Focus on Search for Missing Child Continues [Rilya Wilson case to be on America's Most Wanted]

State of FL - www.myflorida.com ^ | May 10, 2002 | State of FL

[summer]

Focus on Search for Missing Child Continues

FLORIDA OFFICIALS CONTINUE TO FOCUS ON SEARCH FOR MISSING CHILD

--DNA Results Released: "Precious Doe" Not Rilya Wilson--

TALLAHASSEE- DNA test results released Friday by the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department confirm that "Precious Doe" is not Rilya Wilson. With this latest development, law enforcement is vigorously continuing the search for Rilya Wilson, the missing five year-old from Miami.

"Our heart goes out to those who loved Precious Doe and we continue to remain hopeful that little Rilya will be found," said Governor Jeb Bush. "We pledge our unwavering support to law enforcement working to get Rilya back."

"DCF is committed to working closely with the Miami-Dade Police Department and the various law enforcement personnel assigned to the case," said Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary Kathleen Kearney. "We will do everything possible to find this child."

Governor Bush and Sec. Kearney encourage Floridians and viewers across the nation to watch this Saturday's episode of America's Most Wanted. The episode will feature the case of Rilya Wilson. Viewers are urged to call their local law enforcement agency or America's Most Wanted with any information at 1-800-CRIME-TV.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the successful recovery of Rilya Wilson. For more information, please visit the FDLE website at:

www.fdle.state.fl.us

# # #

[summer]

For continued updates on this case from FL, check out FL's web site homepage headlines at www.myflorida.com

It seems Gov Bush is now taking more of a lead in providing information about this matter, which is good. And, reminder, America's Most Wanted, this Saturday, will feature the case.

[summer]

For index.

[summer]

FYI.

[summer]

FYI.

[summer]

FYI.

[PogySailor]

FYI: Local news reports are now coming out that the Police are finding holes in the "grandmothers" story. Stay tuned.

[summer]

That's what I was hearing too. Thanks for adding such news, as I meant to do so.

[summer]

FYI.

[I_be_tc]

Summer, I read your posts alot and really appreciate all of the work you do in keeping us all informed on Jeb, Janet and alot of other Florida issues.

This case just makes me want to cry every time I see any news on Rilya. Such a sad life and no one cares enough to have checked on this baby even after they "took her away(?)" (I would have been calling weekly to see when I would get my grandbaby back.) Even though I am happy it was not Rilya in KC, now there is another little one who has not been claimed. What a sad world!

Thanks, again, for these posts.

TC

[nunya bidness]

Reno jumped all over this one. Incredible. It even made the national news.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Reno jumped all over this one. Incredible. It even made the national news.

I am on the left coast, and am not up on this story. Sounds like a crime story. How is it that sterno and the dim ones are using this to attack the 'pubs?

[dalebert]

Glad to hear things are heating up on this case. It is a strange one. Many years ago a woman working for my mother was arrested for welfare fraud. She had 7 ss numbers and was claiming cousins and neighbors kids at 6 welfare offices. The cousins and neighbors were all sharing kids to collect checks. I think it was a multi state operation. I am hoping this case is simular and the little girl is safe.

[dalebert]

sterno and the dim ones may have created it. If not it still makes them pretty sick to use this case for politics.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

sterno and the dim ones may have created it. If not it still makes them pretty sick to use this case for politics.

Thanks. I checked further, and I believe you are correct. It's a case of bureaucratic bungling that is being spun by that amoral reno and the dims to create a desperately needed issue in the campaign against Jeb Bush. From where I sit, it ain't gonna work. The messeage from the dim ones is slowly losing favor.

And, there is no low place to which they will not prostrate themselves. It is good for the righteous that the dims are this desperate. My thoughts are with you as you fight the good fight. God bless.

[summer]

Re your question -- Read this, from the Palm Beach Post, for the Dem take on this matter.

[CurlyDave]

You have got to read the AP story on this which follows. The child was born in Hell.

I am especially impressed by the operation on the mother to improve the "air and blood flow to her brain". Clearly the air won out.

Although it would appear that the operation was needed because her sister ran her over in a rented van. Note that the mother then sued the rental company...

Friday, May 10, 2002 (AP)

MIAMI — The most recent caretakers for 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, who was missing for more than a year before anyone noticed, provided "deceptive answers" in polygraph tests, police said Friday.

Meanwhile, DNA tests ruled out a match between Rilya and a slain girl known as Precious Doe, Kansas City, Mo., police said Friday.

Geralyn Graham and her sister, Pamela Graham, both gave deceptive responses in a polygraph test administered earlier in the investigation, Miami-Dade County police spokesman Ed Munn said. Police would not disclose the questions, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.

"We can't take anybody at their word," said police director Carlos Alvarez.

Asked whether any charges were forthcoming, Alvarez said: "Everybody involved in this case is being investigated. Nobody is immune."

In Kansas City, police Capt. Cy Ritter said results from tests performed on saliva from Rilya's mother, Gloria Wilson, showed that a match with an unidentified girl found murdered there last year was "scientifically impossible."

DNA from the mother arrived in Kansas City on Monday, and tests were complete late Thursday, Ritter said.

Authorities had said Rilya had many similarities to Precious Doe, including their approximate ages, height, weight and body frame. Last week, police compared a palm print of Precious Doe to one provided by Rilya's caretakers. The prints didn't match, but police had said they would look to DNA tests to definitively rule out a match.

The mystery surrounding Precious Doe has transfixed Kansas City during the year since her body was found in a wooded area in the southern part of the city. The little girl had been beheaded.

Florida's Department of Children & Families lost track of Rilya in January 2001. Geralyn Graham, who claims to be her grandmother, and Pamela Graham say Rilya was removed from their home by a woman who said she was a DCF worker and was never returned. DCF skipped required monthly visits and reported her missing April 25.

The state had taken custody of Rilya when she was 5 weeks old because her mother was homeless and addicted to cocaine.

Nine months after Rilya's reported disappearance, Pamela Graham wrote a letter in a landlord-tenant dispute in which she said she was Geralyn Graham's guardian. She wrote that her sister "now suffers from dementia."

Pamela Graham wrote that the dementia was caused by a May 1996 car accident and "the numerous surgeries afterward, including one on her spine to try to allow her proper air and blood flow to her brain."

Ed Shohat, the Grahams' attorney, said Thursday that Geralyn Graham "is perfectly capable of normal activities."

He said she still has "mostly physical problems today" from the accident. Shohat said he has not been able to talk with her current doctor to get an updated assessment of any dementia.

Shohat said Pamela Graham is her sister's guardian for purposes of a Social Security disability application. He said the sisters would be unavailable for comment "for the next couple of days."

Pamela Graham wrote the letter in a lawsuit filed by their landlord seeking unpaid rent.

A psychologist concluded in another lawsuit that Geralyn Graham had suffered dementia, hallucinations and memory problems following the accident. Graham had sued Alamo Rent-A-Car in August 1996 for $2.5 million for injuries suffered when her sister ran over her with a rented van.

In an Aug. 12, 1997, video deposition in the Alamo lawsuit, Geralyn Graham said she does not remember her old jobs, being arrested in Tennessee for food stamp fraud or being married.

Court records in the Alamo case show that Geralyn Graham had at least 14 aliases, six driver's licenses and five Social Security numbers.

Rilya moved in with Graham after being removed from the home of Pamela Kendrick in April 2000. State officials had investigated allegations of abuse there in 1998 involving other children, but the inquiry was dropped, according to records.

Rilya was an infant in 1996 when the state placed her in the care of Kendrick, whom the child's mother had met while dating Kendrick's nephew.

"I was with her for the first three years of her life," Kendrick said Thursday. "I made it possible that she could have a normal life, because I cared for her as my own."

[summer]

I think what the Dem reaction shows, as they are speaking solely in terms of this election, is that they know Gov Bush has an outstanding record on children's issues, so they are especially eager to jump on anything which would diminish that record.

In my view, this does not play well for the Dems, because they do not seem to give a darn if this little girl is found or not, only whether they can use her as a campaign issue. That attitude does not appeal to my sensibilities. I find it disturbing. More compassion and caring, and a lot less politicizing, would be the appropriate tone in this matter.

[summer]

Thanks for posting that. Here's more:

Missing girl's caregiver had criminal past, mental illness

Sunday, May 5, 2002

By SABRA AYRES, Associated Press

MIAMI — A statewide background check of a caregiver did not show her criminal record when a girl now missing for 16 months was placed in her care, the head of Florida's child welfare agency said Saturday.

Kathleen Kearney, the secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, said that a check of Geralyn Graham showed no criminal record in Florida when the state gave her custody of Rilya Wilson in January 2000.

"It's not a perfect system," Kearney said at a downtown news conference. "We don't have access to all databases. We need to flesh it out and look at it more in depth at the federal and state level to get more access."

However, a court records check by The Miami Herald showed that Graham had used 20 different names in 20 years, was diagnosed with a "psychotic syndrome," was in a Tennessee prison for fraud and served five years probation for grand theft in Miami-Dade County.

Rilya was reported missing April 25 but had not been in Graham's custody since January 2001. Graham told police a woman from Children and Families took Rilya from her west Miami-Dade County home at that time.

Graham, listed in state documents as Rilya's paternal grandmother, said she hasn't seen Rilya since. The child is feared dead because police believe a beheaded body found last year in Kansas City, Mo., may match the missing Miami girl.

Rilya's mother, Gloria Wilson, lost custody of the child because of a drug addiction. She has said that Graham is the girl's godmother and that she met her after getting to know Graham's daughter in a drug treatment program.

Kearney, who arrived in Miami on Friday to head the investigation, said her agency could not have known about Graham's criminal past because, until 2001, it did not have access to the National Crime Information Center, a computerized index of criminal justice data.

The agency did run Graham's name through the state's criminal database, but Kearney said her record was "clean at the time of placement."

According to the court documents, the state placed Rilya in Graham's care six months after Dr. Steven D. Wheeler diagnosed Graham as having chronic pain and "a psychotic syndrome ... reminiscent of schizophrenia." The diagnosis was made after Graham was involved in a 1996 car accident, the Herald reported Saturday.

Graham did not immediately return calls seeking comment Saturday.

Graham's condition was likened to a form of psychosis, her lawyer, Edward Shohat, said Saturday. She was never diagnosed with schizophrenia, he said.

Her condition is being used to deflect attention away from the dysfunction of the Department of Children and Families, Shohat said.

"Ms. Graham does not have mental problems," Shohat said. "You're talking about a woman who has raised 11 children successfully. None of that has anything to do with her ability to raise a child or with the child that is missing."

Graham, under the name Gerrilyn Savage, served time in a Tennessee prison for food stamp fraud.

Graham said she had used several aliases in a 1986 disabilities application she filled out while imprisoned in Tennessee. Graham petitioned the court for clemency from her sentence, saying she had "serious disabling and physical injuries."

She also was arrested five times between 1980 and 1983 for writing bad checks and grand theft, records show.

Shohat said Graham "used identities" about 30 years ago to hide from an abusive boyfriend. He said he did not know of Graham's criminal past other than the Tennessee case.

"There was a period in her life where she had some problems, but she acknowledged them and she didn't hide anything from the DCF," Shohat said.

Kearney would not comment on Graham's criminal record or medical history other than to say the state records check turned up clean.

Graham's grandson, Jason Epson, was also questioned by Miami-Dade police this week, Shohat said. Epson wasn't living with his grandmother at the time of Rilya's disappearance

Police also have questioned the father of the missing child, Kenneth Epson, as well as Graham's sister, Pamela Graham, Shohat said....[Precious Doe paragraph; potential match? [No])

Although no specific evidence of Rilya's death has been found, a team from the Miami-Dade Police Homicide unit has joined the investigation, said state attorney's spokesman Ed Griffith.

[CurlyDave]

Just unravelling the names & relationships in this could take the entire surface of my kitchen table.

The first issue of accountability should be why the State of Florida would place a child with any of these characters.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

summer,

RE: Re your question -- Read this, from the Palm Beach Post, for the Dem take on this matter.

Thanks. As I expected, this a case of gov't bungling. Child care agencies are very prone to this kind of bungling, due I believe to their liberal predilection -- OK to place children with deviants, etc.

Hope the child is found to be alright.

And hope that somehow, child care gets on track. But aint going to happen until responsibility is wrested from the government.

But don't think this will harm Bush. IMHO. People generally understand these events.

Wouldn't want any child within 25 yards of reno.