A Brush Creek vigil mourns grandmother’s tragic end

A woman unlikely to wander out on her own, or to make it very far, disappears. A month later, a body turns up in Brush Creek. Then the confirmation that it was her, Inous “Sookie” Revels, found and now truly gone.

Some 150 people gathered beneath sunny skies to hold hands, hug, pray and see if together they might begin to make sense of a death that’s so perplexing.

“She was loved by many,” said her oldest son, Alonzo Revels. “We miss her.”

Although police have said there were no obvious signs of foul play in the death, the AdHoc Group Against Crime organized Saturday’s vigil to grieve with the family and pray for answers.

Inous Revels, a 63-year-old grandmother, had been impaired by a stroke about a year ago. She didn’t drive and never left the home without her sister or a neighbor friend. Until she did, on Jan. 13. Family and friends canvassed the neighborhood, looking any place they thought she might end up. Nothing.

Then, exactly a month after she disappeared, her body was found floating in Brush Creek, much farther from her home near 51st Street and Woodland Avenue than those who knew her could imagine her walking.

“That leaves the family with a lot of unanswered questions and a whole lot of grief,” said Damon Daniel, AdHoc’s president. “It’s hard for them to understand what happened.”

She was a Kansas Citian all her life, attended Lincoln High School and nurtured the sort of admiration that can draw so many people to the banks of Brush Creek to bow heads together. Friends talked about her as the short woman with a big heart who spoiled the neighborhood children with candy and Popsicles.

“I know this is a very difficult time, to say the least,” Daniel told those at the vigil. “It’s OK to cry.”

Anyone with information should call the Tips Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (816-474-8477).

This story was originally published February 18, 2017 at 4:17 PM with the headline "A Brush Creek vigil mourns grandmother’s tragic end."