What we suspected yet hoped not to be true has been confirmed. Thanks for the sad update. Prayers for the mother and other family members.
Well, there have been no arrests, but there are a number of developments today.
Rowan’s death has been confirmed as a homicide.
Spears claims he borrowed his mother’s Suburban because his truck was low on gas.
And from what she has said, it appears the mom blames Spears, although whether she thinks his responsibility was one of omission or commission is not clear.
Here are excerpts, mostly from joplinglobe.com:
Ford’s body was found in a sinkhole along a lonely gravel road that winds through wooded valleys east of Powell.
“If you didn’t know where the sinkhole is, you wouldn’t be able to see it even from the road,” said McDonald County Sheriff Don Schlessman.
NEOSHO, Mo. — Two McDonald County sheriff’s deputies found the body of a 9-year-old girl who disappeared last Friday night. At a news conference here on Friday morning, law officers said Deputy Mike Hall and Deputy Jake Boles took the initiative to search some areas that might make good hiding places for people or bodies. Boles knows the area and the sinkhole.
The deputies found the body of Rowan Ford about 8 a.m. Friday under a ledge in a 20-foot-deep sinkhole in eastern McDonald County. It was on private land near Powell, about 10 miles south of her hometown of Stella.
The Newton County sheriff says investigators are hoping to get an autopsy done yet today on the body of 9-year-old Rowan Ford, which was discovered this morning in a cave in McDonald County.
Sheriff Ken Copeland confirmed that the girl who disappeared from her home in Stella late Friday night or early Saturday morning was slain, although he has declined to say how, pending preliminary findings of an autopsy. He said the autopsy will be performed in Springfield.
The girl’s body had been removed by late morning from the place where it was found in a cave, or sinkhole, on Fox Road near Powell. McDonald County Sheriff Don Schlessman said two of his deputies found the body about 20 feet down in the hole on a ledge.
An FBI evidence response team has been processing the scene throughout the day.
“Everyone known to be in the house that day has been interviewed and given polygraph examinations,” Copeland told the Globe. “I can’t tell you the outcomes.”
He said those who took the exams were the girl’s mother, Colleen Spears; her stepfather, David Spears; his mother, whose vehicle he borrowed during the night; and the two male friends of the stepfather who were with him at the house Friday night. Copeland has described the stepfather as less than cooperative since early in the investigation but has declined to label him a suspect.
“She has never been, nor is she now, under any suspicion whatsoever,” Copeland said.
Both an old pickup truck belonging to David Spears, the stepfather of 9-year-old homicide victim Rowan Ford, and a Chevrolet Suburban belonging to his mother, were seized earlier this week and have been undergoing processing by crime-scene technicians at the Newton County Sheriff’s Department.
Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland declined to say what evidence, if any, has been recovered from the vehicles. But he said all evidence gathered in the case is being flown to the FBI’s crime lab in Quantico, Va.
Spears is known to have borrowed his mother’s Suburban to leave his residence about 1:30 a.m. Saturday. He was gone for five-and-a-half hours, during which time his mother reportedly watched television in the living room of his residence in Stella without ever checking on her step-granddaughter in her bedroom.
“He told us his truck was low on gas, which is why he called his mother to come over,” Copeland said. “He wanted to use her vehicle.”
The sheriff has declined to discuss in detail where Spears said he went or what he was doing all that time in his mother’s vehicle, except to say that he told them he took a drive “to clear his head.”
The mother of Rowan Ford said she is shocked by the discovery of the girl’s body today in a sinkhole in McDonald County.
“Grief is hitting. Anger is hitting. Everything is hitting at one time,” said Colleen Spears, Rowan’s mother.
Ford, 9, had been missing for nearly a week before investigators discovered her body early this morning near Powell.
“It’s unforgivable,” Colleen said, when asked about her husband, David Spears, Ford’s stepfather. “What he did cost her the rest of her life.”
Colleen Spears left home for work around 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 2. David Spears and two of his male friends reportedly were with Ford at the home until they left together around 10:45 p.m., leaving the sleeping girl unattended. David Spears returned to the house around midnight, but left again around 1 a.m. Saturday and was gone much of the rest of the night.
Newton County authorities said David Spears made a telephone call to his mother around 1 a.m., and she brought over a vehicle and stayed at the house while he was gone, but she said she never checked on the girl.
Colleen Spears found the girl missing when she returned home from work around 9 a.m. Saturday.