Replay: Joan Bernal Part 1

Joan Burnell's episodes originally aired in October 2020. At the end of 2025, there was a major development in her case. Stay tuned to the end of Part 2 for an important update. We canvassed a whole big area around Seneca, Illinois, and around the rivers because he had friends in that area. you know, around Joliet. We consulted psychics. My mother did, my grandmother did. We talked to all sorts of different people, try to get some sort of, if in fact he killed her, where he put her. So we were looking for a body. We knew that, but we were looking for certain things. Different psychics had told us that she was under a, you know, a silo and the property had a red barn or something. I don't remember now, but anyway, we looked around Illinois. My grandparents went down to Texas to try to reason with the people in McAllen. They weren't getting much cooperation. We weren't getting any cooperation from the law enforcement down there. We couldn't convince the FBI that it was a crime that occurred across states, so they wouldn't get involved. The family refused to allow anybody onto the property to search the property. So we just kept hitting dead ends wherever we went. But that was why it was Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas. Now, I think Oklahoma was only involved because they traveled through it. But I don't remember now if there wasn't some sort of evidence that led us to think maybe Oklahoma was more involved. In December of 1988, 34-year-old Joan Bernal and her husband had plans to take their children to Texas to visit with her husband's family for the holidays. Things didn't work out as planned, and their children from previous relationships didn't end up going along for the trip. According to Joan's husband, Gil, on the morning of December 10, 1988, he and Joan set out with their young daughter. They left their home in Joliet, Illinois, headed towards Texas. Gill says that Joan asked to be let out of the car in Oklahoma after the couple had quarreled. Gill stated that he dropped her off near a McAllister, Oklahoma bus stop and gave her some cash to get back to Illinois. Joan Brunel has never been seen again. And this story is full of differing versions of what happened to Joan, whether or not she may still be alive, and questions that surround her life and disappearance. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 251 of The Vanished, part one of Joan Bernal's story. Joan's daughter Sarita reached out to us earlier this year and requested that we cover her mom's story. When we spoke to her, she told us that the decision to speak publicly about her mom was a difficult one, but that she wanted to see her mother's story told. This is what she shared with us about coming forward. I've kind of steered away from sharing her story, my story, our story. My husband said this morning, like when I reminded him I'm doing this, he's like, Sarita, you better hope this doesn't start anything. And I'm like, but listen, like, here's my problem is I have spent my 34 years always sticking up for my dad, defending him and his character and who he is, and always being his voice. Who is my mom's voice? Where is her story in this? She was a person too. And like, that's the thing that I'm struggling with most now. Now that I'm older and I have kids of my own and I'm everything I ever wanted for them, I would hope that if something happened to me that someone would stick up for me. You know, that I have a voice. I was a person too. Like I existed and she did. And because she's been gone for so long, like it's hard to remember that sometimes. Like she was really here. She was a person. She loved. She was an amazing person in all of this. I feel like that's what's been lost. That's almost what's been forgotten. With that in mind, we began our research into Joan's life and disappearance. Sarita was very young when her mom vanished. But she has a few memories of her mom that she told us about. Well, I was four months shy of three when she went missing. So there's not a whole lot that I remember about her. I have certain flashbacks, I like to call them, of just a mom being a mom, essentially. I have a brief memory of laying in my crib and looking up and she was looking down at me, correcting my face. My mom was a bus driver for Pace Public Transportation. And there must have been an instance where I was sick. And we ran to Walgreens. My mom took the bus, grabbed my godmother, she was my babysitter at the time, we took the bus, we were parked in front of Walgreens, and I remember watching my godmother walk into Walgreens, and I was sitting on my mom's lap at the steering wheel of the bus, and I just remember my mom being like, come on, Mary Lou, hurry up, hurry up. She must have been on a break or in between shifts or something, but that's, I mean, as far as memories of her, that's really all I remember. At just two and a half years old, Sarita doesn't recall the details of Joan's disappearance. However, she was able to tell us what she recalls from what other relatives have shared with her, and what the police records from that time say. As Christmas approached in 1988, Gil and Joan planned to drive from Illinois to southern Texas, where they were going to visit Gil's family. They originally planned to take all of their kids, but due to custody issues, were only able to bring their youngest daughter, Sarita. Gil had three children from a previous marriage, Gilbert Jr., Gabriel, and Carissa. Joan had two children from previous relationships, Lex and Larissa. Together, Gil and Joan had Sarita. Sarita explained to us that though she was too young to remember, She knows that her mom had been in a protracted custody battle over her older children with her ex-husband Larry. And Joan desperately wanted to take all of the kids on the trip to Texas. So when my mom went missing, her and my dad had planned on taking a trip to Texas. My dad was born and raised in South Texas and all of his family still lived down there. at that point in time his mom was still alive and he just he made it a point that you know every Christmas he wanted to go home that's what he would always say I know they had gone they had spent Thanksgiving with my mom's family and my dad had told me that Thanksgiving was was bad so they they spent a good chunk of Thanksgiving dinner fighting and my dad has told me that when they left he basically told her I'm never spending a holiday with your family again like if that's how it's going to be. I don't want any part of it whatsoever. And my mom was just really upset. And so my dad was like, we're going to Texas for Christmas. You don't want to go. I understand, but we're going to Texas. And she was like, no, it's fine. But I really want to bring Lex and Larissa. My mom was in the middle of a big custody battle with Larry. And so I guess her plan was to not tell Larry that they were going to take the kids. Like this is according to my dad. My mom had not told Larry, asked Larry permission, anything that they were going to take Lex and Larissa down to Texas. And so when my mom went to pick up Lex and Larissa, Larry wouldn't let her take them. And so ensued like this big screaming argument between my mom and Larry, because my mom wanted to take Lex and Larissa and he wouldn't let her take them. So I'm assuming it was the next morning, you know, whenever they had decided we were going to leave. Joan's two children from a previous marriage didn't make it on the trip. We spoke with Joan's mother, Florence, and she explained to us what happened with Joan's two children when Gil and Joan planned to leave for Texas. They were supposed to go to Texas for Christmas. I had talked to them. I'd been out there to Joan and Gil a few times. And that year, they had mentioned something about going to Texas for Christmas. and taking all the kids. Gil had a couple of kids from a previous marriage. Joan was going to take Lex and Lizzie and the babies, Rita. So I think it was long in October. So I was out there and I said, are you sure that you won't be here for Christmas? Because if you aren't, my husband and I, we were going to go to Oregon to be with Sue because Sue had two kids by this time. And I said, I want to spend Christmas with some of my grandchildren. If you're not going to be here, if you're going to take kids to Texas, we're going to go to Oregon. And I remember Jill looking at me and saying, you go ahead and go to Oregon because we're definitely going to Texas. Okay. Along around the first week of December or so, I called Joan and I said, I've got the kids Christmas presents and mom had sent up Christmas presents for them. I said, I've got them all and I'll bring them out so you can take them to Texas with you. And she said, well, we're going out today. We're buying sleeping bags for all the kids. So we won't be here, but you can leave the gifts in my car. My car will be parked in the driveway and it'll be open. You can put them in there. They'll be okay. So I did that. So I didn't see her before they were due to leave. We left for Oregon and they were supposed to leave for Texas. And it was Christmas Day. We were having dinner at Sue's house. We got a phone call from mom. She had heard from Larry because Lex and Larissa didn't get any Christmas presents from us. They were there at Larry's. That was the first I knew that Lex and Larissa did not go to Texas. And mom said, the kids are real upset because Joan took their presents to Texas with her. She didn't leave their presents for them. I could not believe this. I couldn't figure out what had happened. I said, how come those kids didn't go? Larry wouldn't let them go. Joan had not told him, had not cleared it with him to take them out of state. she was supposed to have them for Christmas, so she just thought she would keep them and take them wherever she wanted to, I guess. By the time Florence became aware of all of this, it had been weeks since anyone spoke to Joan. Going back to the last time that Joan was seen, on the evening of December 9th, after Gil picked up his kids from their mother's house, they went to the home where Joan's two older children live to pick them up as well. However, their dad wouldn't let them go and told Joan she could pick them up when it was her designated time after returning from Texas. Police records indicate that this upset both Joan and Gil, and the children's father, Larry, stated to police that Gil threatened to sue him for custody of the children and displayed a large amount of cash that he said he would use to pay for the custody battle. Sarita recalled what she's been told about the legal battle over the custody of her siblings. From what my dad has told me, he still remembers the first time she actually had a conversation with him. And my dad knew that she was married, so he had stared clear. And then she kind of seemed like she wanted more. And, you know, they started their thing or whatnot. But he just, you know, he tells me that those beginning days, months, years were perfect. You know, like she was everything he ever wanted. She cooked, she cleaned, she worked. He wasn't a big fan of the fact that she didn't have custody of her kids. But at the same time, like he understood why, because, you know, she was a working mom. And she had as part of the divorce between her and Larry, she had signed over rights to the kids to Larry, and she was the one that got visitation. And I know my grandma, you know, has told me that she never agreed with that, but it was something my mom decided to do. You know, obviously that's what she felt was best for her situation. My dad and her got married, and after they had me my mom I guess had decided that she wanted custody again of Lex and Larissa So when my mom disappeared they were in the midst of like a really nasty custody battle Obviously all I heard about it was you know my dad side of the story. They were going back and forth to the court and every time they'd go before the judge and the judge would ask, in particular Lex, you know, who he wanted to live with. Lex would say he wanted to stay with his dad. So it was just, it was a lot of money and legal fees. My dad, you know, from a young age, I always knew my dad just was always frustrated with the whole situation. Joan was very upset that her older children couldn't come with them on what was supposed to be a family trip. But Joan and Gil left Larry's house with Gil's three children and their toddler, Sarita. We'll cover the events of this evening in more detail in part two of this story. But this is what Sarita told us happened next. So we leave. And that's the point where the story like splits. I have no idea what happened. Gil Jr. claims that we left. My mom and dad got into a fight. My mom felt horrible leaving Lex and Larissa behind and not spending Christmas with them. They got into this big argument. My dad turned the car around. We went back home. They went into the house. They were yelling and screaming and fighting. And my brother saw from the window going into the house, my dad essentially choked her. And she went limp. And then my dad walked out of the house and we left. It was around 10 p.m. that evening, December 9th, when Gil's ex-wife received a phone call from Gil, stating that he was bringing the kids back. She said he pulled up around 10.20 p.m. She observed Gil hurriedly remove the kids and their suitcases from the truck. She saw Sarita asleep inside the truck, but no sign of Joan. Gil said that Joan's ex wouldn't give them the kids and that they weren't going to Texas. Gil claims that he left Illinois the following morning with Joan and Sarita. Sarita told us more about her dad's story. My dad's story is that we drove and it wasn't until we hit Oklahoma that my mom was like, I don't want to do this. I can't just leave Lex and Larissa behind. I want to go home. And so my dad dropped her off at a bus station in McAllister, Oklahoma, left her with, I think, $1,500 and was like, OK, take a bus home. Here's money. And that's the last time he saw her. He came home. I'm not sure what day he ended up coming home, but he saw that more of her stuff was gone than what she had packed for the trip. of course sarita was too young to understand what happened to her mom or that something was seriously wrong. But Joan's mother Florence soon realized something terrible had happened. Here's Florence again. I couldn't figure out what had happened. And I knew that they were due to be back a day or two after Christmas. I know it was, they were going to have their Christmas on Christmas Eve. And then I think the very next day, Christmas Day, they were leaving and coming back. They were due back to work like the 26th or 27th, something like that. Well, I tried calling their house and I got no answer. So I called JMTD, the Joliet Mass Transit. I was in Sue's house out in Oregon when I called. This woman answered the phone and I told her I'd like to talk to Joan Brunel. Had Joan come back to work? No, Joan isn't here. Is Gil there? Has he come back to work? Yes, he has. Well, I'll talk to him. She said, well, before you do, I should tell you. He came in and said that Joan had left him. He doesn't know where she is. And we told him he had to report it to the police that she was missing. So I think you should talk to the Will County Sheriff's Police. I talked to Gil, and he told me this big bullshit story about how Joan wanted to go back and get the kids, get Lex and Larissa, and bring them to Texas. So he stopped in Oklahoma at 10 o'clock at night, and he pulled out $1,000 in cash and gave it to her, told her to take a bus back to Joliet, get the kids, and fly to Texas. And he was telling me this story. Joan decided. Joan wanted. Joan said, I knew he was lying because he was letting off like Joan made all the decisions. He never had allowed Joan to make a decision. Anytime I was around him, I could tell he was in charge. He made all the decisions. She was not allowed to make it. Even she took her paycheck when she got paid and turned it over to him. He had to be in charge of everything. So I knew he was lying. Well, as soon as we got back home, I called the Will County Sheriff's Police, and my husband and I went out there and had an interview with them. I told them what I knew. Sarita has one memory that has stuck with her about running into her grandmother, Florence, while out shopping with her dad and not knowing where her mom was or what happened to her. I do remember being at a store, and I don't remember what it was called. It was an old store that no longer exists. I was there with my dad and I was like in the middle of an eye infection because I remember my dad like having to put ointment in my eyes and my eyes just burning. And we're walking around the store. I want to say we were like by a shoe section. And all of a sudden we ran into my grandma and my great grandma. And at this point, my mom had already been missing because I remember sitting in the cart and like listening to them talk about my mom. You know, I didn't understand what they were saying, but I just know that they were talking about my mom. Like, with civil conversation, there was no yelling, no arguing, nothing. But they were talking about my mom. And I was so young, like, I don't know where that fits into the puzzle. But like I said, they were they were civil with each other. And just in the sense, like their tones and in the sense that they were talking about my mom, like she was already gone. And I remember kind of feeling like, do they know where my mom and like why I haven't seen my mom? I don't know at what point I realized that my mom was no longer there. I do remember her car sat in front of our house for what felt like forever. And I, you know, I understand I was not even three at the time, so forever could be a week. And I would ask my dad every time we pulled up to the house, daddy, when's mommy coming home? and he would always say pretty soon she's coming home pretty soon and then one day her car was just gone and she never came home so then you just I don't know how much time passed from my mom leaving or being gone to there being another woman in the house and somehow I I knew her Like I had met her before. I had seen her before. I think her and my dad and my mom, like they had hung out before. She was familiar to me, but all of a sudden she was staying in the house. And I just remember feeling like, well, why is she here? Where is my mom? Sarita was too young to remember what her dad and grandmother spoke about that day. But when we talked to Joan's mother, Florence, she shared with us how she knows that Joan would have never walked away. We used to call her our little family newspaper because she was always in contact with all the distant cousins and whoever. And was always, she needed to be in contact with people. She needed people. There is no way, no way in hell that she would ever isolate herself from all of her friends and family. I told the investigator that the day that we went out to Will County, I said, if she's alive, she is unconscious someplace. Otherwise, she would be on the phone talking to people because that was Joan. If she had gotten on a bus in McAllister, Oklahoma, as he talked about, if she had gotten on a bus in McAllister, Oklahoma, to go to Juliet, she would have talked to the bus driver telling him that she drove a bus. And she would have a big conversation with him all the way. She talked to people on the bus. She met people that had been longtime neighbors of my folks. She met a lady that was married to a man that I worked with. I mean, she talked. She talked to people. There's no way that she would be alive and not be contacting someone. We'll dive more deeply into Joan's disappearance in part two of her story. But first, it's important to explore Joan's background and life before she met Gilbert to better understand how she ended up in the position she was in. Most of what Sarita knows has been shared with her by family members. But this is what she told us about her mom's life. As far as my mom herself, she was born in West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park. They lived in Hickory Hills, Illinois. That's where she grew up. She graduated from Stagg High School. I've talked to several people that, you know, went to school with her or grew up with her. Obviously, I've talked to both of my aunts. She had an older sister and a baby sister. And everyone just collected, like, the one thing that always sticks out to me when I think of how people describe my mom is just that she was the sweetest person in the world. She just could do the sweetest things for people. She could say the sweetest things, but she was also, especially as she became a teenager, she was a spitfire. You know, she definitely had a little bit of feistiness to her. Once she graduated from high school, she kind of ate to the sound of her own drum. And she was kind of a free bird, a wild spirit. I guess in high school, people used to call her Janice Joplin. She was a huge fan of Janice. And I mean, I have a couple pictures of her wearing what I like to call a Janice Joplin glasses. My grandma told me that she just one day, all of a sudden decided to hitchhike to California. And she did it. And next thing my grandma knew, she was calling like three days later, oh, I met this guy. I think he drove like a Corvette or something and he was going to drive her back. and those were just kind of the, you know, wild, crazy things my mom did. We also spoke to Joan's sister, Sue, who shared her memories of growing up with Joan. Well, we were very close as children. You know, I had friends my age, but Joan really was my best friend because she was always there. And, you know, we had sibling rivalries just like any family would, but we were very close. We did everything together. All of our playmates were the same age. There was a lot of kids in the neighborhood that were our ages, but at the end of the day, you go home, it's just Joan and I. Joan was, especially by the time she got into high school, people realized that she called a spade a spade. She wasn't really diplomatic, but if she said something, you knew that's what she truly believed. So, you know, she was very, sometimes brutally honest, but she was honest. We got very close in high school. The high school that we went to, by the time we were there, it was starting to get pretty crowded. Most everybody shared a locker. Joan and I, very rarely did we have classes that we were even close together. I think there was one class that we actually had together for like half a semester. We had chorus together. But other than that, we really didn't see each other. So we would leave notes for each other in the locker. It was something that the two of us really enjoyed because we were just leaving notes of silly things. So we did that the entire three years that we were together because she was gone by my senior year. she was graduated out my senior year Joan and I got frustrated with what was called student council It was like the activity club really And we felt that it really shouldn be And with our mom urging we started a political party in our high school We got a bunch of our friends together. The meetings were at our house. Each grade level had 10 representatives and student council. So we decided that we were going to have a full slate. So we wanted to have 10 candidates for each grade level that were in this political party that we had started. And I think we call it Voice of the People Party. Towards the end of my junior year, I was running for president of the student council. She was very involved in my campaign, and I was elected. She and I did a lot of things together in high school. So much of Joan's family wanted to share their memories of her with us. So we also spoke to her sister, Ginny, while we researched this story. Here's Ginny on Growing Up with Joan. There were three of us, three daughters. I was the oldest. The three of us grew up together. Joan was always, she always favored my father. She looked most like him, and she kind of doted on him. Joan's personality was very loving, and she was always very giving. She would be the one that would want to make friends with the kids in the neighborhood. It's a suburb of Chicago now, but at the time, we were kind of out in the sticks. We didn't live in Joliet. We lived in Hickory Hills, which would be a western suburb of Chicago, southwestern suburb of Chicago, but not nearly as far as Joliet. At the time, it was very open. Now it's all built up. Yeah, so we kind of lived out in the sticks, and there was not that many kids in the neighborhood, but Jen was the one that made the friends with them, and in some cases, lifelong friendships. She and Sue, my youngest sister, were only a year apart, so the two of them were almost like twins. I would say she's more of a follower than she was a leader. She was just, she was the, like I say, the soft, cuddly, emotional type, and she was happy to do what other people wanted to do. What I saw it affecting her as her adult life was that she was always looking for affection. She was always the one that was wanting to be accepted by other people, looking for approval pretty much from everybody. I know she did for me as an older sister. I think that's what got her into the situation that she was with men too, was that she was looking for affection a lot. So wherever she found that, she definitely sought that. She sought it from my father. And then later in life, I saw her seek that in her relationships with men. She was very pretty, but I don't think she ever really felt like she was pretty. I don't think that she felt like she was attractive in all ways to people, but she was. She was very pretty and attractive, and she had a sweet disposition. Joan was doted on and loved as a child, but from an early age, there were concerns about some of her differences. Joan's mother, Florence, recounted some of what she remembers from Joan's early life. When she was an infant and a toddler, she was one of the prettiest, sweetest little things you've ever seen. She looked like a little cubie doll, and she had a real good personality. She was happy. She was a good toddler, and as she got older, when she was like kindergarten age, she would sing, sing all day. Then when she started school, she had a little bit of trouble in school. She just did not learn quickly. It was after Joan got to be in adolescence. I think she was about 15 when her dad and I were divorced. And that seemed to hit her harder than the other two because she was daddy's girl. She resented me. She would argue with me. usual teenage stuff, but a little bit more extreme with Joan. As Joan grew up, her mother and sisters worried about Joan's desire to find affection and approval from men. Florence told us about Joan's first relationship and marriage, just shortly after she graduated from high school. Joan could be so sweet. She could do something that would really clutch your heart, but she knew what buttons to push. She could make you really angry too. From the time she graduated from high school on, she wasn't at home. She was living with some guy. Then she and Fred got married. Fred Baker was something else. He was so lazy, couldn't hold a job. And Joan had started driving school buses. And she enjoyed it. She enjoyed driving the school bus. Fred then went into the service, and she went with him down to Kentucky, I think, where he was stationed. And they had Lex. She came back and was staying with Fred's mother in Joliet. She was kind of aggravated at me. She had sent a letter to me from Kentucky wanting money for a car, and I didn't have it to send to her. I wrote to her and told her I just didn't have the money, and she got ticked off at me. So she was living with Fred's mother when Lex was born, and then she went to work for the Joliet Mass Transit District driving a bus, and Fred's mother was taking care of the baby. along in there sometime. She got divorced from Fred, and that's when she met Larry. After leaving Fred, Joan soon met her second husband, a man named Larry Stanfill, and had a daughter named Larissa with him. She moved in with Larry, and they got married. They had a nice wedding. It was in a real pretty park. Let's see, Lex was about two years old. And so I kept Lex overnight after the wedding. And then they came and got him and took him with them on their honeymoon. They went to Opryland. And Larry adopted Lex and made him officially his son, Danville. They lived in a real cruddy place in Joliet. and that's when she had Larissa then. And mom gave them money to get a mobile home with. She'd found a mobile home park near Choliet, a mobile home for sale, and mom gave them the money. They moved out there. And they were there a few years, and Larry was out of work. His place where he worked, they were on strike for a really long time. So he didn't have any, I think he ran out of unemployment. With a husband and two young children at home, Joan returned to work to help support the family until her husband found another job. It was at her new job that Joan met someone new, and the course of her life changed forever. her. worst thing for her to do, I thought. But she insisted that because Larry wasn't working, that he could take care of the kids and she was working and couldn't. Anyway, she and Gil then had Sarita. Meeting Gil was a turning point in Joan's life. He was different from other men she had dated, and she even left her second husband for him. When we spoke with her sister Sue, she shared some of her first impressions of Gil and how those observations stayed with her. When I first met him, I could physically, I could understand why Joan was attracted to him. he reminded me a lot of her high school sweetheart. Physically, I could see that. I didn't like him because I didn't like the control he had over her. Actually, that happened before I even met him. She and her two oldest, because she hadn't had three yet, came out to visit me and my family in Oregon for just a long weekend. It was over Labor Day weekend. and she came out and we went up to Crater Lake and we went over to the coast so she could see the ocean and we were just doing touristy things. And Gil kept calling. Of course, this was before cell phones. So every time we were back at my house, he kept calling with all these silly little things. He would go over to our apartment and he was smelling gas and he was checking on this. And so finally I asked her, what is going on? And she said, oh, he just needs to check up on me. And it's like, well, really? That was kind of strange that it seemed like he was just calling to make sure she was there. So there was maybe an issue of insecurity or no trust. I don't know. And then she made a comment that was, I'm sure, just fleeting, but it kind of set off alarms with me. Joan had gorgeous, long, dark hair. I always thought she had a beautiful face. I always thought she was, you know, both of my sisters are very beautiful. From the time we were kids, Joan and I both had glasses. Well, she was trying to get used to wearing contacts. She had them tinted blue. And her eyes were light enough to where when she was wearing blue contacts, they really did look like blue eyes. I don't remember asking her, but she made the comment that, you know, Gil really likes women with long, dark hair and blue eyes, which concerned me. It concerned me that, you know, here she is an adult. She has, you know, two kids. She's been married twice. You know, she's starting another relationship, which is fine. But yet she's trying to change her appearance to please this person. So before I actually met him, I had those, you know, feelings already. So it was, I was already disposed that I was not going to like him. I didn't like him. He seemed to be very controlling. Sue may have felt like she was simply being protective of Joan, but Joan's older sister, Jenny, had a similar impression of Gil. My impression of him, though, was that he was kind of a user and rather arrogant. He didn't come off as being very friendly to people. I remember when I first met him, it was a rather quick meeting. I mean, we weren't together that long. He came over to my house with her. He didn't say too much. He was very quiet and reserved. And I kind of felt like he felt like he was better than we were. And I don't know if that, I don't really know how he was feeling. I kind of attributed possibly to the fact that he was maybe just very uncomfortable and just didn't say too much. So, you know, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was just uncomfortable and kind of maybe an introvert or something. and just didn't want to talk too much. And that's okay. But I also kind of thought that maybe he was behaving that way because he really was rather arrogant or narcissistic or whatever, because that's kind of how he behaved when he did say something, that he really thought that maybe he was better than we were. In subsequent meetings, whenever I would run into him, either with Joan or in the intervening years, After she went missing, every now and again, I would run into him someplace. Well, obviously with Sarita, there was a time when my husband and I went down to Joliet. I believe this was for Landon's first birthday, for Sarita's son. So it would be Gil's grandchild. His first birthday, they had a big party for him. And Gil was there, and he was still very kind of standoffish and kind of cold. He was at Sarita's wedding. He always was that way, you know, from beginning to end. He's been pretty consistent in his attitude towards us. Despite her sister reservations Joan went on to marry Gil and had a daughter who we heard from earlier Sarita As time went on Sue continued to observe Joan and Gil relationship and her opinion of Gil only soured. This is what she told us she remembers from one Christmas. We lived 2,000 miles away. Most of the time it was when my family and I came back to Illinois for Christmas. So I think it was the following Christmas, I believe Sarita was already born. And we were all together at my mom's house, all the grandkids and stuff. And so, you know, of course, it's very exciting for the kids and they're seeing their cousins and all these presents and stuff. Joan and Gil and the three kids were getting ready to leave. Well, they were in a pickup truck. It had two seats for the kids. And Gil had told Joan's oldest son that they didn't have room for his gifts. He was going to have to leave him there at my mom's house. Well, he's nine or 10 years old or something. So he starts fussing about it. And my grandmother was the one that heard it and said, what's wrong? Then Joan says what Gil had said. And she said, Oh, no, we can see it. So it was just kind of a really, you got to be kidding. You're going to make the kid leave his presence here. It just made everybody angry that he said that. So I never really had much, much hope in that relationship. And then when I started hearing that he was physically abusive to her, that kind of did it for me. I do remember Joan telling me, and I think this was when they were dating before they were married, that there was a cousin of Gil's that works there at the bus company. And she was trying to warn Joan about his history with women. And that had to have been when Joan was out visiting with me, because I think that was when they were just starting their relationship. her opinion about Joan's opinion about that is it obviously was just not the right women with him. I was concerned about that too, because that's usually not the case. We also had the chance to talk to Joan's son, Lex. He was old enough to have more memories of that time than Sarita, being that she was only a toddler. Lex told us about some of his memories of Gil. When he came into my life, I guess from what I've heard, my mom cheated on my adopted dad with Gil. And that's why him and my mom got divorced. And then they got married. Memories of him are just not good. I mean, there were some good memories going out to dinner with him and stuff and take me bowling with him on Friday nights. But, I mean, he was just, he was mean, abusive. I remember him, I mean, there was quite a few times that my mom would pick me and Luris up for the weekend, and we'd end up having to stay in the Guardian Angel Battered Women's Shelter. I have a distinct memory of me and my sisters being in the bedroom watching TV and hearing him and my mom fight, and I went down the hall to take a look, and he had her pinned down on the ground with the heel of his shoe on her head. There was a time we were at a restaurant, and he held a knife to her throat in the restaurant. I mean, just a lot of that. He was nice when he wasn't being abusive. Like I said, as long as he wasn't being abusive towards my mom, he was to me a couple of times, but nothing really major. I think he knew not to cross that line with me living with my dad and stuff. So that was never—it was only a couple times it was an issue. I don't know how long it was before all this happened, But there was one time we were, you know, me and my sister were over there for the weekend. We were playing around and we went into my baby sister's room. And I still remember this vividly. There was a suitcase on the floor standing straight up. And the top it was open. And I didn't know what it was at the time, but now I know. I looked in and I seen it was bags of pot. As soon as I happened to look down in there, my mom came in the room and got me out of there real quick. And nothing was ever said about it or anything. and the next time I went in the bedroom, it was gone. When I lived in Joliet, I hung around some unsavory characters. There was rumors that he was responsible for drug trafficking to some of the gangs. I know he's slick, and he's a charmer. Joan's family felt that Gil was cold and possibly abusive towards Joan and the kids. We learned in one interview that Gil had previously been accused of domestic violence in other relationships, and that he beat one of his wives while she was pregnant. And after that child was born, he was left with mental limitations that would affect him his entire life. However, despite all the red flags and warning signs, Joan stuck it out with Gil for several years. And Sarita shared with us that she felt like her mother's family was too hard on Joan and judgmental of her decisions. In my mom's family dynamic, I'm talking about her point of view. So how she felt within her own family. She just felt like she didn't belong. Like she couldn't do anything right by them. There was nothing she could do where they would be like, wow, Joan, that was a great decision. We're so proud of you for doing it. Like I seriously wonder if my mom ever heard those words. We're so proud of you or I'm so proud of you. You know what I mean? And it's so heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking. Like when I spoke with my aunt Sue, it was the most eyeopening conversation I ever had with her. I asked her, when was the last time you talked to my mom? And she was like, you know, a few months before she disappeared. And I was so angry with her. And it kind of made me think like, how many times were you so angry with my mom? How many decisions did she make that you just were not happy about? She was basically laying into my mom like, why are you still with him? Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you doing this to your kids? And my mom's very real, honest answer was, I feel like I can't do any better. I will never have any better than him. And she recalled that conversation, you know, three months later, now my mom's missing. And she was just so heartbroken because she realized that that's the way my mom felt her whole life, that she just was not good enough. It breaks my heart. My mom just had no confidence in herself. No selfless. No, I'm worth it. I'm worth more than this. I deserve better than this. It truly was just ingrained in her. I don't feel like she felt she could do anything right. Anything by anyone. You know, she's getting it from her family and then she's getting it from my dad. Even just trying to think of how she felt like it throws me into a huge depression. How does anyone try to come out of that? I just I feel like my mom, she just felt like, you know, when it came to her family, there was like judgment. Try to put yourself in that position. And honestly, it makes me feel like I'm drowning. That's what that feels like. That's the thing I want everyone to understand. It doesn't matter about the life choices that she made, that she picked the wrong man or that she stayed too long with the wrong man or that she signed over rights to her kids. She's not on trial here. Can we at least bypass judgment in my mom being gone? You did plenty of that when she was here. She's not here anymore. Can we stop with that? I told you there's goodness in my dad. There was a whole lot of goodness in my mom. And she was a spitfire. She knew how she felt about things. And if she felt like you needed to know, you were going to know. But there was a lot of love in my mom. But I think, too, my mom was just lost. While Sarita's frustrations with her mom's family are valid, it's also understandable that they were worried about the safety of Joan and the kids. They wanted her to leave Gil. This is very common when someone is being abused by their partner. Those around them don't always understand why they haven't just left. But we know statistically that leaving an abuser is the most dangerous time. Ginny told us more about what she's learned about the abuse that Joan endured. We have always felt that Joan and Gil had a history of rather violent arguments. He did physically abuse her. That part is documented. She had been in and out of shelters and one thing and another and broken ribs and bruises and whatever. So, yes, he did physically abuse her up to that point. I all have thought, even from the very beginning, that if, in fact, he did kill her, it was an accident. I don't think that he premeditated, went out intentionally to do so. I just think that it got out of hand. This is my opinion. I don't have any idea. They had an argument or disagreement or whatever, and it got out of hand and he accidentally did it. And then, of course, went to cover it up. I don't think it was premeditated. And I think that in his mind, he's been able to convince himself that since it was an accident and he didn't mean to do it, he's not guilty. That brings us to the end of part one of Joan's story. In part two, we will take a deep dive into a timeline spanning over a decade of events in Gil's life. We will hear from Gil himself, more from Joan's family, and take a look at the theories into her disappearance. Be sure to check back tomorrow to hear the rest of Joan's story and where the case stands today. At the time of her disappearance, Joan Bernal was 34 years old. She was approximately 5 foot 2 inches tall and weighed around 140 pounds. If you have any information about the disappearance of Joan Bernal, please call the Will County Sheriff's Office at 815-727-8574. You can follow Developments in Joan's story on Facebook at Help Us Find Joan Bernal. He threatened her several times with death and that he would put her someplace where no one would ever find her. He threatened to put her in a barrel and bury it. So that's one thing that they were looking for, was where he could have buried a barrel. He threatened to put her in a 55-gallon drum and bury it. And maybe it's on his property in Mexico at all, but we've never been able to search that. Of course, nobody's found it, and if it's buried, God knows where it's at. You know, there could have been some sort of chemical inside the barrel that would, you know, destroy any evidence. I have no idea. But apparently he threatened to do that on more than one occasion. I just basically had to resolve myself to the fact that there was a good possibility that I would never see Gil or anyone arrested for this in my lifetime. And it wasn't up to me. It just wasn't up to me that, you know, I believe in karma, and I can't see how you can do something like this, whoever it was that did it, not be held accountable at some point. Maybe it will not happen while I'm here. Maybe it will not happen on this planet. Maybe it will not happen in his lifetime. But someday he will be held accountable for it, or that person will. So anyway, I have just decided it's not up to me. It's out of my hands. I love you. episode 251. I'd like to thank everyone who spoke with us for this story. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook. I'm on Twitter at The Vanished Pod and also on Instagram. If you enjoy this show, subscribe now and leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now. Do you want to help support the show? There are a couple things that you can do. One way to help The Vanished is by supporting our sponsors. You can find links and promo codes in the episode notes. Another way to support the show is by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes. Thanks for listening. follow the vanished on the audible app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to all episodes of the vanished ad-free by joining audible