekdays.

"I'm still hopeful," she said. "I'm still praying and hoping."

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