Darlie Routier: Vicious Mother or Tragic Victim?

by Diane Fanning

Every time a television program involving Tommy Lynn Sells or one of his crimes is broadcast, I receive emails asking if he could have been in Rowlett, Texas, on June 6, 1996--the day seven-year-old Devon Routier and his five-year-old brother Damon died. These questions began within days of the release of my book about Sells in April 2003 and have continued unabated since then.

.

The boys were murdered in the middle of the night, Sells' favored time for homicide. Someone had plunged a knife into their chests, puncturing their lungs. A weapon Sells was known to use often.

The boys' mother, Darlie, who had fallen asleep with them on the floor in front of the television, also had wounds. Although hers were not life-threatening, they were definitely beyond superficial. One cut damaged the sheath surrounding her carotid artery but did not sever that vital link to life. With a little emergency care, she was soon able to stand on the front porch in her bloody nightgown and tell her story of the events in her home.

Darlie said that she awakened when the man made physical contact with her. It was

at that moment, she realized her children had been harmed. She fought him off, he dropped his knife, he raced toward the garage. She described him as medium height, dressed in black and wearing a ball cap. After giving her statement, she was taken to the hospital. (above left)

This scenario bore a lot of similarity to the murder of 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick and the wounds inflicted on his mother Julie Rea Harper. As a result when an episode about Julie and Joel's case aired on Unusual Suspects, an Investigation Discovery show, a couple of weeks ago, I was deluged with dozens of emails asking once again about Sells' whereabouts.

The similarities went beyond the time of night, the viciousness of the attack, dead sons and injured mothers. In Darlie's case, two unidentified bloody fingerprints were found--one in the house, one in the garage--but prosecution witnesses testified that all the prints found belonged to Darlie or her boys. In Julie's case, investigators found a bloody footprint on a piece of cardboard in the bedroom. It was far too large to be Joel's footprint and even too large to belong to his mother. The prosecutor in Illinois concealed this evidence from the defense.

In both cases, there were items available for DNA testing. In both cases, the prosecutor fought this testing. This is a stance I cannot understand and cannot accept. I've heard all the arguments justifying this behavior, but I am not moved. If it is your mission is to uncover truth and seek justice, should you ever fight learning a fact? No. I expect more from prosecutors--much more.

Both Julie and Darlie were found guilty of murder in the death of their sons--a conviction that if wrongfully rendered was the cruelest fate that could ever befall any mother who loses a child to violence. Julie was sentenced to sixty-five years behind bars. Darlie was given the death penalty.

When Sells confessed to me that he murdered young Joel Kirkpatrick, a door was opened for Julie Rea Harper. I put it in my book and between the work of the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois at Springfield and the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Julie got a new trial. Julie was acquitted and released from jail.

I know, without the shadow of doubt and beyond any concerns, that Julie Rea Harper did not murder her son. I am strongly inclined to believe that Tommy Lynn Sells did commit this crime, just as he said.

As for Darlie, I'm not convinced of her guilt or innocence. I am certain that there are many questions that need to be answered before we can possibly put her to death with a clear conscious.

There is only one thing I know absolutely about the deaths of Devon and Damon--those murders cannot be laid at Tommy Lynn Sells' feet. He was in a penitentiary in West Virginia serving a sentence for assaulting Fabienne Witherspoon, a woman who fought back and survived his brutal knife attack.

If not Sells, then who? The obvious answer is that it could be Darlie. But that is not the only answer. As Texas Ranger Coy Smith once told me: "If you knew how many people like Sells were roaming across the country at any given time, it would blow the skirt right up over your head."

Maybe Darlie did kill her sons. Maybe it was one of those drifters Smith mentioned. Maybe.

Shouldn't that question be answered with certainty before we allow the state to take Darlie's life?

Read More

When Neighbor Helps Neighbor

by Diane Dimond

This is the America I told my daughter we lived in when she was growing up.

“If you’re ever in trouble, honey, just ask your neighbor for help. Find a policeman if you can.”

On a bright sunshiny May day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, there was no time for a girl we’ll call Sally to ask for help. As this 18-year-old daughter jogged along the streets of her university town, she was suddenly set upon by a fiend. A car rolled up, a would-be kidnapper jumped out and hit Sally in the face with a blast of pepper spray.

She didn’t have time to ask for help, but Sally’s neighbors stepped up anyway. Two brothers, Joey and Freddie Shelton (above) ran to her aid. They are American heroes in my book.

The Sheltons had never met the young woman, but as Joey said, “Just the sight of a man treating a woman like that in broad daylight was wrong.” The brothers didn’t stop to think as they saw the terrified young woman and a man trying to haul her into his car.

They quickly pulled their vehicle to a spot to try to block in the attacker’s car. With rescue imminent the perp dropped the struggling Sally and jumped into his car to speed away. In the process he hit Joey, not once but twice, sending him spinning like a top, up into the windshield with such force that Joey’s upper body cracked the glass. Joey was tossed into the street and left with an injured shoulder and a badly fractured back.

But Sally was alive, safe and able to celebrate her 19th birthday the next day.

Another neighbor driving by, Melissa Williams (right, with the Sheltons), didn’t understand exactly what was happening when she saw Joey lying in the street, but she was sharp enough to follow the attacker and jot down the license plate number. Twenty-six-year-old Theodore Walker (below left) was arrested a short time later and in his car, police say, they found a loaded shotgun, a baseball bat and a pocketful of condoms. During a court hearing, it was mentioned that Walker may suffer from a mental illness.

Since Walker’s mug shot hit the news four other young women have come forward to say he tried to abduct them too. One of the women was hospitalized in critical condition.

The town of Chapel Hill has embraced their heroes realizing it could have been any one of their daughters or sisters or nieces or cousins who needed help that day. Such selflessness needs to be honored.

The mayor held a ceremony for the Good Samaritan brothers, along with Williams. They were all given special certificates and symbolic keys to the town. Mike Miles, a local businessman whose office window overlooks the scene where the attempted kidnapping played out, was so moved he started a fund at the local RBC bank with a thousand dollars out of his own pocket. Since then, the bank reports they’ve gotten donations from all over North Carolina as well as from other locations where the story has spread.

UNC Health Care has announced it will absorb the cost of Joey’s hospital treatments so the fund can go for his home care, medical supplies and missed work. The 51-year-old Joey is a part-time barber and chauffeur; his 50-year-old brother, Freddie, recently returned to the state after having been laid off by Boeing in Seattle. The money, at this time in their lives, is a Godsend.

When I spoke to Joey Shelton, (below right), he came across as a humble man who couldn’t believe all the celebrity-like attention he’s been getting. “It’s just mind blowing,” he said. “The love and support and appreciation! It’s wild – after turning fifty you think it’s gonna all be downhill.”

Some people might not even have notice Sally’s plight or deliberately turned away from helping, not wanting to get involved. I had to ask: Why did Joey and Freddie jump right in?

“Looking at her face, how terrified she was. She needed help,” he told me. “I find it hard to believe that anyone who saw what we saw wouldn’t have stopped to help.” Since the incident they’ve all gotten to know each other better, they’ve had meals and long conversations about the future.

By the way, the Sheltons are black, Sally is white and that fact somehow gives me even more hope that the America I taught my daughter to believe in really does exist. Neighbors helping neighbors stay safe with no regard to skin color.

The brothers could have turned a blind eye when they spotted the attack at the side of the road. “Instinct just kicked in,” Joey told me. “Doing the right thing comes from what you are taught. I was taught right.” Joey says he and Freddie were simply raised to help others in need.

Let’s all be sure to raise our kids like that.

Read More

Chicagoans Deserve a Fighting Chance

by Stacy Dittrich

The United States Supreme Court got it right. In an overwhelming decision on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of McDonald v. The City of Chicago, ending the toughest gun restriction laws in the country. Justices noted that "the plight of Chicagoans living in high-crime areas'' was highlighted by the legislators, who had compared the number of people murdered in Chicago to the number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, while also noting the majority of victims were minorities.

For 28-years, the city of Chicago refused to allow its citizens to honor the second amendment of our own Constitution which gives all citizens the right to bear arms. Residents of Chicago were allowed to have one shotgun in their home and it had to be locked up. They were allowed one handgun, but it wasn’t permitted to be loaded. What the heck is the point? For the unfortunate residents of Chicago that happen to be living among a cesspool of thugs, rapists, burglars, and home invaders their chances of protecting themselves were dismal at best.

“Excuse me, sir? You want to break into my home, rape my wife, and steal my belongings? Oh, can you wait a minute while I look for the key to my shotgun locker and find the bullets to load my handgun?”

It’s ridiculous.

“Readily available” is the point of having firearms inside your home. Chicago seemingly refuses to see that. Now that the Supreme Court has demolished their gun ban, they are going to great lengths to circumvent the ruling. Unveiling a new ordinance just days after the ruling, Mayor Richard Daley (pictured right) relented, but he continues to be a pain in the rear. The new ordinance requires owners to register their guns with the city, undergo an eyesight exam, be fingerprinted, go through extensive training, and keep all but one gun locked up—rules that typically are required for Concealed Carry laws, not owning a gun to keep in your home. Chicago’s crime rates are among the highest in the nation. With a population of over 2 million people, your chances of becoming a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 82—a horrific stat. Mayor Daley claimed the Supreme Court took a cheap shot at his city, which boasts a murder rate so far this year three times higher than New York City.

"To suggest that Chicago's elected officials haven't done enough to protect our city residents shows that many of our highest-level officials don't understand that gun violence pervades America and not just Chicago," Daley said. "Across the country, cities are struggling with how to address the issue. Common sense tells you we need fewer guns on the streets, not more guns."

“We don’t need more guns on the streets” is the repeated mantra. This is what I simply don’t get. It’s not rocket science here folks! The people we fear with guns are the same ones that possess them illegally. They are the crooks—the bad guys. They are the ones that couldn’t pass a background check to save their lives. You can turn a blind eye to the fact that they may, or may not, get their hands on guns, but the hardened truth is they are—and they will continue to do so. Why in the world would we not give John the banker or Susie the homemaker a fighting chance at survival if they find themselves facing some street thug with a handgun?

As a police officer, who do you think I was more leery of: John the banker who readily announces, “I have a concealed carry permit, ma’am,” or Ricky the robber who has outstanding arrest warrants and points an AK-47 at my face?

Perhaps our nation’s founding fathers were slightly more astute then we give them credit for. They drafted the Constitution during an era where people still said, “Please, thank you, and God.” Perhaps—just maybe, they saw our country’s future society dwindling and in great need of firearms for protection; the right to bear arms. Please, Mayor Daley, read the Constitution since you clearly haven’t as yet, and take your head out of the sand. The Supreme Court recognized that your city is in crisis, why haven't you?

Give your citizens a fighting chance.

Read More

A writer's life

by Kathryn Casey

The truth is that there's always one. Whenever I have a new book out, as I do right now with Shattered, I emerge from the confines of my office, momentarily unlatched from my computer, eyes blurred from months of staring at the screen, ready to meet the world and do book signings. Now let's be honest, what I'm there for is to connect with people who enjoy reading and, I hope, sell some books. Meanwhile, what those who attend are there for varies. Some folks like to drop in just to say hi and tell me that they enjoy my books. Others come to ask questions, bringing up different aspects of the cases in my books or inquiring about the inspiration for my fictional characters.

While that's why most have come, at nearly every book signing at least one person in the audience is an aspiring author, someone who dreams of being published. They come for two reasons. First, they inquire about what it's really like to write books. Second, they're hoping for pointers on how to get started, how to make their own dreams come true.

Before we go any further, I'd like to stress that I don't have all the answers. While I'm delighted with the success I have had, I'm still waiting to find my name on the NY Times list. (Fingers crossed. God, are you listening?) If I knew how to make that happen, I'd be Stephen King (hmm, maybe not?), Patricia Cornwell (a bit dark?), or my friend Ann Rule. That said, my guess is that if you ask them, they'd admit that they don't know all the answers either. I'm convinced that a healthy percentage of success in any endeavor is luck, that old being-at-the-right-place-at-the-right-time combo. In the writing world, that translates to picking the right topic, doing a bang-up job on the manuscript, getting it in the hands of the best agent, who sells it to the perfect editor, and then having magic happen, the cosmic coming together of worlds that propels a book to the top of the lists.

Still, most of the people I meet aren't necessarily dreaming of hitting the big time, at least not initially. They're more concerned with seeing their work in print. What I'd like to do is talk now to those of you out there who want to do what I've done, build a career as a writer.

First off, and this is important, you have to need to do it. The successful authors I know didn't have any other choices. Something in them told them that they have to write, often from a young age. There's so much rejection in writing, so many projects that fall through, hopes that are dashed, that to do it you have to love it, or it'll drive you near crazy.

So, that's concern number one: Are you truly cut out to write for a living? How do you know? Well, in addition to feeling the need to write, are you willing to take rejection, because it'll be there, be assured. Are you focused enough to pound away at your typewriter even when a blue-sky day beckons you to the garden or the guy next door suggests a Saturday morning golf game? Are you dedicated enough to stay up half the night pounding out that manuscript while the rest of the world sleeps, and strong enough to still make it to your day job?

You have to truly need to write, want to write, because there are always easier, more enjoyable and probably more profitable distractions. (Mine? Scrabble on the Net. Geez, I need to figure out how to delete that game.) The desire to write has to be a part of you, like hankering for pasta and a good glass of red wine, like the instant warmth you feel gazing at a beloved child. It has to be as much a part of you as your eyes, for it will shape how you see the world.

If you've said yes to those questions, your first task as a would-be writer is to read, not just anything but good books in your chosen genre. And read about writing. My favorite book on writing and life is one I've mentioned on the blog before, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Some of the chapters still make me laugh, like the one entitled "Shitty First Drafts."

So what's it like being a writer? The scene I opened this post with is the one most folks have of the writing life, authors holed in their offices, feverishly working on a project. It's actually kind of like that when you write fiction. You have to be willing to segregate yourself from the world for months at a time, letting your imagination take over and propelling you through a fantasy land populated by your fictional characters. In truth, I actually enjoy this part. When the writing is going well, it's as if the characters take over, moving the book along. I've had some pop up when I didn't expect them. The first time it happened, I was shocked. Now I welcome them in, often suggesting they take over the project and tell my story for me.

Non-fiction is quite a bit different. For months before I sit down to write a true crime book, I'm researching, attending trials, interviewing sources. Then there's the monumental task of organizing all my files, one I dread. Yet it's important. When I finally do sit down to write, it's all worth it; I have a wealth of information at my fingertips.

Since I work out of a home office, I wear blinders and walk past the dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, around the pile of clothes waiting to be washed on the laundry room floor, to get to my spare bedroom turned office. It's easy to get waylaid and find at the end of the day that I've accomplished nothing. One popular question involves my schedule. I write best in the afternoons. I have no idea why. Maybe there's some truth to that biorhythm theory? For other writers it's different. I know some who write through the night and others who get up early to work, before daybreak. But for me, my work flows better after lunch. Once started, if not interrupted, I'll work until ten or eleven at night with only the occasional stretch and bathroom break.

Next is that all important question: How to get published?

Well, that's tricky, it's true. I'd suggest starting smaller than a book. If you're interested in non-fiction, try writing for magazines or newspapers, a blog on the Internet, get some clips in your portfolio. This will give you the opportunity to do some networking, including meeting editors who can recommend you to agents, if they deem your work worthy. If you write fiction, why not enter a short story contest? If you win, you'll have a published piece to mention in cover letters to agents.

What about writers' groups? They're great, but they can also be a trap. Some writers I know end up working on the same short story or book for years, refining it over and over, never feeling as if it's completed because folks in their writers group are still nitpicking. My advice is to take criticism in context, make changes until you're happy with the piece, and then consider it finished.

As I mentioned above, there's that old bugaboo, rejection. Along with loving to write, to be published requires courage. At a certain point, a writer who wants to become an author needs to suck it up, slip the manuscript into an envelope, address and stamp it, and mail it to an editor or agent. That's scary, because once it's in the mail, it's out in the world, and the likelihood is that the return mail won't bring the preferred response, at least not with the first or second attempt. Maybe it'll even take longer. As in any field, those who succeed persevere. Perhaps the most important trait for any writer is die-hard determination. Hang in there and all things are possible.

(FYI: My next signing is at Katy Budget Books on Saturday, August 7th. For anyone who reads this, takes the advice and makes the NY Times list, I'd like a blurb, please!)

Read More

The Look of Justice

by Andrea Campbell

Nearly everyone is familiar with the iconic symbol of the court system. Lady Justice wears a blindfold and holds the scale of justice in one hand, a sword in the other. There are variations where Lady Justice isn't blindfolded, but in most instances, her purpose is to convey the ideal of one who is dedicated to dispensing justice fairly and with equanimity.

There are variations, of course. Here at Women in Crime Ink, we use Lady Justicia in our logo, with the sword replaced by a pen. In other instances, she's been shown carrying a variety of objects including a book, a scepter, a bundle of rods, a human skull and even animals. There have also been less flattering depictions throughout history, where our lady is seen without hands or holding a severed human head. Yet Justicia's predominantly a symbol for justice, which begs the question, is justice really blind?

I know I normally talk about forensic science, the various disciplines and how they affect the courtroom. But today I'd like to focus on the most important people in the courtroom: the jury. In my book, LEGAL EASE: A Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence and Procedure, 2nd edition, I define a jury as a community composite of registered voters, licensed drivers, or some other such system, who are called in for jury duty on behalf of the state. A jury consists of twelve men and women—along with, at times, two alternates, in case of illness of a principal juror. Jurors promise to listen to the facts and testimony, and then render an impartial and fair decision based on the law. The key words here are "impartial and fair decision." Yet if it’s your head on the line, think seriously, is this true?

A New Study

Maybe not. Questions are being raised by a new Cornell University study, which concluded that "unattractive defendants" are 22 percent more likely to be convicted and tend to get hit with longer, harsher sentences — an average of 22 months longer in prison. Justin Gunnell, a Cornell Law School graduate, began working on the study as an undergraduate, and with the aid of Stephen Ceci, a professor of developmental psychology, developed a thesis that jurors who processed information in an emotional or intuitive manner were more likely to make reasoning errors in both the verdict and the sentencing phase.

The researchers began by identifying two kinds of jurors: emotionally moved people who gave harsher verdicts to unattractive defendants and those who relied upon rational means and focused less on the defendants’ looks. “The results bore out our hypothesis on all measures," says lead author Gunnell. The study, “When Emotionality Trumps Reason,” will be published in an upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed Behavioral Sciences and the Law.

How was this determined? In the course of the study, 169 Cornell psychology undergraduates took an online survey designed to reveal how they processed information, rationally or emotionally. Once categorized, they were given a case study that included a photograph of an actual defendant and his or her general profile. In addition, they read real jury instructions and listened to the cases' closing arguments.

The result was that while both groups convicted attractive defendants at similar rates and were less biased in the face of strong evidence or very serious offences, the jurors' reasoning style tended to play out “in cases where the evidence is ambiguous and the charged offense is somewhat minor,” said Gunnell, who now practices commercial litigation in New York City.

Jury Myths

Since picking a jury may be one of the most important elements of winning a case, many lawyers have both strange and sensible ideas about their choices. Along with intuition, some of their less studied hunches can prove ridiculous or even superstitious.

A few of the more common ideas surrounding jury selection are that older people are more tolerant and, as a consequence, may be indulgent. Females are thought to be hard with sentencing other females, whereas college-educated females under the age of 35 are thought to be defendant-favorable. And because most law enforcement employees feel that blacks from inner city developments have built-in prejudice toward cops, many defense attorneys believe that as well. Certain groups are labeled as too intelligent, so writers, editors, and publishers are looked at with caution (thanks!).

Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, a jury consultant who has worked on over six hundred jury trials including Rodney King, McMartin Preschool, and the O.J. Simpson case says, “Each courtroom is a microcosm of life, filled with anger, nervousness, prejudice, fear, greed, deceit, and every other conceivable human emotion and trait. There, and everywhere, every person reveals his emotions and beliefs in many ways.”

In Closing

Gunnell claims the study could contribute to refinements in jury selection techniques. In cases where the evidence strongly favors one side, a lawyer might want to identify rational jurors. But in a case with an emotional tug, a defense attorney might try to screen out highly rational jurors. “Every person is capable of reasoning via either system and likely uses each system to some degree depending on context,” Gunnell says. “The degree to which one system predominates the other is a factor that varies, depending on the individual's natural preference and style.” He said the findings are important because “22 months may not seem like a lot to an outsider, but I guarantee that to the person serving the sentence it will seem like a lot.”

Sources: Newswise: “Blind Justice? Not Quite. Looks Count in Court” Cornell News Office, LEGAL EASE

Read More

Memories of Murder

by Deborah Blum

When I was a baby reporter - which is how I think of my early days in journalism - I covered the cop-and-court beat for The Macon Telegraph, a medium-sized paper in a rather stately town in middle Georgia.

At least the reputation was for stateliness and deep Southern history which is something one tends to miss when hanging out at the county courthouse, covering the trials of rapists and murderers. My memories of Macon - aside from very late nights at a downtown bar called The Rookery - tend to be like antique paintings, golden oils featuring dark paneling and desperate faces.

I covered one trial involving two men who had abducted and beaten to death two elderly women. The bodies were found in the woods in an adjacent county. The prosecutor brought one of the skulls into the courtroom so that the jurors could see how a blow had caused dents and chips in the bone.

In the courtroom breaks, I'd hang out with the cops, flirting a little maybe, trading crime gossip the way any beat reporter does. And often in those discussions she would come up, the killer to whom all needed to compared, the worst of the Macon killers, whose murderous trail, laid in the 1950s, still left its shadow.

"I've saved all the stories," one detective told me, and he had. He gave me a sheaf of photocopies, dark and smudgy the way they used to be, with the headlines over-black and the face of Anjette Lyles, framed by her silvered hair, shining on the page. He rubbed a finger over that smiling image, the arsenic-loving serial killer.

I used to think I might one day write a book about her, the homicidal woman whose pretty face still charmed the older police officers in Macon. Anjette Donovan Lyles, born 1925, was arrested in 1958 for killing two husbands, a mother-in-law and a nine-year-old daughter. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, she was found insane and sent to the mental hospital for the criminally insane in Milledgeville, Ga., where she worked in the prison cafeteria until she died of heart failure in 1977.

But the book already exists, called Whisper at the Black Candle, published by Georgia true crime writer Jaclyn Weldon White in 1999. It tracks Anjette Donovan through her troubled first marriage to Ben Lyles Jr. (and his mysterious death), her marriage to Buddy Gabbert (his excruciating death plagued by ulcerated sores on his skin and internal bleeding), the death of Lyle's mother, and eventually of Anjette's little daughter, Marcia.

At the time of the last two murders, Anjette was running a successful restaurant in Macon. The deaths of her husbands had not raised any suspicions, but these did, especially her daughter's death. During her trial, it came out that she'd bought her daughter's coffin two weeks before the little girl died from arsenic-spiked lemonade. After the death, Anjette shocked nurses in the hospital by gathering up her daughter's clothes, saying "Well, she won't need these anymore," and throwing them away. Autopsies found the poison in all four bodies.

There was a time, I believe, when every crime reporter, every serial killer historian in Georgia knew the story of Anjette Lyles. I have an old friend, once a staff writer at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who, as Mary Kay Andrews, writes wonderfully charming Southern comedies of manners. I stayed with her this spring while touring for my latest book, The Poisoner's Handbook. Two former cop reporters hanging out, and old Georgia killers naturally came up. And Ms. Lyles herself, whose photograph once hung on a wall at the AJC.

"Was she all glamorous?" I asked, seeing in my memory that silvery glimmering face.

"She was a crone," my friend replied flatly.

I kind of liked that, actually. It's just right to hear evidence that prison takes a toll on serial poisoners, turns beautiful, amoral women into hags trapped behind stone.

It strikes me, though, that some murderers are made for haunting. The killings I described, the beating deaths of the old women? Sometimes I'm caught back there, in that over-bright courtroom cluttered with tales of death and bits of broken bone. And Anjette Lyles? If you can believe it, someone has created a Facebook page in her memory.

The first creepy thing is that it plays to her glamour girl side. The second, at least for me, is that when I looked the page, the most recent post was about me and my poison book. It startled me to see it there, made me wonder why. But maybe it's just what I said earlier; some murders stay in our memories. Some killers call up the ghosts.

Read More

Hope Floats: Two Young Brothers, Two Heroes

by Cathy Scott

The case of 4-year-old Alisa Maier (photos left here and below), recently snatched from the front yard of her Missouri home while her young brother stood helplessly nearby is similar to one that went down in Vista, California, in 1992. The earlier case had a miraculous outcome.


And now, as all the world knows, so did Alisa's story end happily too.
In 1992, I was a reporter covering the crime beat for the The Vista Press, a since-closed daily newspaper in San Diego County. The police scanner was on in the newsroom and I heard the all-points bulletin when it came across. Staff photographer Jay Roberts heard it as well. We ran out of the newsroom, jumped in Jay's car and headed to the girl's neighborhood.


The case came on the heels of the 1989 disappearance of Leticia Hernandez (photo right), 7, who was snatched while playing in front of her home in nearby Oceanside, also in San Diego County. Two years later, her skull was found on a ranch 70 miles from her home. Leticia was dead, and law enforcement didn't want a repeat ending. They wanted to see the second little girl come home alive.

The Vista case I'm referring to went down like this: A 5-year-old girl and her brother, 4, were playing in the front yard of their small apartment complex. Their grandmother was washing dishes and could see the children from the window. They were playing hopscotch on the sidewalk when a man in a compact car drove up to the curb, opened the passenger door, grabbed the little girl as she approached his car, and then fled.

One moment the child was there, and the next she was gone. The little boy ran screaming into the apartment that a man had taken his sister. This was well before the Amber Alert program. Immediately, the grandmother called 911. And here is the crucial piece of information that saved this little girl. Her little brother told police, "The man was in a green car."


"A green car?" they asked. "What color of green?"

"The color of a lime," the boy told them.

The bulletin that ran across the county alerted officers to be on the lookout for a lime-green compact car driven by a man with a 5-year-old passenger.

Driving on a winding back road that eventually leads to Highway 76 and Interstate 15, was a San Diego County sheriff's deputy. In the opposite lane, headed toward him a few minutes earlier was a car that fit that description. The deputy rushed to make a U-turn, flipped on his lights and siren and headed in the direction of the lime-green car he had just seen. The officer radioed for backup.

After the call for backup went across loud and clear on the scanner, my photographer, Jay, and I headed in that direction too. Fifteen minutes later, as we got closer, a third and final call was sent: the car had been located, the driver was in custody, and, best of all, the little girl was frightened but unharmed. Every deputy available in the county was on that call.

We can only imagine what would have happened to that little girl had her brother not passed on the information and had the deputy not been traveling that road. When I learned about Alisa's case, I immediately thought of the girl in Vista and was hopeful that details from Alisa's brother would help. And it did. In Alisa's case, she was found wandering a car wash, apparently freed by the abductor. But it was the description the brother gave police, of a dark-colored, four-door sedan with a loud muffler, which helped lead authorities to the house of Paul Sterling Smith, the main suspect in the case, a registered sex offender who fatally shot himself in the head as officers surrounded his house.

Back in California in '92, the scene that afternoon on a rural road was one of relief. As Jay and I arrived, the lime-green car -- a small hatchback of some type -- was on the side of the road, where the officer had pulled over the driver.

The little girl was in the arms of a female deputy, waiting for family members to arrive. It was quite a sight, and one I won't soon forget. Uniformed deputies had tears in their eyes, this from veteran officers who had seen it all. When I saw a uniformed officer on TV carrying Alisa Maier in a parking lot after retrieving her from the car wash, it was like watching that scene all over again.

Both cases could have had tragic endings if not for the detailed descriptions their brothers gave to police and the quick responses from law enforcement. Both boys are heroes. And both cases offer hope.

Photos courtesy of The Associated Press

Read More