The day Jimmy Ryce disappeared, and the quest to find him and bring a killer to justice

Nine-year-old Jimmy Ryce disappeared from a South Miami-Dade school bus stop Sept. 11, 1995. It set off a three-month search across South Florida. Juan Carlos Chavez confessed to raping him and shooting the boy as he tried to escape. The ghastly details of the crime shook the community’s sense of security and led to legislation allowing the state to indefinitely detain sexual predators. Chavez was executed for the crime in 2014.

At 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 11 2020, the 25th anniversary of Jimmy’s abduction, the public is invited to a memorial at Southwest 162nd Avenue and 232nd Street, the spot he got off the school bus to go home that day.

Through the Miami Herald archives, here are the original stories from 1995 on the disappearance and search for Jimmy.

The Jimmy Ryce Center: https://www.jimmyryce.org/donate/

Remembering Jimmy

Published Dec. 31, 1995

“My son, my son,” whispered Claudine Ryce, her hands reaching down and tired eyes fixed on the small white casket bearing her young son’s remains as it was lowered into the grave, a breezy spot protected by the shadow of a 50-year-old oak tree.

All around her, hundreds of people -- many embracing their small children -- sobbed for Jimmy, a 9-year-old they didn’t know but whose short life and horrible death inspired and enraged them.

“This is so very, very sad,” said Ana Casseay, tears running down her face, as she held her two older children, one on each hand, and carried her youngest in a baby carrier on her heaving chest.

Jimmy’s funeral and burial Saturday morning drew about 600 people from all over South Florida. Four motorcyclists rode their gleaming Harleys all the way from North Palm Beach. A childless woman who said she loves children drove down from Deerfield Beach. A man holding a brown teddy bear came from Key Largo.

Parents who normally wouldn’t take their kids to a relative’s burial guided their children by the hand to Jimmy’s open grave.

“I want him to see why I’m after him all the time,” said Jimmy Shearin, 31, holding his 6-year-old Kevin, who remained quiet, eyes wide open. “I want him to experience what this family is going through, so that he’s more careful, so that he learns.”

hat’s the legacy of Jimmy Ryce, a child who died so young that, his mother once said, he still thought everything was possible.

Police said Jimmy was kidnapped, raped, shot and dismembered on Sept. 11 by a farmhand who was out looking for a child to molest when he found Jimmy, who was walking alone under a light rain the five blocks from his school bus stop to his home in the Redland.

Saturday, his mourners chose to concentrate not on how he died but on his life and on the lessons of his disappearance.

Because Jimmy Ryce was with us, his contemporaries, his classmates and teammates, and children he never knew, all are becoming safer from the predators and pedophiles who would prey on them,” said the Rev. Leonard G. Brusso, rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, where a simple but moving hourlong service was held before the burial at Woodlawn South Cemetery.

“Because Jimmy Ryce was with us, awareness of the perils that stalk our streets and playgrounds and schools and sanctuaries - places we had hoped were safe - is being raised up to a new and higher level.”

From his pulpit, Brusso challenged President Clinton to heed a petition signed by 300,000 people that would make it easier for law enforcement agencies across the nation to coordinate search efforts.

Claudine and Don Ryce, both articulate and poised attorneys who helped Brusso draft his sermon, have preached the same message. On learning of their son’s disappearance, they launched a very public campaign asking - sometimes angrily demanding - national attention to their plight.

They got it.

Although it was too late for their son, the Ryces’ campaign has already borne results. Florida’s U.S. House delegation filed the Jimmy Ryce ASAP Child Assistance Act to make it easier to post photos of missing children in federal and state buildings. A similar measure will be sought in the state Legislature. And Dade’s Metro commissioners set up a strike force to find ways to protect children traveling between school and home.

The Ryces’ hope is that Jimmy’s death will serve a purpose. Even his yet-to-be-installed gravestone bears testament to their faith in their efforts: “And a little child shall lead them.”

Throughout the service, Don and Claudine Ryce sat in a front-row wooden pew, next to Don’s older children from a previous marriage. As Jimmy’s casket was wheeled in, the sobs of the honorary pallbearers -- Jimmy’s best friends -- reverberated in the high-beamed church.

Claudine Ryce dabbed at her eyes constantly with a white handkerchief. Don Ryce massaged his temples. Their hands trembled as they held a red Bible together. They took long glances at their son’s casket and drew in deep breaths when the weeping notes of a violin broke the church’s solemn silence.

The family is to leave town today for a spiritual retreat, said family spokeswoman Terri Lynn.

“But they’ll be back in a couple of days, with their sleeves rolled up,” Lynn said. “Ready to resume their lives and to renew their fight for what’s right for children and for children’s rights.”

Mourning, then resolve

Published Dec. 11, 1995

In a house of God, the parents of Jimmy Ryce cried for their loss. Then they rose above their grief and pledged to redouble their campaign to protect other children against the fate of their murdered son.

At about the same time, in a house of justice, the accused murderer spoke a few words to a judge and was sent back to his jail cell. That’s where he’ll stay until his trial in the kidnapping, rape and murder of 9-year-old Jimmy.

After attending a 10 a.m. memorial service Sunday at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Don and Claudine Ryce showed anew the poise and strength that have carried them through the nightmarish three months since Jimmy was abducted down the street from his house in the Redland.

Speaking in the church parking lot, they vowed to continue their efforts to improve a national system of tracking missing children, using both the Internet and greater cooperation among law enforcement agencies. Their campaign, which will be aimed at generating more publicity and public cooperation in missing- child cases, will be called JIMMY ASAP -- Join In the Manhunt for Missing Youths, Aid in Solving Abductions by Predators.

“Publicity caught the man,” Claudine Ryce said.

With tear-stained faces, the parents also denounced “stupid prejudice.” They asked the community to ignore that their son’s accused molester-killer, Juan Carlos Chavez, arrived from Cuba four years ago.

“Some people have come to the family to say that they are ashamed of being Cuban and Hispanic,” Don Ryce said. “I just want to make clear that evil comes in many ways. There is nothing to apologize for. Our fight is with predators.”

While the Ryces were speaking in South Dade, a handcuffed Chavez, 28, was brought to a television filming room at Dade County Jail, where he had his first court appearance -- electronically -- before Dade Circuit Judge Juan Ramirez Jr.

Chavez, who has shoulder-length brown hair and a trimmed beard, wore a dark sleeveless prison uniform. He raised his hands for his swearing-in and revealed tight handcuffs. Flanked by guards on all sides, Chavez appeared somewhat somber, but he barely spoke. When he did, he mumbled in low tones.

Police say Chavez forced Jimmy into his car at gunpoint the afternoon of Sept. 11 as the boy walked toward home from his school-bus stop on Southwest 162nd Avenue. According to the arrest affidavit, Chavez drove Jimmy to a trailer in an avocado grove about a mile away and raped him. Then he drove Jimmy back toward home.

But the defendant apparently changed his mind, possibly spooked by police cars near the Ryce home. Police say he returned to the trailer, where he shot and dismembered Jimmy and buried the remains in planters.

The big break in the case came Wednesday, when Susan Sheinhaus, who let Chavez live in her camper trailer on her property in the east Everglades, found Jimmy’s book bag inside and called authorities.

After two days of questioning by Metro-Dade homicide investigators, Chavez was formally charged at 8:15 p.m. Friday. Police say Chavez gave a statement admitting that he had abducted the child, raped him and killed him. He also told police where the boy’s remains were.

Sunday’s memorial service at St. Andrews was conducted by the Rev. Len Brusso, who has comforted the Ryces during their ordeal. Brusso was awakened by police Saturday to be with the Ryces when they received the news that Jimmy’s remains had been found in the avocado grove.

Brusso tore up his prepared sermon Sunday and implored his congregation not to give up hope and let Jimmy die in vain. He urged his congregation to join the Ryces’ campaign to protect children from people who would harm them.

“Jimmy made a difference,” Brusso said. “Jimmy made it safer for other children.”

He gave a litany of advances in the wake of the tragedy:

The Ryces expanded missing-children information on the Internet. They raised awareness that sexual offenders stalk children, often appearing charming and harmless to win their trust. They refused to let their son’s plight go unforgotten as the weeks went by.

Instead, they embarked on a national campaign to require broader federal help. They circulated petitions to require pictures of missing children to be circulated to law enforcement agencies throughout the country within 24 hours of a disappearance and to be displayed in federal buildings, national parks and post offices.

More than 30,000 people have already signed the massive petition for President Clinton.

“He damn well better listen to the children who deliver it,” Brusso said. “I hope no other family will have to go through what Don and Claudine Ryce did.”

All through the day, well-wishers flocked to the Ryce home, cleaning up the yard, dropping off flowers and stuffed animals, collecting signatures on the petition to Clinton, trying to do whatever they could. By Sunday afternoon, the Ryces were already at work with their international group, JIMMY ASAP, writing press releases and expanding information on the Internet.

The words of the Rev. Brusso were echoing in their hearts: “If we let Jimmy’s death fade away, his death meant nothing.”

The suspect

Published Dec. 10, 1995

Juan Carlos Chavez began his life in America in 1991 after he and two friends survived a brutal raft ride from Cuba to South Florida.

Tall, generous and well-liked, he worked as a mechanic, moonlighted as a handyman and affectionately addressed the elderly women in the neighborhood as his abuelas, grandmothers.

Today, Chavez sits in jail charged with killing 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce.

“He is a demon,” said Nelson Mendoza, whose 8-year-old son Thomas often chatted with Chavez in the East Hialeah neighborhood where they lived. “I thank God that he never touched my son. Thank you, God. Thank you.”

The neighbors who knew Chavez when he first came to Miami could not believe Saturday that he was the man accused of killing Jimmy.

“He was a car mechanic in Cuba,” recalled neighbor Luz Caceres. “That is what he wanted to do here. Be a car mechanic, too.”

Chavez, 28, ended up in Hialeah thanks to the generosity of his fellow rafters, two brothers. All three men were sitting at the Krome Detention Center in West Dade when Julian Pineiro arrived to claim his nephews.

he nephews asked Pineiro for a favor: “Let Juan Carlos come with us. He has no family.”

Pineiro agreed and brought them all back to his East Hialeah house, decorated Saturday with Christmas lights, festive gold stars and a green Christmas wreath with red bows hanging on the front door. No one was home.

“Julian must be distraught,” Caceres said. “He treated Juan Carlos like family. We all did.”

Within months of his arrival from Havana, Chavez and his two rafter friends were out of Pineiro’s house. They rented rooms across the street, at the home of “Sophia the American lady.” He did handyman jobs for Sophia and worked as an auto mechanic at G-Car, which specializes in steering problems.

Chavez also bought a yellow, two-door Delta 88 from neighbor Lester Aleman.

“There was nothing strange about him,” Aleman said. “He worked hard, polite. That is why I am shocked.”

Chavez moved from Sophia’s house and into a room several blocks north, where he continued to moonlight as a handyman. Sophia, an elderly lady, later died from a heart attack.

By then, Chavez had moved to South Dade, but he remained a presence on East Fifth Street, a road that leads to Babcock Park, whose baseball diamonds Saturday afternoon were full of children fielding hard grounders as their proud fathers and mothers watched.

He still came around,” Caceres said. “Every 20 days or so to say hello to Julian. That was the type of person he seemed to be kind, caring and grateful.”

Saturday morning, the neighbors of Fifth Street saw something else.

Most residents have children and have closely followed the Ryce disappearance. Several said they bolted out the door and into the streets when television stations flashed the photograph of the alleged child-killer: their old neighbor, Chavez.

It was simply incredible,” Caceres said. “To torture a child like that and then see Juan Carlos’ picture on TV. From the bottom of my heart, I tell you this is hard to believe.”

About the same time, Pineiro’s son arrived to visit his father. He carried his 2-year-old daughter in his arms, but put her down so she would walk away and not hear what Daddy was about to say.

“Juan Carlos is a cold-blooded assassin,” said the son, who did not want his name printed. “He should be sent to the electric chair right now. Better yet, let the community have at him.”

Search and recovery

Published Dec, 10, 1995

After almost three days of questioning, a South Dade farmhand led police to the body of Jimmy Ryce, the 9-year-old Redland boy who disappeared Sept. 11 after stepping off his school bus, police said Saturday.

Detectives found Jimmy’s body during the night, buried in a field near the trailer where police had discovered Jimmy’s backpack and school papers atop a table.

The man, whose name was unavailable early Saturday, is charged with first-degree murder and being held without bond. The man led police to the body.

The Ryce family was in seclusion Saturday morning and not available for comment.

Police scheduled news conference later Saturday where they would reveal more details of the investigation, along with the defendant’s name.

Police found the man Wednesday when a woman who hired the suspect for work on her property at 19960 SW 190th St. called police to say she had made a chilling discovery: She had entered his trailer to look for items missing from her home and had also found a backpack with Jimmy’s papers in it.

As late as Friday the Ryce family had held out hope the boy would be found alive.

Metro police divers spent Friday searching a muddy canal behind the ranch where Jimmy’s back pack had been found -- at one point pulling up debris that fueled speculation that the boy’s body had been found. There was no corpse, just more agony for Don and Claudine Ryce.

Friday night mother Claudine Ryce was still hopeful: “I’m still waiting for him to come home . . . still waiting to hear from him what he wants for Christmas.”

Friday evening, homicide detectives were continuing to question the farmhand who lives in the trailer and who said that he found Jimmy’s backpack in a field.

On Thursday, police also used a search warrant to seize the trailer that served as the farmhand’s home. Crime-scene technicians were inspecting it and a Ford pickup truck belonging to the Scheinhaus family that the farmhand drove.

Where is Jimmy?

Published Sept, 14, 1995

Hundreds of friends and family members searched South Dade groves Wednesday for 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce, while Metro-Dade police and the FBI joined the hunt for the missing Redland boy.

Metro-Dade Fire Rescue set up a task force and command post at Redland Elementary School to coordinate the volunteer search teams. People scoured the area on foot, horseback and with all- terrain vehicles.

Jimmy, a student in the gifted program at Naranja Elementary School, was last seen when his school bus dropped him off at Southwest 232nd Street and 162nd Avenue about 3:30 p.m. Monday. That’s his usual stop, five blocks north of his home.

It’s not like Jimmy to get lost, friends said.

“The family feels that someone took him,” said Bill Baggett, a minister and friend of the family who consoled the parents in their home Wednesday. “They are a family in tears, but they have not given up hope for his safe return.”

Jimmy, whose full name is Samuel James Ryce, weighs 70 pounds, has brown hair and blue eyes. He likes to play baseball and is scared of spiders, said neighbor Arlene Mindermann.

“Why does a child disappear?” asked Mindermann, who said she won’t let her granddaughter out beyond the family yard until Jimmy’s case is settled. “You constantly hear of abductions.”

One Homestead resident, Annabelle Pomares, said she believes she saw the boy about 3:40 p.m. south of Southwest 247th Street and 162nd Avenue.

Pomares was picking up her stepdaughter, who attends nearby Redland Middle School.

“I saw the boy walking alone,” Pomares said. “He kept looking around like he was disoriented.”

About 20 FBI agents stationed themselves at the Ryce household Wednesday. They interviewed parents Donald and Claudine Ryce and even controlled the access gate to the property.

“When it involves a child, we do become active in the investigation after a 24-hour period,” said FBI spokeswoman Lucie Vonderhaar. “We initiated a kidnapping investigation and are working in conjunction with Metro-Dade police, aggressively pursuing all leads we can to locate the whereabouts of Jimmy.”

FBI agents interviewed Jimmy’s teachers, neighbors, friends and family. They also looked throughout the house to make sure he was not taken from inside the home, Vonderhaar said.

Vonderhaar described Jimmy as a “typical 9-year-old” and said the FBI had no reason to suspect the boy got lost or ran away. But, she added, there is no evidence indicating foul play.

Police, meanwhile, disclosed Wednesday night that they found a book bag, jeans and a blue car, but none of the items were connected to Jimmy, said Tony Carvajal, a Metro police spokesman.

Throughout the day, rescue workers inside an air- conditioned trailer mapped grids of what areas have been searched and studied aerial maps of the area. Five dogs were brought in to help, including Brandy and Aspen, which searched for victims in the Oklahoma City bombing, said Lt. Roman Bas.

Different teams were dispatched to follow up on tips, Bas said.

Redland sub shop owner Jeanne Reynolds said she has never seen anything like it in the community where she was born and raised.

“This is serious,” said Reynolds, who brought sandwiches for the search teams. “This has never happened in our community. This little boy is important. People out here take care of each other.”

William Ingram, another volunteer, searched at least four hours for any sign of Jimmy -- a pair of socks or maybe school books. An earlier tip led to a pair of sneakers, but they were too big to be the boy’s.

“I live in the community and have family here, including a 12-year-old,” Ingram said. “It seems hopeless to search, but it’s necessary.”