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January 29, 2006
Woman's intuition, persistence saves two kids in Alabama
A Georgia woman happened to stop at a convenience store as she drove through Alabama on her way home. She saw a little girl inside that store and that girl's behavior gave her a bad feeling in her gut.
She just couldn't shake that feeling - and the extraordinary steps she then took may have saved the lives of that toddler and a teenaged boy. Now investigators are checking to see if there's a Washington state connection.
It was a gut feeling Tracie Dean couldn't shake.
“I just knew something wasn't right,” said Dean. “I just felt it.”
At a rural Alabama convenience store 12 days ago, Dean had a chance encounter with a seemingly troubled little girl.
“I bet you no one has ever spoken that kindly to that little girl. She just ate it up. I think she just really decided ‘I'm going home with her,’” said Dean.
Dean said the girl tried to follow her out of the store but then an older man stepped up.
Dean felt uneasy enough to scribble down the license plate as the two pulled away. The car had a Washington state license plate.
“My suspicion was that she didn't belong with that man,” said Dean.
So Dean called 9-1-1. Police told her everything checked out; it was the girl's grandfather. So she returned home to Georgia, but for some reason, she couldn't let it go.
“Every morning I woke up and thought about it,” said Dean. “Every night I went to bed and thought about it. And I just told my sister when my heart says to let this go, I'll let it go.”
For a week, she checked missing kids web sites, called several law enforcement agencies, even contacted America's Most Wanted.
She said no one took her seriously.
Obsessed, she drove for hours, over 300 miles, back to the convenience store to look at surveillance tape - and there they were on another trip to the same store.
Just then, an officer came in the store, took the tape and used it to find the man.
It turns out there was a reason for suspicion.
“Mr. Wiley initially and still is wanted in California for arson," said Tracy Hawsey, Conecuh County Sheriff.
John Wiley and his 40-year-old wife, Glenna Faye Cavender, were arrested and charged with multiple sex crimes against the three-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy found in a trailer.
“A 3-year-old girl - to have this done to her is unthinkable,” said Tommy Chapman, Conecuh County District Attorney. “We're not going to tolerate it."
Tracie Dean is not a mother, but she has the instincts of one – and her hunch saved two children.
“I just followed my heart,” said Dean. “That's the bottom line.”
Child welfare advocates said it was a good thing Dean kept trying.
"Sometimes they have to be persistent and be persistent until something happens, because that squeaky wheel could save a child's life," said Georgia Hillman-Hammond, executive director for Vanished Children’s Alliance.
The Alabama sheriff told KING 5 the couple has apparently lived in several states. Investigators are still checking to see how they ended up with a car that had Washington state plates.
The children are now in state custody. It's not clear how or even if they are related to the suspects. Investigators were awaiting DNA results.
The sheriff also said his office has been inundated with phone calls about the couple since this story first broke.
http://www.nwcn.com/statenews/washington/stories/NW_012706WAKgoodsamaratinLJ.453965ba.html
Posted by Nealus at January 29, 2006 08:27 AM
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