Missing and Murdered Children

Update: May 4, 2008:

First of all I want to say that initially police thought Charles Ray Norris, III was the male involved in the abduction of the two Herrera children. Later they changed the suspect involved to Raymond Richard Bowen.

The suspects were located at about 2 p.m. this afternoon and the children were located unharmed. CPS returned the children to their temporary foster home.

There was a little more information give regarding the history of this case. Apparently Jennifer Simmons is the mother to 5 children with the last name of Herrera. Also, she had not been caring for the children for at least the past year - the grandparents and other neighbors had been caring for the children. Recently the grandparents abandoned the children according to the temporary foster parent, Andrea Smith.

Smith has been working with CPS to obtain custody of the 5 children. The children were recently removed from their mother’s care.

This is what happened last night during the abduction:

According to Smith, Simmons and Norris barged into her home demanding to take the children, just after children had just eaten a dinner of chicken cutlets and curly fries, and were getting ready to watch the movie The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

According to Smith, Simmons broke through a screen door around 6:30 p.m. Saturday demanding to take the children after a verbal altercation with Catherine.

“(Simmons) said, ‘I want my kids,’ and I said ‘You can’t have them, you need to call CPS,” said Smith, reached by phone on Sunday. “She went ballistic. That’s when I called 911 and said she’s breaking in. She just yanked them out of here.”

Simmons started to hit the kids as they screamed and tried to get away, said Smith. Simmons

punched a third child in the face, and he lost a tooth, said Smith. She then punched a fourth child and pushed her up against a wall, said Smith.

Smith said Bowen, then approached the house. Smith said she got a shotgun from the back of her house to protect herself and the children, “When I came around, the guy was halfway into my house, I heard screaming, there was fighting. I said, ‘If I have to shoot you to get out of the way, I’ll do it.”¹

It appears that this foster mother proved she would do whatever it took to protect these children from harm.

Even though Charles Norris is identified in the article by the foster mother as being the getaway driver, police have said today that he is not a suspect in this abduction.

It is unfortunate that Jennifer felt she had to go to such dramatic and potentially lethal means to get her children back. Most likely she signed her parental rights away by her actions.

Original Post:

Pictured to the left are 32-year-old Charles Ray Norris, III and 31-year-old Jennifer Simmons.

The pictures are mug shots previously taken by the Mojave County Sheriff’s Department.²

There is some reason that Jennifer lost custody of her two children to Child Protective Services. It is not clear when this happened or if her parental rights have been revoked.

At this point, most likely if her parental rights will surely be revoked. She and Charles Ray Norris decided it was a good idea to go to the care home tonight where her two children are being kept and allegedly abduct them at gunpoint. At least they claimed to have a gun even though no one actually saw a gun.

In the process of removing the two children they assaulted one of the children. I am guessing maybe that child wanted to know what the heck was going on or maybe even said they did not want to go.

There are currently no photographs of the children.

The names and descriptions are as follows:

Cali Herrera is a 9-year-old Hispanic female with long blonde hair. She stands 5′ tall and weighs about 100 pounds. At the time of the abduction she was wearing a pink tank top and pink shorts.

Frankie Herrera is a 6-year-old Hispanic male with short blonde hair. He stands 4′ tall and weighs about 90-pounds. At the time of the abduction he was wearing a white tank top and blue shorts.

The suspect vehicle is described as follows:

1999 white Toyota Corolla with an Arizona license plate of 807MPR.

Anyone having information is asked to call 911 or the Mohave County Sheriff’s Department at 928-753-214.

OK, so now I have a question that is very serious to say the least. It could mean the safe recovery of the children.

The question is who is that man with Jennifer Simmons? Who has the story right, AZCentral.com reporting the Amber Alert with the male suspect of Charles Ray Norris, III; or the NCMEC who is showing the male suspect as Raymond Richard Bowen?³

Yep, the NCMEC receives the information from the DOJ regarding Amber Alerts. In turn, I am guessing the local authorities send a news release to the local media to get the word out about the Amber Alert.

So why is the news reporting a different male perpetrator other than the NCMEC? I don’t believe the two photos are of the same person.