Carlos Lopez, a 6-foot private investigator with a disarming smile, and his partner Sheila Suderwalla sit at a computer side by side, scouring court records, police files, motor vehicle records, occupancy permits and mug shots — any clue that would lead them to a woman named Karen.
Karen is not a wanted criminal. And the partners are not looking to solve a crime.
Suderwalla, a petite social worker with a driven passion for the underdog, and Lopez are on the trail of something far more elusive: a lost relative with a heart big enough and bloodlines strong enough to change the life of a 15-year-old foster child.
Her name is Lisa, and she feels as if she has nobody.
Lisa doesn't know it yet, but she is at the center of a groundbreaking $2 million federally funded St. Louis program called Extreme Recruitment, one of the first programs in the nation that partners social workers with private investigators in a gumshoe effort to reunite foster children with long-lost family members.
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