Loved ones offer Joliet man support

 JOLIET - About a dozen people crowded into Wayne Bockhol's living room Wednesday afternoon, offering support to a man whose mother, sister and brother vanished without a trace four days earlier.

Friends and family members have stayed with Wayne in the family's home at Center and Stone streets nearly constantly since Sunday, when the three adults disappeared while delivering newspapers. Supporters cook meals for Wayne, wash his laundry and share in the hope that the missing adults will be found safely.

Karen Bockhol, 49, her son Tom, 23, and daughter Tracy, 26, were last seen before dawn Sunday when they left The Herald News' distribution center in Joliet. They completed all but the last block of their regular paper route near their home.

"I can't stop thinking about all three of them. I want them home," said Jackie Dufour of Joliet, Karen's sister.

"This is something I don't need to go through again," she said. Dufour's husband died about a year and a half ago.

The Bockhol's home is a neat, two-story house in a neighborhood that was settled well over a century ago. Several of the homes in the area are made of limestone mined from a quarry that used to operate along Bluff Street.

The streets are reminiscent of Joliet's past as the "City of Stone," with names like Marble, Mason, Granite, Lime and Stone. Some of the sidewalks are cut slabs of granite, a method that predates the widespread use of concrete.

It is an ordinary, safe, workingclass neighborhood. Not the sort of place from where three adults suddenly disappear. The Bockhols have been delivering newspapers in the neighborhood for 23 years.

"I remember when Tom used a little red wagon to deliver papers on this block. That was back when you folded the paper and only used a bag if it was raining," said Bonnie Avila, a longtime friend of the family.

Wayne started delivering papers when he was 7 and continued until he was 18 and graduated from Joliet Catholic Academy. He passed the route onto his sister, Tracy, who handed it down to Tom.

"We moved here when I was 12. This is a great neighborhood. Lots of older people, but a lot of kids," said Wayne, 30.

Wayne and Tracy attended the now-closed elementary school next to St. John's Catholic Church a few blocks away at Hickory and Bridge streets. Tracy went to Joliet Central High School, and Tom attended Farragut Elementary, Hufford Junior High and Joliet Central High School, Wayne said.

Wayne said his mother and father divorced when he was 7 years old, and that his father hasn't had any contact with the family for at least 16 years. His father has remarried several times, Wayne said.

Karen is godmother to at least eight children, friends said, and she would baby-sit dozens of various kids through the years.

"When all is said and done, Karen is a wonderful person who just loves kids," said Georgia Lucas, who has known Karen for more than 20 years.

Pictures of 4-year-old Sabrina, one of Karen's godchildren, line the walls of the family's living room. Wayne's sister, Tracy, was in the process of adopting Sabrina, who lived at the Bockhol's home until Tuesday, when the girl's birth mother came and took her to Indiana.

Karen got to know Sabrina's mother because the woman's exboyfriend did some maintenance work around the Bockhol's house, Wayne said. Wayne and Karen's friends expressed concern about the girl and her mother's ability to care for the child.

"I was the last person she was familiar with. She didn't want to go," Wayne said.