Every time I read these words I get so angry I want to yell.
Ayla Reynolds, 20 months old, was wearing a soft cast from a broken arm and last seen sleeping in her bed at about 10 p.m. Friday. Her father reported her missing Saturday at 8:51 a.m. when he found an empty bed.
How many times have we heard of children going missing from their beds or while their parents were asleep? The most recent case I know of is Noah Thomas’s.
*Noah Thomas
“We are very saddened to announce that we have recovered the body of Noah Thomas shortly after 1 p.m. today,” Pulaski County Sheriff Jim Davis said during a brief news conference. “He was found at a location near his home. His body was discovered in a septic tank during a more detailed and aggressive search.”
Local law enforcement and the FBI have spent the last four days searching for the missing child. Noah’s mother originally told police the boy disappeared Sunday while she was sleeping. Police previously said they believed Noah left on his own and there was no reason to suspect a kidnapping.
The day following Noah’s funeral both of his parents were arrested on neglect and abuse charges. Though the results haven’t been made public the COD has been determined but MOD isn’t known until further testing is completed. I would imagine more charges will be added once MOD is determined.
Even if it is true that Noah slipped out the door while she was sleeping, why didn’t she lock the doors before she laid down for a nap? What about these other cases? Why didn’t these parents lock the doors before they went to sleep? Why did they leave their children vulnerable?
*Jenise Wright
Jenise was last seen when she went to bed Saturday night. Her parents waited a day before calling for help because they say the girl had wandered around the Steele Creek Mobile Home Park on her own in the past. She was outgoing and unafraid to talk to anyone, family said.
Wilson said in an interview Thursday that there were no signs of forced entry at the girl’s home and no indication that she was taken from her room.
*Haleigh Cummings
Florida detectives say they believe a 5-year-old girl who vanished from her bed Tuesday morning was abducted — and they aren’t overlooking anyone, including family members, as suspects.
Haleigh Ann-Marie Cummings reportedly vanished from her bed before dawn Tuesday.
The child’s father, Ronald Cummings, said in an interview with FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren that his girlfriend Misty Croslin, 17, was watching his daughter while he was at work as a crane operator.
Haleigh had gotten up to use the bathroom, according to Cummings. When she didn’t return, Croslin went to look for her and noticed the back door was open.
*Aliayah Lunsford
Aliayah’s mother, Lena Lunsford, told police her daughter was in bed, wearing purple pajama pants and a pink sweat shirt, at 6:30 a.m. Sept. 24, 2011. But she said the child was missing when she checked on her a few hours later.
*Tyler Dasher
A suburban St. Louis woman who claimed her 13-month-old son had vanished from his crib was charged Wednesday with murdering him, after prosecutors say she admitted beating him because he wouldn’t stop crying.
Shelby Dasher, 20, was arrested less than 16 hours after she reported her son, Tyler, was missing. People walking their dog found Tyler Dasher’s body on Tuesday near a cemetery about a mile from his home.
Police said when Dasher called to report her son missing, she told them she overslept that morning and discovered him gone from his crib when she awoke. His body was found within about 100 feet of a busy road.
*Isabel Celis
Sergio Celis, who reported Isabel missing, told police that he had fallen asleep on the couch on the night Isabel was taken, and that he had woken up and moved back to his bed around 5 a.m., just two hours before his wife awoke and left for work. She did not check on the little girl before she left for work, according to police.
*Malik Drummond
Police say Malik disappeared from his father’s home while his stepmother was bathing and his father was asleep. There was another young child in the home at that time.
I think there ought to be a law. At any time that a parent, guardian, grandparent or babysitter can’t be in a position to supervise that child or children they’re responsible for, the doors have to be locked. Before taking a nap, going to bed or taking a shower, lock the doors so the kids can’t wander out or a predator find their way in.
For those who are using the “disappeared from their bed” to cover up abuse or murder, they’ll be held accountable for not locking the doors. Or they’ll have to stage a forced entry as part of their cover up, which is hard to do without drawing attention. Most investigators can determine if the forced entry is genuine or manufactured. At the least it would make it more difficult to pull off the cover up.
We could argue that a law like this would take away more of our rights. We could say that most children don’t wander off even when their doors are unlocked or that a predator normally grabs a kid off the street, not out of the home. We could say there isn’t enough risk to justify putting more restrictions on our lives. Some of us have said it before.
Some of us thought it was wrong for the government to make us wear seat belts, they’re too restraining, uncomfortable, they’re a nuisance to put on and remove. We got used to it and now we do it out of habit without giving it a thought and lives have been saved.
I remember when we started having to prove we had insurance for our vehicles. We always had insurance, what right do they have to force us to carry it? That was before we were hit by an uninsured driver doing $1000 worth of damage to our truck. Fortunately we had our seat belts on and weren’t injured 😉
What about child car safety seats? Talk about a nuisance. Especially if you have more than one child and you have to switch the seats from one vehicle to another. How about when you’re driving and the baby drops her binky in the back seat, and there isn’t anyone who can get it for her? Even though they’re a frustration, they become a habit and it’s worth the aggravation when it comes to our kids’ safety.
A law like I’m suggesting would not only make it tougher to “disappear” a child, it would help to save many children’s lives from true accidents. I’m sure many parents or grandparents have asked themselves a hundred times, “why didn’t I lock the doors?”
*Elijah Marsh
A three-year-old boy has died after he was found outside in frigid temperatures hours after wandering away from a North York apartment.
Elijah Marsh was found without vital signs Thursday morning about 300 metres from a Lawrence Manor apartment building where he was staying.
He was located by a volunteer search party in the backyard of a house on Baycrest Avenue in the Bathurst Street and Wilson Avenue area at around 10:15 a.m. He was subsequently rushed to North York General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
The discovery came as more than 100 officers conducted a frantic search of the area for the boy, who was seen on surveillance camera wandering away from an apartment building on Neptune Drive at around 4:05 a.m.
“You see the picture of that beautiful little boy … and the video of the child going out into the cold at (4 a.m.). It really is a tragic set of circumstances,” Toronto police Chief Bill Blair told reporters after learning of Elijah’s death Thursday.
“I think it will remind all of us to go home and hug our kids a little bit more and I think we all will grieve for that child and for their family and for their community for their loss.”
Police previously said that he was put to bed at around 9:30 p.m. and was reported missing at around 7:30 a.m. when his family woke up and were unable to find him.
According to a neighbour at the scene, he was staying with his grandmother in the apartment. He was wearing a T-shirt, a diaper and winter boots when he left the building.
At the time Elijah left the building the temperature was – 17 C but it felt closer to – 28 with the wind chill.
Meanwhile, at Toronto police headquarters where he was attending a Toronto Police Service board meeting, Mayor John Tory called the incident a “terrible tragedy.”
“It is just an unspeakable tragedy. I am a father and I am a grandfather and I can’t imagine this kind of thing,” he said. “I just hope all parents across the city just remind themselves to take every precaution they can to make sure their kids are safe inside their homes. It is a terrible tragedy.”
*Jayonna Brown
LEESBURG, Fla. – Police in Central Florida say a young girl drowned in a neighbor’s swimming pool while their mother slept.
*Trent Sailers
Neighbors on Paragon Place say they often watched Toni Wayman, age 23, take evening strolls around the shallow lake that bordered the quiet residential street with her 2-year-old son Trent Sailers.
On Thursday, a makeshift memorial marked the spot where searchers found the drowned toddler after he slipped away from his sleeping mother sometime Wednesday afternoon.
*Harley Bradford and Jason Bradford Jr.
Documents reveal a toddler found unconscious in a pool alongside his dead baby sister tried to wake his mother before he drowned.
Harley Bradford and her brother Jason Bradford Jr., were found unresponsive inside a La Mesa, Calif. swimming pool in May. The 16-month-old Harley and 2-year-old Jason died despite efforts by emergency medical personnel.
*Daniel Stocker
The mother of a 2-year-old boy found dead in a south Augusta swimming pool Wednesday was charged with involuntary manslaughter, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office said.
Lt. Blaise Dresser said Lisa Stocker, the mother of Daniel Stocker, admitted to investigators that she was asleep “and not attending to the needs of her youngest child.” Lisa Stocker became aware of Daniel’s disappearance only after a neighbor alerted her to the family’s dogs running loose in the neighborhood, Dresser said.
Sure there would be some inconvenience and costs involved in installing child safety locks on all the doors but wouldn’t it be worth it? If not a law, how about reminders on billboards or bumper stickers? I don’t think it’s a matter of not wanting to lock the doors but more a case of forgetting or not thinking about it at the time. It could be as simple as putting reminder stickers on your alarm clock or faucets, or a note on your pillow or slippers. Anyone with kids knows that you’re always busy and forgetting something, but we don’t want to forget to lock our doors. I think in time it would become a habit and if it saved a life, wouldn’t it be worth it?
Friends For Ayla 