Archive for the ‘friend’ tag
WA Endangered Missing: Lindsey J. Baum
Missing Since June 26, 2009
Original Post: June 28, 2009Updated: July 28, 2009Contact InfoView Sources
According to news reports all 10-year-old Lindsey Baum was doing Friday night was walking four blocks to her home from a friend’s house.
Lindsey had some sort of argument with her brother on the way to the friend’s house. She was only at the friends home for a short while until the friend’s father, Scott Williams, encouraged Lindsey to return to her home before it got too dark. The time was 9:15 p.m. in McCleary, Washington. In that part of the United States McCleary is just becoming blanketed by darkness. A friend even walked with Lindsey half way to her home. According to the friend nothing untoward happened while they walked together.
Lindsey’s mother, Melissa Baum, says her daughter has never run away from home. She did acknowledge that Lindsey has had difficulty adjusting to her parent’s recent split but she feels confident her daughter would not run away from home. First of all, she does not have money to run away with. Well, when children run away they don’t usually think first about how they will support themselves on the streets. They just go on emotion and run.
Lindsey’s father has been contacted at his home in Tennessee and he is not suspected in his daughter’s disappearance.
According to news accounts McCleary is a small town and the neighbors know each other very well. According to Dave Pimentel of the Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office:
“Such a small community like this – you can’t do much in a town this size without everybody knowing about it,”… “Everybody in town knows she’s unaccounted for.”1
Not only does everyone in town know she is unaccounted for, they are all out looking for her. Most of the search is being conducted in the town and surrounding forests. A bloodhound brought into the search failed to pick up Lindsey’s scent.
As of this morning the FBI has been brought into the search because of their experience in solving missing children cases.
Missing Child: Lindsey J. Baum
Lindsey is described as a 10-year-old white female with brown hair and brown eyes. She stands 4’9″ tall and weighs approximately 80 pounds. When last seen she was wearing a gray or blue pullover sweatshirt with blue jeans and black shoes.2
Anyone knowing Lindsey’s whereabouts or the circumstances surrounding her disappearance is asked to call the Grays Harbor 911 Center at (800) 281-6944 or the McCleary Police Department at (360) 495-3107.
Pictures
Tipline: 1 (866) 915-8299
Grays Harbor 911 Center: 1 (800) 281-6944
McCleary Police Department: 1 (360) 495-3107
Websites:
Updates
July 1, 2009
There is really no news in the search for Lindsey Baum. Her mother has been quoted in the local media that she believes her daughter is still alive but no longer in McCleary. She believes someone abducted her daughter. She bases her belief in the fact that the town has been thoroughly searched with no sign of her daughter.
I looked at the list of registered sex offenders in McCleary – list totals four and they all appear to be under the age of 30. One registered sex offender piqued my interest because his offense was communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. It is not a stretch to think he may have had contact with Lindsey because they both have MySpace pages. I was dismayed to see that Lindsey’s MySpace is not set to private. This is not a judgment, but an observation and my opinion. Some of the content on her page makes her appear much older than 10. I am not referring to pictures on her site because I did not see any pictures other than her profile picture. It is just my opinion that Lindsey should have kept her profile private.
I visited the MySpace page of the sex offender in question and I think he professes his desire or attraction for adult females too much. One would never suspect he has a conviction for being a pedophile because he has so many ‘seductive looking’ adult female friends. Oh, well I guess it is a good cover.
I hope Lindsey is found safe and sound and she did just decide to run away from home. Maybe she decided to head out to Tennessee to live with her dad and he is unaware of her plans. The longer Lindsey is missing, the worse the outcome is apt to be.
July 2, 2009
Lindsey’s mother and the father of the friend where Lindsey was last seen volunteered to take polygraph exams. According to a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s office both individuals passed their exams and authorities are happy with their cooperation and timeline of events.
Specialists from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have been brought in to aide in the investigation. Henry Schmidt, one of the investigators with the NCMEC opined that Lindsey most likely left with someone she knows:
“From what knowledge we have and the information that I have that it’s someone that she possibly knows, somebody that is in the area.”…3
Maybe she did meet up with one of the local sex offenders.
I think of two cases in particular of children who went missing and later found murdered. Jamie Rose Bolin went missing and her body was found in the apartment of a neighbor who lived below the family. She was 10-years-old. Destiny Norton was last seen playing on her front porch. Her body was found in a neighbor’s basement. He lived on the other side of a backyard fence. Destiny was just 5-years-old. I guess my point is you really can’t trust anyone just because they are a neighbor and you have known them for quite some time.
July 28, 2009: 2 p.m. PST
Search teams made up of the FBI, Gray’s Harbor and Pierce County Sheriff’s office are in McCleary today following up on leads. They are utilizing search dogs to aid them in the search for Lindsey Baum. CrimeStoppers has offered a $6,000 reward to anyone with information leading to the whereabouts of Lindsey Baum.4
- FBI Joins Search for Missing 10-Year-Old Girl, KOMONews.com, Last Accessed: June 28, 2009. [↩]
- Lindsey J. Baum Missing Poster, NCMEC, Last Accessed: June 28, 2009. [↩]
- FBI: Stranger Not Likely Behind Girl’s Disappearance, KOMO News.com, Last Accessed: July 28, 2009. [↩]
- Searchers With Dogs Looking for Missing McCleary Girl, KIROTV.com, Last Accessed: July 28, 2009. [↩]
CA Murdered Teen – Brenda Sierra
Original Post: January 16, 2006No UpdatesView Sources
Around 7:00 a.m. the morning of October 18, 2002, 15-year-old Brenda Sierra set out to walk to her friend’s house so she could catch a ride to school from her friend’s mother. Her friend is quoted in news accounts saying that Brenda always arrived at her home between 7:15 and 7:20 a.m., but Brenda never arrived that morning. Apparently the school did not contact Brenda’s parents to let them know she was absent that day.
Brenda’s family members knew that she had a hair appointment scheduled after school that day so they did not become concerned when she did not arrive home. They began to become concerned at approximately 6:00 p.m. They contacted the hair salon and found that Brenda never arrived for her appointment. They contacted Brenda’s friend and that is when they learned that Brenda had never made it to her friend’s home for the regular ride to school.
They immediately called police but it took deputies three hours to come to their home and take the report. Even at that point officers told her family that it was not uncommon for 15-year-olds to disappear and then come back home soon; they considered her a runaway. Officers explained to the distraught the family that they could not issue an Amber Alert because they did not have a vehicle description and they did not have evidence that Brenda had in fact been kidnapped. Members of Brenda’s family printed out over a thousand fliers and distributed them in the area of the school as well as in the local area. Her disappearance received very little media coverage until her body was discovered 2 days later.
Brenda’s body was discovered underneath a tree by people taking a walk in the San Bernardino, California Mountains in an area known as Land of Enchantment. I mapped the distance from the city of Montebello, California to the Land of Enchantment using MapQuest. The drive is one hour and eleven minutes. If Brenda was kidnapped and later murdered at the mountain location she most likely had a terrible last hour of her life. If she was murdered close to where she was abducted then her murderer went to great lengths to hide her body.
The autopsy revealed that Brenda died from blunt force trauma to her head. Other details of her murder are being kept quiet to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
Because the alleged abduction took place in an area other than where the body was recovered two law enforcement jurisdictions are investigating Brenda’s murder; the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Brenda’s family demanded answers from Los Angeles County officials about why the sheriff’s department expressed a lack of interest in Brenda’s disappearance. The family received some recognition from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on October 25, 2002 according to the following news advisory:
County of Los Angeles
Contact: Judy Hammond, Director of Public Affairs, (213) 974-1363
Victoria Pipkin, Assistant Director, (213) 974-1652
Live videofeed, English and Spanish, Telco #948075
Audio (213) 974-4700
October 25, 2002
OCT. 29 AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
9:30 A.M.
Sheriff asked to report on the handling of the Oct. 18 missing persons case involving Brenda Sierra, including why no Amber Alert was issued. The teenager’s body was found Oct. 21 in San Bernardino County. A $5,000 reward for information is recommended.1
The family was not happy with the recommended reward amount and through further efforts of Supervisor Gloria Molina the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has increased the reward amount to $150,000.
New information came to light during the on-going investigation into Brenda’s murder. Law enforcement officials feel confident that Brenda was murdered by members of a street gang known as the LOTT gang.
“…The LOTT (Living On The Top) gang is based in Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. It started in the 1970s as a group of friends who got together at a vacant lot to get stoned on hard drugs, according to the Web site streetgangs.com, published by USC doctoral student Alejandro Alonso.
As members went to prison and the drug trade grew, the gang grew more violent and evolved into a traditional street gang, complete with tattoos, organized drug dealing and killing, according to the site…”2
The code of silence is strong among the gang members as well as the parents of the gang members. According to one detective:
“…We even interviewed some of these little gangsters, who told us they know and said they are not going to tell us,’ he said.
On one occasion, a young man was about to tell detectives what he knew, but then his parents told him not to talk, Bradford said.
“We have parents running interference. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he said…”3
In doing research for this story I came across a few message boards and a couple of blogs that mentioned Brenda Sierra. All spoke lovingly of her. According to her friends and family she was a friendly girl and a good student. The students at her former high school, Schurr High School in Montebello, California still hold vigils on the anniversary of her death. She was loved and she is missed.
The reward is out there, perhaps someone will decide having $150,000 is more important than loyalty and letting a murderer walk free.
I will leave you with this quote from the detective:
“…There is no doubt in my mind they did it,’ Bradford said. ‘I have been a deputy a long time, and not a lot of things bother me. But this one does. I know in my heart these people know what happened. This little girl did not deserve this. She was truly an innocent kid.’…”4
