Parents’ sole focus: solving the mystery of their son’s death

It’s been just over two months since 23-year-old Dane Williams’ body was found wrapped in a blanket in a San Diego alley. Dealing with the death of a child is wrenching enough by itself and certainly takes longer than two months.

But Valen and Jim Williams of Huntington Beach have an additional task that, for now, also consumes them: finding out how their son died.

Solving the mystery is of utmost importance to the Williams family, so Valen is willing to take on the tough duty of once again talking about her son’s death. Instead of grieving privately, the unanswered questions force her to continue talking about her son -- if only to keep the momentum going, perhaps to shake something loose that’s not yet known.

“If we don’t keep this going, nobody else will,” she says. “The [San Diego police] detectives have been very good, but after the forensics tests come out and if nothing is found, we’re hiring a private investigator.”

The family calls the detectives every day, she says. “I’m sure I’m bugging them, but they reassure me he’s still their No. 1 priority down there.”

I ask how she’s holding up emotionally. “I don’t even know how I’m doing,” she replies. “When I’m talking to you about it, I feel like I’m a third person, not really talking. It’s surreal. I know that word is so overused, but your stomach feels like it’s been punched every day; that wave, the minute you wake up, it starts all over again, a thousand things go through your mind. I’m lucky I have a good marriage and a great daughter. But it’s tough.”

Dane was attending a San Diego convention with colleagues from Hurley International, a Costa Mesa clothing company that caters to the skateboard and surfer set. After hanging out with friends in the popular Gaslamp Quarter in downtown San Diego, he left a bar alone early Saturday morning, Jan. 26, but didn’t show up later that morning when the group reconvened.

The following Tuesday, his body was found some seven miles from where his friends last saw him. It had been rolled inside a blanket. His face showed scrapes, but Valen says that “there were no obvious signs he’d been beaten up. No bruising, no strangulation.” Authorities said that doesn’t rule out foul play, such as suffocation, she says, but there is no official cause of death at the moment.

Williams had enough alcohol in his blood to be considered intoxicated, but the only drugs were a trace amount of quinine (found in tonic water) and such a small amount of Valium that it wasn’t considered an indicator of abuse. Williams hadn’t taken the van he drove for the company to the Gaslamp Quarter, and authorities surmise he was killed and then driven to the alley where his body was left.

Jim Williams went to San Diego right away, to try to retrace his son’s final hours and to meet with police. Valen waited a few days to join him and learned that Dane’s body had been found while she was en route.

Over the years, she’s watched TV coverage of other families whose children had disappeared or been killed. She would cry for the families, she says, wondering how they could hold up.

With the tragedy now at her doorstep, she found herself saying, “This is me? This is my family?”

Ever since, the family’s sadness has been coupled with a steely crime-solver mode. “I hope they know more than they’re telling us,” Valen says of the police.

“I also learned this is not TV, it’s not ‘CSI.’ We don’t find out in an hour. Everything takes time. I wanted answers right away.”

Conventional wisdom says the early going is crucial for solving crimes. But the Williamses, whose daughter is 21, haven’t despaired of finding the culprits. They assume more than one person was involved if only because of what it would take to tote Dane’s 180-plus pounds.

But the questions arise: How long will they devote to the case? Months? Years? Will it come to define their lives?

“I don’t think we’ve put a time frame on it,” Valen says. “It’s still too new. We’re still waiting for some test results. I don’t know when that time is to stop. I know you have to. We have a daughter to consider. She deserves a quote-unquote normal life. So there has to be a time frame, but we don’t know when it is right now.”

And, of course, the pain remains. Jim has gone back to work, but Valen hasn’t. She still winces at the daily reminders of Dane, which come unannounced and make normal life still a hoped-for event in the future.

It states the obvious to say the Williams family had one kind of life two months ago and now has another. A healthy, family-oriented son who loved his Hurley internship and who may have found his niche in life suddenly was being buried.

“I really understand now what closure means,” Valen says, realizing her family doesn’t yet have it. “Finding out -- because at that point, you can start to grieve. We haven’t had that chance. We’re fighting to find out what happened, in Dane’s name. Twenty-seven thousand people were at that convention. He didn’t come home, and we don’t know why.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.