Posted on 11/08/2007 3:34:54 PM PST by McCoMo
9-year-old Stella girl missing
By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
STELLA, Mo. — Law officers and volunteers spent several hours Sunday searching in vain for a 9-year-old girl who disappeared from her home in Stella late Friday or early Saturday.
Rowan Ford was last seen inside her home at 777 Grove St. about 10:45 p.m. Friday, Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said. She is the daughter of Colleen Spears and stepdaughter of David Spears, and is a fourth-grader at Stella Elementary School, Copeland said.
Investigators found no signs of a crime scene at the Spears residence, and no charges had been filed by Sunday night in the missing-person case, the sheriff said.
“But we have every reason to believe there is foul play involved,” Copeland said.
He said the girl’s mother left the house about 8:30 p.m. Friday to go to work at the Wal-Mart store in Purdy. She told investigators that her daughter was getting ready to go to bed at the time, the sheriff said.
Copeland said the stepfather and two of his male friends were with the girl at the home until they decided to go out together about 10:45 p.m. The stepfather told investigators that he looked in on the girl in her bedroom before leaving, and she was asleep.
David Spears did not return to the house until sometime around midnight, when one of his friends dropped him off, the sheriff said. Copeland said Spears told investigators that he did not check on Rowan again before going to bed.
The sheriff said the girl was discovered missing when her mother returned home from work about 9 a.m. Saturday.
“Her daughter didn’t greet her like she normally does,” Copeland said. “So she went to her room, and she wasn’t there.”
The mother then woke up the stepfather, and he told her he did not know where the girl was, the sheriff said. The stepfather later told the mother that Rowan might have half-awakened him during the night and mentioned something about going to a friend’s place, but he could not be certain because he is a sound sleeper, the sheriff said.
Copeland said the house apparently was left unlocked throughout the night. He said the Spearses spent the better part of Saturday looking for Rowan at various acquaintances’ places in the Stella area before reporting her missing to the Sheriff’s Department at 6:50 p.m.
Investigators canvassed Stella for witnesses who might have seen any suspicious people or vehicles during the night and came up empty, Copeland said. He said they also checked for registered sex offenders living in the vicinity and did not find any.
Law officers and volunteers combed some woods near the girl’s home Sunday on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles. A Missouri State Highway Patrol helicopter aided the search effort from above.
Copeland said the girl’s mother has been in shock.
“She’s very upset,” he said. “She’s been very cooperative with us. She doesn’t know where her little girl is.”
Copeland described the stepfather as “less than cooperative.” He said Spears later acknowledged to investigators that he left the home a second time during the night.
Copeland said Spears made a phone call to his mother sometime after 1 a.m. Saturday and asked to use her vehicle. She took it to him about 1:30 a.m. and stayed at his house while he left in the vehicle for about 5 1/2 hours, the sheriff said. The stepgrandmother told investigators that she never checked on Rowan while she was there watching television in the living room, he said.
The sheriff declined to say what Spears said he was doing while he had his mother’s vehicle.
The stepfather and mother could not be reached for comment Sunday night.
Description Investigators are uncertain what 9-year-old Rowan Ford may have been wearing when she disappeared. She is described as being just under 4 feet tall and weighing 62 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes. A photograph of her was released to the media on Sunday.
BTTT
I wonder if her stepfather has a prior criminal (sexual assault) record?
maybe i should have said "stupid mothers". is that better? 9 year olds do not put themselves in the position to be victims. they are put in that position. and yes, it is usually by mothers with boyfriends or new marriages. just because something isn't pleasant to hear doesn't mean it is not true...
i'm glad YOU may have had a great experience with a step-father. too many kids haven't.
No, it was a thread about a cow falling off a cliff onto a minivan..............
I was thinking that myself. That he was to run to get her *something*. Being he is onlyl 25, his mom may only be 43 or something. Wouldn’t be too hard to believe. I have known of plenty of dope/methhead 40 something’s. Sad as that is.
Search for missing girl is over. Her body has been found, as I understand it, about 10 miles from home.
Which means Rowan is buried somewhere within a radius of about a 2-hour drive.
Missing Mo. girl found dead
By Marcus Kabel
ASSOCIATED PRESS
11/09/2007
OZARK, Mo. (AP) — A 9-year-old southwest Missouri girl missing for a week was found dead Friday in a sinkhole in eastern McDonald County, a law enforcement official said.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities had not yet made an official announcement, said the body of Rowan Ford was found on private land near Powell, about 10 miles south of the girl’s hometown of Stella, a village of about 200 people.
Rowan was reported missing Saturday after her mother, Colleen Spears, returned home from a night shift at a Wal-Mart in a nearby town and couldn’t find her daughter. Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, told investigators he last saw the girl asleep in her room around 10:45 p.m. Friday before he left her alone and went out with friends.
Colleen and David Spears spent much of the day looking for Rowan at the homes of acquaintances where they thought the girl might have gone, then reported the girl missing at 6:50 p.m.
Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland has said David Spears told authorities that he left the girl alone when he went out on Friday night and did not check on her after his friends dropped him off at midnight.
Spears also later told authorities that he called his mother sometime after 1 a.m. Saturday and asked to use her vehicle, Copeland has said. She took it to him about half an hour later, then stayed at his house while her son left in her vehicle for about 5 1/2 hours, Copeland has said. Copeland also has said that Spears has not been able to explain what he did in those 5 1/2 hours.
Spears, who has been staying with his parents, has said it was wrong for him to have left the girl alone.
Damn.
Yes, huge red flags with his story. Left the little girl alone, left door unlocked at night, less than cooperative. And now the little girl has been found murdered. Sad.
I agree. MSM has remained silent on this story while repeated the same information about many other stories, some of the so trivial it is odd they get covered.
Our society seems to be breeding more and more unsavory types who are kidnapping and murdering children. And, of course, it is mainly men. (The women seem to be teachers who commit crimes of using kids for sexual thrills to satisfy their self-esteem problems, but they don't murder them.) And it seems all these characters obviously have low self-esteem and "control" issues. For some reason they seem to need to get their thrills overpowering the weak (mostly children, sometimes elderly, or vunerable women alone). Every one of them who has been caught has a history of crime, drugs, drifting, or mental problems. What happened to cause so many of these men to be so afflicted and so frighteningly off-balance? Why are we are raising so many of this type of person who does not have any self-control and respect for the life of another, let alone developing themselves into adults with any noteable worth? Was it their parents who caused them to turn out like this? Their environment? Did they have some un-diagnosed emotional problems as children that were not addressed? Did it start with drugs and the "do it if it feels good" lifestyle that so many seem to believe in? What leads all these maniacs to behave this way?
It is becoming so prevalent, that it is almost commonplace and people are getting oblivious to the horror of these crimes. There is hardly a week that goes by without hearing about another. This is the terrorism I am worried about that is becoming more rampant.
We can only pray that this poor child did not endure a lot of suffering. Bless her soul which is now in Heaven where she is finally safe and in the loving arms of our Lord.
I agree with how you feel. Not sure I know what exactly is the cause, but I have a couple things I believe about it.
For instance, after Columbine we had all these left wing nutjobs screaming about how we need more gun control and so on. The thing is, when I was a kid we had all the problems the kids have now. Cliques. Bullying and teasing. And as for guns.. hell they were more available then than now. Where I grew up, virtually everyone had guns leaned up in a corner by the back door and loaded. But we did not have such things as Columbine happening. Why? The only difference I can see is that, while we had all of the same things we also had one other thing that the kids today do not. We had prayers in schools. We had education that reinforced the idea that life is sacred. I can tell ya, when I was a kid, I was an outsider, bullied, and so forth. I admit there were times I had my little fantasies about bringing a gun and to “Make them pay”. It was not fear of the law which stopped me... it was fear of HELL.
Nowadays, schools and society are doing their damndest to teach kids there is no “Good or Evil” and that there is no God. And if there is no God, nothing can be said to be to be sacred.. not even human life.
Logan’s Prayer Warriors....a SAD update in #88....
“The stepfather later told the mother that Rowan might have half-awakened him during the night and mentioned something about going to a friend’s place, but he could not be certain because he is a sound sleeper, the sheriff said.”
Riiight. Your 9 YO stepdaughter wakes you up in the middle of the night to say she’s stepping out and you let her go?
Bingo!
“She took it to him about half an hour later, then stayed at his house while her son left in her vehicle for about 5 1/2 hours,...”
Did she check in on her stepgrandaughter in those 5 1/2 hours?
Get 2 ropes!
I have spoken to the mother, and she is absolutely devastated. She basically kicked the so-called step-dad out shortly after the girl disappeared.
OK......I’m sorry.....she’s not seen this thread, has she? If so, I’ll have my post pulled.
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