Posted on 02/25/2005 8:26:18 AM PST by varina davis
Search intensifies for missing Citrus County girl
Friday, February 25, 2005
Over 100 federal, state and local law officers are taking part, as the search for Jessica Lunsford continues.
The 9-year-old was last seen about 10 p.m. Wednesday. That's when authorities said her grandparents put her to bed in their Homosassa home.
They said her father Mark, who also lives there, returned home early Thursday to find her missing.
Today, authorities are beefing up the search for Lunsford.
"We've activated the CART Team which is the Child Abduction Response Team from the Tampa area," Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsey said. "We expect 20 to 25 additional investigators to hit the ground."
Search crews scoured the area around Lunsford's home Thursday using bloodhounds and helicopters.
Dawsey said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is also getting involved.
He said even though family members are not suspected in Lunsford's disappearance, investigators interviewed them Thursday.
The search continued Thursday for Lunsford. "We're going through some basic investigation with them and we'll bring them back," Dawsey said. "Guess the real reason is we're looking at all avenues right now. It does not mean they're suspects by any means, but it was a very unique way the girl went missing and I'm not going to leave any stone unturned."
Lunsford is described as four-feet-ten-inches tall, weighing about 70 pounds with light brown shoulder length hair and brown eyes.
She was last seen wearing a pink nightgown and white silk shorts.
Meanwhile, Lunsford's father Mark and her granparents Ruth and Archie Lunsford held a news conference this morning pleading for her return.
"I ask you to please help me find my daughter and bring her home," Mark Lunsford said.
He also said his daughter has been with him since she was one-year-old and the last whereabout of her [Jessica] mother was in Ohio.
If you see Lunsford or know anything about her disappearance, call the sheriff's office at 352-726-1121 or call 911.
Look, I'm not going to argue that there isn't such a thing as a statistical anomaly.
On the other hand, we don't stop the presses every time a child is struck dead by a bolt of lightning, or drowns in a bathtub, or gets run over by a Mack truck. [And no one in this country seems to give a damn that a child is murdered in its mother's womb about once every thirty seconds].
But every time I see one of these child abduction stories, I just get the sense that they don't feel right. In the Danielle van Dam case, you had the parents smoking marijuana at sex parties, and the Mom flirting at night clubs with the guy who eventually murdered her daughter. In the Elizabeth Smart case, you must have had something really screwy going on in the Smart family for that girl to choose life as some sort of a sex slave in a homeless guy's paranoid delusional fantasy of a religious movement over returning to life with her own family [she had multiple, documented opportunities to make a run for it, yet she consistently chose not to].
He has a point about the family, but I'll put my two cents worth in- As a parent, you HAVE to tell children there are bad people and this is what they will do. Young girls are impressionable and easily swayed.If you shelter them and sing kumbaya or whatever and tell them everybody's a good person inside you end up with a situation like the Utah case. Kids have to know the facts of life- that there are killers out there. The other day I saw a 12-14 yr old girl standing in the roadway waving her arms at passing cars screaming- "give me a ride!" You have to wonder how more kids aren't abducted.
Sorry so slow to respond....have been away from computer. Fox didn't say where in Ohio, but I found this:
Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy told reporters Friday that the girl's mother, Angie Lunsford, had been located in Ohio and was being interviewed by the FBI. He said there were no suspects or even firm evidence that a kidnapping had occurred.
Lunsford was found in Warren County in southwest Ohio, sheriff's Lt. Jerry Mays said. Cincinnati FBI spokesman Michael Brooks confirmed FBI involvement in the case, but declined to give details.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10984417.htm?1c
You're welcome!
Absolutely heartbreaking. I don't suppose this little girl got up and wondered out on her own. Whatever happened I hope the authorities find her soon safe and sound.
The question isn't why she went with him; the question is: Why did she stay with him?
And, on a possibly related note, the other question would be: Why did her idiot father ever let the nutjob "handyman" come within a country mile of her and her sister?
Wow, what a beautiful world we live in today. It's a wonder any parent in this country gets any sleep if they're so worried about society that they have to lock their kid up like Fort Knox when they go to bed. I guess letting the kid walk to school would be out of the question, too. Instead, parents should send their child to school in the back of an armored truck with at least two armed guards who are not named Michael Jackson.
Even after Elizabeth was found alive, I was still running into whining liberals on various message boards who blamed her parents for her abduction because they had hired homeless people to work at their house when kids were around.
Liberals need to make up their minds. Either we're supposed to be nice to homeless people and give them opportunities to pull themselves up, or we're not. Either it's good to be compassionate to those who are less fortunate, or it's not.
Maybe liberals just piled up on the Smart family because they're Mormon. We'll probably see the same crowd trying to smear Mitt Romney when he runs for president.
Elizabeth Smart did what it took to stay alive. She could've made a run for it. However, if she had chosen the wrong time or the wrong circumstance, she could've ended up with a knife in her back or a bullet hole in her head. Instead, according to her father who was on TV tonight, she's playing the harp and happily living the rest of her life. Good for her! She truly is a smart girl.
I don't believe Elizabeth had many - if any - chances to escape in the first few days when she was tied up in the hills behind her neighborhood. I believe that's when the raping began and the twisted "marriage ceremony" was imposed. For you to have the indecency to suggest Elizabeth chose to be the guy's sex slave just indicates to me there's something "really screwy" going on in your mind.
...the other question would be: Why did her idiot father ever let the nutjob "handyman" come within a country mile of her and her sister?
Every single day in this country we hear about teachers or bus drivers who turn out to be nutjobs and harm children. Should we expect every single parent out there to run background checks on each teacher, substitute teacher, school janitor and bus driver their child comes in contact with? Should we blame the parents for trusting the school district?
Bill Clinton was a nutjob who raped Juanita Broaddrick back in Arkansas. He was the state's Attorney General at the time. Should we blame Arkansas voters for the rape, since they voted him into office? Should we blame Juanita Broaddrick for inviting the creep to her room where she thought they would be discussing issues related to her nursing home business?
Maybe we ought to blame the criminal bastards and just leave it at that. There are a lot of people out there who may appear to be nutjobs, but aren't. Then there are a lot of people who look completely normal on the outside, but in reality they are psychos.
Here's my take on it, for what it's worth. I think whoever took the girl lives in the neighborhood, possibly a friend of the family. Or perhaps someone from the church they attend. (Example, the BTK killer who they just caught was very active and had a position in his local Lutheran Church.) I also think whoever did it could very possibly have known that the father wouldn't be there that night (he was going out with his sidekicks to party and didn't get home until about 6 am). Thus his not being there provided a good window of opportunity for the snatcher, knowing only the grandparents were in there and probably wouldn't notice or hear an abductor. Plus I think one of the family accidentally left a door or window unlocked that the abductor came in through. To stretch it a bit, if the abductor had been inside their home (as a handyman, friend, etc.), he/she could have intentionally unlocked a window on the QT. However, that's a bit of an assumption there. Well, hope they find the little girl. It doesn't pay these days to be an attractive little girl. Sad but true.
I might add that the perp could have tapped on her window and said "open the door". So she grabbed her doll baby and walked to the front door and opened it.
It could have been a boy she rode the school buss with, who knew the father wasn't home. Someone she knew and who knew the Dad wasn't home. Someone on foot.
Something else is nagging at me. Yesterday the Dad seemed to leave me with the impression that the Mother was a non existent factor in Jessica's life. But this morning, the distraught Mom said she spoke with the little girl every week on the phone. I don't get it?
sw
Another relative besides the dad told Greta that the mom did not recognize a picture of Jessica when the FBI showed her one. So the relative concluded from this, and other inside info she supposedly has, that the mother is a dead end. Of course, the mother could have been pretending.
Time will tell.
It is so heartbreaking.
What a shining-light persona little Jessica has!
There are 10 Pedophiles who live in and around the neighborhood. TEN!
My instincts are screaming that the perp lives in and around the neighborhood and knew the father wasn't home.
I don't think the poor child is alive :~(
sw
Registered sex offenders, is what I heard. Does not mean all Pedophiles, but almost certainly some. Also this...someone said the dad was out partying with buddies. What about one of the buddies not making it to the night out, instead taking advantage that he was not home. Tapping on her window...maybe someone she knew well, telling that her dad needed her because he forgot his key and couldn't open the door, or he's sick or something. So she opens the door and he claps a hanky with drugs on it over her nose and mouth, or some such and makes off with her. The very thought leaves me so angry, I can't express it.
I'm positive law enforcement is working every angle we've thought of. At least I hope so...
sw
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