Posted on 04/30/2003 6:27:07 PM PDT by JustPiper
Everyone wondered about the little boy who panhandled into the night outside a 7-Eleven in West Rogers Park.
The boy with the filthy clothes whose pants were cinched with a plastic shopping bag.
The boy with the rotten front teeth, the speech impediment and the foul mouth who went door to door begging for food in shoes too big for his feet.
Eli, as the boy called himself, always seemed adrift. Now authorities think they know why.
State and federal investigators are trying to confirm whether Eli is really Tristen Alan Myers, a 6-year-old who disappeared in October 2000 from Roseboro, N.C., where he was living with a great aunt and uncle.
The FBI late Tuesday night questioned a man who identified himself as Eli's father and who had been living with the boy on the North Side until child welfare officials took the child into custody earlier this year, suspecting abuse.
As he was led into an FBI van, Ricky Quick insisted he had not abducted the boy. "I did not take him from North Carolina," Quick told WMAQ-Channel 5. "I brought him up ever since he was born."
Quick came to the attention of authorities on Feb. 3 when he brought the boy to an Evanston hospital and asked that he be evaluated for "aggressive behavior." The hospital called a state child welfare hotline after officials suspected he might be an abuse victim.
That night, the state Department of Children and Family Services took the boy into protective custody.
The next day, Quick, 33, was arrested on a warrant for attempting to obtain a refund for a stolen coffee maker on Dec. 9 at a Cub Foods store in Chicago. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months' supervision. Quick was not seen again until Chicago FBI officials located him at his mother's home Tuesday night and questioned him about the boy.
Meanwhile, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was contacted when the boy could not answer simple questions about his background. The center compared the boy's picture to a database of missing children and contacted authorities in North Carolina about a potential match with Tristen.
In April, the Sampson County, N.C., sheriff's office showed a photo of "Eli" to John and Donna Myers, the relatives who were caring for Tristen in North Carolina when he disappeared, last seen walking out the door of the family's home to play with his two dogs.
"They thought it was a strong possibility it was him," said a family friend, Jackie Cox.
Tristen's mother, Raven Myers, was even more confident the boy is her son. ''I think it's him,'' Myers told reporters in North Carolina. ''Just looking at the facial features, they say he's got a lisp, I've got a lisp. It's just weird."
Laboratory Corporation of America in Burlington, N.C., will compare a blood sample taken from Tristen's mother with scrapings from Eli's mouth to see if there is a DNA match, said Sgt. Darold Cox of the Sampson County sheriff's office.
Asked why authorities don't just fly Raven Myers to Illinois to see if she can identify him, Darold Cox said, "I am discouraging her from disrupting his life if it is not him."
If DNA tests confirm the boy is Tristen, the FBI may consider kidnapping charges, Special Agent Ross Rice said.
Tristen's saga began in Ocean Springs, Miss., where his mother, a 15-year-old stripper, gave birth on July 16, 1996.
The state of Mississippi would not allow Raven Myers to take custody of the infant because she was considered a child, too.
So her mom, Sally Myers, took custody.
"The child was raised as her younger brother in a sense," Jackie Cox said. "She did not have any responsibility for him."
Sally Myers became terminally ill, and little Tristen was placed in foster care. He bounced from home to home in Louisiana. Eventually, Sally Myers decided her brother John and his wife, Donna, should bring up the boy in North Carolina, and they accepted.
John Myers, a trucker, picked up Tristen in Louisiana in a tractor-trailer. The toddler rode in the passenger seat, which is called the "buddy seat" in the business.
Soon, little Tristen was dubbed "Buddy," and the nickname stuck.
Growing up in North Carolina, Tristen did not see much of his mother, who lived with her father and continued to strip for a living, according to her family.
Raven and her aunt and uncle have not been in touch very often during his disappearance and possible recovery.
"Donna and John have not spoken to Raven in recent weeks and do not have her telephone number," Jackie Cox said. "She does not call here."
Some of the problems seen in Tristen in North Carolina also have been seen in "Eli," according to Cox and an Illinois DCFS report.
For instance, both appear to have some form of attention deficit disorder, and neither was able to say his ABCs or count to 10. Both also have unique scars.
All that is left is a DNA match, which the Myerses hope will happen soon.
"Donna lives and breathes this child," Jackie Cox said. "They love Tristen. They want him home."
Residents of West Rogers Park, meanwhile, said they believe a better life may be ahead for the boy who had to bathe at neighbors' houses. He never went to school and some neighbors said they tried to teach him how to read.
"The kid didn't even have underwear," said neighbor Karen Allen, 40. "This is terrible. This is terrible. I used to feed the little boy. They had no cooking gas. They had no refrigerator that worked. They had nothing."
Several neighbors said they called the DCFS hotline, but it was unclear if the agency made any visits.
Quick, a mechanic, was evicted from a one-bedroom basement apartment in the 2600 block of West Estes in November after a landlord complained he was not receiving rent, said Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for the Cook County sheriff's office. The apartment was filthy, sheriff's deputies reported.
A DCFS report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times said investigators could not confirm where Eli was born or even who his mother was. The Feb. 28 report--completed after DCFS officials were contacted by St. Francis Hospital in Evanston on Feb. 3--said Eli could not remember the last time he bathed or changed clothes, and that his socks were stuck to his feet and had to be peeled off.
Quick told investigators he cared for Eli alone since the death of Eli's mother, Sharon Smith, in a car crash in May 2002 in Colorado that injured Quick and Eli.
A DCFS investigator "became suspicious when Eli spoke of different mommies," Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy wrote to DCFS Director Bryan Samuels in a letter Tuesday. Eli does not appear in public aid records for Quick's family in 1999 and 2000--adding to questions about the boy's background, the DCFS report said.
Donna and John Myers have no knowledge of Raven Myers having a relationship with Quick, said Monica Caison of the Cue Center for Missing Persons in North Carolina. In fact, the Myerses had never heard of Quick.
One thing is sure, said West Rogers Park residents who sometimes witnessed Eli tearing through their neighborhood alone on a bike at 2 a.m.
"He's a survivor," said a neighborhood father.
Hopeful that a 6-year-old boy living in Chicago may be a long missing child from North Carolina, authorities turned their attention Tuesday to the man who lived with the child on the North Side and claimed to be his father.
By Tuesday night, FBI officials had located Ricky Quick at his mother's home and questioned him about the boy he called Eli. Quick was interviewed for several hours before he was released about 10:30 p.m.
"He was not handcuffed. He is not in custody. He has not been arrested and he has not been charged with anything," FBI spokesman Ross Rice said. "He voluntarily offered to answer some questions and try to help sort out the situation regarding the young man recovered in Evanston two months ago."
As he was led into an FBI vehicle, Quick expressed concern for the boy he claimed as his own.
"I would like to meet him in person," he told WMAQ-Channel 5.
Quick's mother, Julia Quick, told WMAQ her son had come to her home Monday night but he he wasn't hiding from the law. She said Quick never kidnapped Eli and the boy is Quick's stepson.
"He had a wife, and that child was hers," Julia Quick said.
Quick took the boy to St. Francis Hospital the night of Feb. 3, according to a DCFS report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. He said the boy "was aggressive with peers and adults, that he had broken windows, threatened to stab his father and started a fire," the report stated.
But health care professionals noticed signs of possible child abuse and neglect.
The hospital called the state's child welfare hotline at 9:15 p.m.
At some point Quick threatened to take the boy, and the hospital called Evanston police. Officers arrested him on an outstanding theft warrant from Chicago, and he went to court the same day.
While Quick was also suspected of child abuse, the nature of the allegations did not warrant holding him on criminal charges, DCFS officials said. In fact, they expected Quick to promptly reseek custody of the child--but they never saw him again.
Neighbors at Quick's last-known address in the 2600 block of West Estes said he was a self-employed auto mechanic. They said he lived in an apartment with about five other adults, the boy, an older girl and possibly a baby that was not his child. Eli's hair, they said, often was dyed different colors.
DCFS initially believed Eli's mother was Sharon Smith, who was killed in a car crash in northeast Colorado on May 3, 2002, while riding with the boy and other relatives, according to the DCFS report. But caseworker Sharon Moriarity became suspicious. Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy praised her in a letter to the agency Tuesday.
Murphy wrote that Moriarity spoke to a sister of Sharon Smith, "who informed her that she did not know that Sharon had a son."
Workers at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children took the information Moriarty submitted and eventually matched it to Tristen Myers.
Contributing: Rosalind Rossi
I knew from the news this was my old neighborhood. Another Freeper lives right near here.
Keep us informed.
This guy is a creep from the word go!
Buddy's natural mother is a piece of crap too. She said she would remember Mr. Quick, although she is a known drug addict herself and a whore.
In the meantime the poor family in North Carolina put up welcome home signs for little Buddy, who in fact may turn out not to be him. The initial tests are inconclusive. The DNA will be ready by weeks end. Those poor foster parents, and relatives of Buddy's. I ask the angels to help them through this if it is not Buddy. And this poor Eli who has been living in horrid conditions, that he find a good home.
Btw, they released Mr. Quick from custody. Most likely Eli will be returned to him by DCFS if he is Eli, for the DCFS here blows!
Ping for you on this update Eleni!I'll be watching this tory closely. If he's not Buddy, I hope many of us here will seek him as a foster child.
Was listening to Roe and Garry on WLS today, and they said something about Buddy killing a puppy; think they said it was on local Fox news last night. At any rate, this kid has major problems, due to the life forced on him; it will take one heck of a family to help this poor kid.
Could you ping me also with any further news on this please? Hoping for a good outcome, or at least a good chance for some normalcy in his short life...
It is so very sad! On the 10pm news did you see this 'step-father', who says this is son, God this guy can't make up his mind. His Mom lives in an up and coming unsavory area also, Irving and Kimball. But again the promise of DNA next 2 days. At times the boys look alike to me, at times not. Also his so-called mother's family said as far as they knew she never had any child. No records at Swedish Covenant either, where I was born (smiles). I'm adding you to the Ping list, no problem!!! Do you live in the city uvular?
I believe it was on Don and Roma's show this am that said Mr. Quick claims he has Gulf War Syndrome, however, was never in the service! Do we know where the boy is staying right now?
Thanks in advance for pings, and regardless if this is the missing NC boy, he needs lots of prayers and love to get over this...
He is in DCFS custody, lets just hope he stays ok there! Saw the family spokesperson give another brief conference today and they must know this is a very good chance it is Buddy, for her demeanor was it is all but confirmed. They are saying it could very well be announced later today. Praying to God and the Angels, let it be Buddy ;)
Hope for the kids' sake this is resolved very soon!
What? When? Oh No! ;(
Who said it though? The father keeps contradicting himself and says Buddy is not their boy. could that be what you heard?
From Thursdays Tribune:
1st tests on boy inconclusive But DNA results expected soon to see if he is missing N.C. child
By Rudolph Bush and Courtney Flynn, Tribune staff reporters. Rudolph Bush reported from North Carolina, and Courtney Flynn reported from Chicago. Tribune staff reporters Lisa Black and Matt O'Connor
May 1, 2003
The man who says he's the father of a little boy left at an Evanston hospital two months ago is holed up in a Chicago apartment, emerging occasionally to tell contradictory stories about his past.
A woman in North Carolina, praying the little boy is the same child that wandered away from her home more than two years ago, passed out Wednesday from exhaustion, her nerves stretched to the limit over the uncertainty of the child's identity.
This mystery that has intertwined two families 1,000 miles apart--making life both hopeful and helpless--may be solved sooner than expected.
The FBI said Wednesday that initial tests to determine the identity of the boy -- including blood types and the use of fingerprints and dental records -- were inconclusive. However, investigators expect to have the results of a DNA test back by the end of the week, a change from the original four- to six-week estimate.
"We did every available test, every available investigative measure that is at our disposal, and nothing has come back that shows whether he is the boy from North Carolina," said FBI spokesman Ross Rice.
He said no charges have been filed and no arrests have been made.
The boy in question was brought to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston on Feb. 3 by a man named Ricky Quick, 33, who identified the boy as Eli Quick. Hospital officials said the child was filthy and his clothes were matted with dirt. He was taken into custody by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and is now in foster care with a family in Chicago.
Caseworkers, suspicious of the boy's relationship with Quick, linked his description to a missing North Carolina boy, Tristen "Buddy" Myers, who wandered away from his great-aunt's home more than two years ago.
Buddy's birth mother, an exotic dancer in Fayetteville, N.C., gave blood for a DNA test, which is being done at a medical laboratory in North Carolina.
Investigators and family members in North Carolina say the blond, blue-eyed boy in Chicago bears a striking resemblance to Buddy, who would be 6 now, but Quick insists the child is his and says he will do whatever it takes to get him back.
"I'm gonna fight to the last drop of my blood," he said Wednesday, outside his apartment in Chicago's Irving Park neighborhood.
Quick said Eli's mother is his late wife, Sharon Smith, who died in a car crash last year in Colorado.
Smith's sister, Elaine Atkinson of Eau Claire, Wis., confirmed that Quick and Smith were married and had several children, though Atkinson said she talked to her sister only occasionally over the phone for the last decade. She also said she knew Smith's husband as Tony Quick, not Ricky Quick.
Atkinson said she first started hearing about Eli Quick around 1996 or 1997, but she thought it was odd that her sister--who she said lived a "dysfunctional" lifestyle--had never told her she was pregnant.
"I want to think that's my sister's boy," she said. "But then there are questions. Where's the birth certificate? How old is he? Where was he born? If you have a child and he's this age, you should have all the paperwork behind the boy."
She said she doesn't trust Quick and wonders where her sister's three other children--Gina, 14, Angela, 16, and Mercedes Quick, 13--might be.
DCFS spokeswoman Jill Manuel said no contact has been made with these girls and a fourth daughter, who is an adult, but efforts are ongoing. She also said they have not been able to establish a firm connection between Smith, Quick and the little boy.
"In our quest to find relatives and family of Eli Quick, we have been unable to confirm a single person that this kid is 100 percent related to," she said. "We're still trying to piece together whom this child belongs to."
While Ricky Quick has cooperated with FBI investigators, he tends to paint a confusing picture of his own life.
On his Cook County birth record, Quick's race is listed as "Brazilian gypsy," and records show he has lived in Texas, California, Louisiana, Indiana and Illinois.
Though he has told authorities that Smith was Eli's mother, on Wednesday Quick said Eli was the result of a one-night stand that he had with a prostitute in Chicago.
At various times, Quick--whose left arm bears a tattoo that says "Let's Party"--has referred to himself as both the boy's biological father and stepfather. He has given authorities and the media differing dates of birth for Eli, and he initially said he didn't know where the boy was born, then said he was born at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago.
As reporters huddled around the narrow entranceway to Quick's basement apartment Wednesday, he managed to slip out unnoticed, returning a short time later in a taxi.
Quick claims he suffers from Gulf War syndrome, although he was never in the Gulf War.
Buddy's family in North Carolina, looking at photos of both Quick and Smith, say they have never seen them before.
Since the news broke that the boy in Chicago might be Buddy, the boy's great-aunt, Donna Myers, has barely slept. Myers was caring for Buddy when he disappeared.
She awoke before the sun rose Wednesday and went in front of television cameras, trying to get the word out about Buddy.
She said she has been spending a lot of time praying and hoping, but mainly worrying.
A few hours and a dozen interviews into the morning, Myers walked gingerly back to her porch swing, shaking with exhaustion.
"My main concern is getting Tristen's picture out there," she said. "Even if it's not him [in Chicago], at least people will see him."
From the start, she has been cautious, publicly saying she will wait for official confirmation that the boy left at St. Francis Hospital is in fact the great-nephew she took in.
But privately, away from the television lights and alone with a friend and a visitor on her porch swing, she seems all but convinced that Buddy is in Chicago and soon will be home.
"If this was [Quick's] child, why did he leave him in the hospital?" she asked. In the next moment, she wonders about the coincidence of Quick and her niece, the boy's mother, Raven Myers, living in the same city at the same time.
But the lingering questions have worn her down, and Wednesday afternoon Myers collapsed in her home, dehydrated and exhausted.
"She is completely physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted," said Jackie Jacobs, a family friend.
And she'll have at least another day of uncertainty before the truth is known.
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