Theresa Parker's Family Continues To Want Answers Nearly A Year Later

It's been one year since Walker County 9-1-1 dispatcher Theresa Parker disappeared but her family says time isn't healing their pain.

Parker's family says that every day gets harder and harder. They say holiday's, like Easter, just aren't the same. And they say it's because they're still searching for the same answers they were a year ago.

Theresa Parker disappeared a year ago last Friday. Hundreds of volunteers searched on foot and by air for the missing 9-1-1 dispatcher but to this day her family still has no idea what happened to her.

"When your family gets together like ours on Easter and you look around and theres one empty seat it just hits you all over again," Ashton Gilbert, Parker's niece, says.

And it's harsh reality that continues to hit Parker's niece, Ashton Gilbert, especially hard.

"She was my best friend, she wasn't just an aunt to me, she was the one person I could go to and confide in and I could tell her absolutely everything and trust her," Gilbert says.

That trust has been missing for more than a year now, and Gilbert says contrary to popular belief - time doesn't heal all pain.

"Everyday that passes I miss her more and more and more, now it's been a year since the last time I've seen her, its just so hard to believe its been a year," Gilbert says.

Over the past year close friends and complete strangers helped look for any sign of Parker. Investigators searched her house a number of times, drained ponds in the area, and eventually arrested Parker's estranged husband, Sam, charging him with murder.

"I thought that would make us feel better, I can't ever explain why it doesn't but it hurts so bad though," Gilbert says.

And it's a pain Gilbert says will continue to get worse until she knows exactly what happened to her aunt and her best friend.

"It's going to be horrible when we do find her but at least will have some closure and she'll be in a place where she belongs," Gilbert says.

Gilbert says her favorite memory of her Aunt is when Theresa surprised her with a trip to Cancun. She says that's one of the best things that's ever happened to her.

As for Sam Parker, he's charged with murder - even though there's no body - and a judge recently denied bond.