"Hello, little girl. Does your daddy have any cigars?"
Posted on 01/06/2003 6:30:26 AM PST by areafiftyone
(Mamaroneck-WABC, January 6, 2002) — Police departments are on a hunt for the man who's turned a simple phone call into a weapon to terrorize children. Over the past month, at least a dozen children home alone have gotten phone calls that threatened them and their families if they didn't obey the caller's perverse demands. Lisa Colagrossi reports.
This winter of holidays and sledding has been corrupted by fear in at least four Westchester towns.
The anonymous phone caller tells his young victims that he is watching their every move. Then he orders them to carry out a series of sexual acts.
Resident: "The caller states he's outside the house and if they do not perform these activities then he threatens them with violence."
Four or five children in Briarcliff Manor have gotten such calls and so have children in New Castle, Somers and Mamaroneck. School officials have sent-home letters, warning about the calls. But police don't think the caller is really outside the children's homes. Instead,he may be picking random numbers from the white pages and looking for children with no one else at home.
Mark Mattheys, Father: "It's awful and it terrifies the kids."
Children in New Castle and nearby communities were the targets of similar calls last winter. Police say the use of cell phones, calling cards and pre-paid cards makes it very hard to track this sort of crime.
Police do not have a suspect in this case and no children have been hurt throughout all of this. However, police say parents have to report any suspicious calls and they have to teach children how to handle threatening phone calls. The best defense rule is never tell a stranger that parents aren't home.
That's what answering machines are for!
Maybe this has somehow contributed to an increase in the number of occurances.
That's the first thing I thought of.
"Hello, little girl. Does your daddy have any cigars?"
"Maybe I'm just the big, bad wolf?..."
Gives me the creeps just thinking about it.
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