Posted on 09/27/2002 1:29:50 PM PDT by antivenom
Just heard on the top of the hour news...that the little girl turned over to the foster family MAY not be her daughter!
SO where is the little beaten up Toogood girl?
Could she have "borrowed" one from another Irish Travelor?
Four year olds may be young, but they can talk and understand things to a certain degree.
As for being another traveler child, who would give up their own child?
Maybe just maybe, this kid was kidnapped from somewhere else.
Remember after the beating she LEFT Indiana, drove to Maryland and then to New Jersey...and NO bruises on the child.....
Bet she swapped a kid until things "blew over"...
Nothing about the child abuse case that occurred in the Mishawaka Kohl's parking lot has been simple. While the video is shocking and Madelyne Toogood has admitted she was wrong, new twists continue in the case.
Identity is complex issue for investigators
Part of the struggle for investigators is the society in which this family lives. The culture of the Irish Travelers has made the basic question of identity hard to answer. From the very beginning identity was an issue. When police first released the video they didn't release a name because they questioned the name they were given.
"It is typical for family members and for all the travelers to give false names. It is also typical for a traveler to take on another name or another identity of another family member," says Don Wright, an expert on Irish Travelers. "There could be ten different Johnny Toogoods out there," says Wright. He says that it is all part of the culture. That has made this investigation even tougher. John Toogood sat at the Mishawaka Police Department for hours while investigators checked his background, a check that involved several other names.
Husband has many aliases
"I had a warrant," explains Detective Matt Austin of the Bristol, Tennessee Police Department. "Basically, the name was John Gannon, or A.K.A, James Gorman. I thought he looked or fit the description of Mr. Toogood,"says Detective Austin. While fingerprints cleared him of charges associated with that warrant, police believe John Toogood is the Johny Lark who plead guilty to felony theft in Philadelphia in 1998.
Spanish newspaper throws in a twist
Adrian Villalobos is a reporter for Voz Latinas A new article on the identity of Madelyne and her daughter was recently published in the Voz Latina, a Spanish language newspaper published in Michiana. The reporter interviewed a man who says that the Madelyne and Martha Toogood we know are not the same mother and daughter in the video. "He says he's pretty much involved in a high level with the real mother of the girl," explains Adrian Villalobos, a reporter for Voz. "He says he knows where they are but he refuses to give me that information for now," explains Villalobos.
The premise behind a deception of this type would be that the daughter brought in to police earlier this week is different than the one shown in the video. That child would not have shown the signs of abuse that the child in the surveillance tape apparently sustained. It is a bizarre question of identity and at this point the prosecutor will only say that the investigation is ongoing. Obviously verifying the identity of individuals in question is part of the investigation.
With every twist and turn of this story, NewsCenter16 will continue to investigate
MISHAWAKA, Ind. -- Could it be that the girl who was placed in foster care in Indiana isn't the same one who was seen on videotape being beaten in a department store parking lot?
Police are looking into that. A statement from a police investigator says some members of the public are concerned that police don't have the right child -- or the right mother, for that matter.
Last weekend, Madelyne Gorman Toogood surrendered to police in the company of a girl she identified as her 4-year-old daughter, Martha.
Because of the questions being raised about the child's identity, police are asking for footprint records that were taken after Toogood's daughter was born.
Toogood's attorney said it's "the craziest thing in the world" to suggest that police have the wrong woman and child.
Steven Rosen says, "That's the mother, and that's the daughter."
Toogood is facing a felony charge of battery to a child.
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