Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know some cases you
never get over, and that's how I feel about a
little girl who went missing.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
In the last days, we have recovered Laurie's remains and
we have arrested the person responsible.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Little Lorii Page has been found dead, her father charged
in her murder. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
June third, twenty twenty three. Lori Page is reporting missing
by her father, Andrew Wilie, and at that time he
claimed she left home with her backpack sometime in the
night while he was at work.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
We worked so hard to find answers in the Lorii
Page disappearance. This sweet, sweet little girl goes missing out
of the Tallahassee area. No one was covering the case.
We contacted TALLAHASSEEPD over and over and over again. We
(01:10):
got no help. We couldn't find witnesses, no one seemed
willing or interested in covering her disappearance. But we tried anyway.
We covered the disappearance of Lorii Page and tried desperately
to get answers, hoping that somehow we would find her.
(01:30):
Many of us holding out hope that she had run
away and was in another state. And now we have
the answer, not the answer we wanted, but an answer.
Lorii Page's body has been found. How did it all start?
This little girl goes missing June three, Let's see Jane, July,
(01:56):
augu September, October, November, December, January, February. Where is this
beautiful twelve year old girl? Laurie Page out of Tallahassee, Florida.
Got a lot of questions about this investigation, but most important,
(02:17):
where is she? This is how the whole thing starts.
Take a listen to lit Laura Varbel.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
She was reported missing to us on June third by
her father with very missed information. So dad works overnight.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
He is a.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
He works in our correctional correctional facilities, so he leaves.
He left the night late the night before, returned the
next day after his shift, and she was gone. And
this was not abnormal, like she that was their regular pattern.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Okay, let me clarify what Lieutenant Varbal is saying. After
I started investigating this case, I learned when she says
that's not abnormal, she doesn't mean that the girl is
gone is not abnormal. What was not abnormal is the
dad works a night shift. Mom's out of the picture.
Dad has the twelve year old girl. He works a
(03:17):
night shift and then he comes home and she's there
with me an all star panel. But first I want
to go to a special guest who has emerged as
an unlikely hero in this scenario. Margie Summers, peara professional
at Griffin Middle School, very close with the little girl,
(03:38):
Laurie Page, who was missing just twelve years old. Margie
Summers knows Laurie very well and she is the one
who actually went out and organized a search for Laurie
on Facebook. Margaret Adams Sommers, Miss Summers, thank you for
being with us. First of all, I want to address
(04:00):
us the home situation, because you know, like we all know,
that when a child goes missing or a child is killed,
it's very likely someone in the family. And the first
place you look are the male family members. You look
at the dad, the stepdad, the boyfriend, the living the
(04:20):
older brother, the ex boyfriend, anyone connected to that family.
What can you tell us about their living situation. I
know that about a.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Year prior to her disappearance that her mother brought her
to the father and basically left her with her father.
At that point, her father was somewhat new to parenting,
but the two of them were making a go of it.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
It's my understanding that she was doing really well with
her father, never missing school upbeat. Is that true?
Speaker 5 (04:51):
That is very accurate. And when I later learned that
there were issues, I was actually surprised she.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Was so.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Together at school.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
I just want to guess that she was struggling with
is she's at home?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Let me go straight out, speaking of irreparable harm caused
by moms and dads in your youth, Doctor Bethany Marshall
is joining us or now psycho analyst joining us out
of LA at doctor Bethanymarshall dot com. Doctor Bethany, we
need some help.
Speaker 6 (05:22):
When the one person who is entrusted with taking care
of you, making sure you're safe in this world, making
sure your hair is comb there's breakfast on the table,
the person who's supposed to have a secure attachment with
the father, when that person cannot hold on to their
relationship with the child, she's perhaps antagonistic with the father.
(05:44):
That really destroys a child's world. And I'm going to
tell you something about this little girl. Her primary attachments
were with her father and with her schoolmates. I just
now the little bit I've heard on this show tells
me that this is not a runaway to somebody who
had attachments in their immediate circle. Runaways are children who
(06:08):
have such a huge amount of trouble in their home
that their primary attachments are with strangers. And that's not
the case here.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's exactly where I was headed at Doctor Bethany. Once again,
you've read my mind. Margie Summers is with us, who
again has turned into a very unlikely hero. She is
the one that has organized the search for little Lori page.
She is the one being heard on media speaking out
about a girl gone, a little girl gone. Now you know, Margie,
(06:42):
I called hunting for information about this girl, and no
matter how many times I called, it seems as if
police didn't want to speak publicly. Isn't that unusual? But
I did notice after I started investigating the case myself,
(07:03):
suddenly things started changing and moving.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
What happened, Margie, I think your phone calls may have
made a difference, and they may have realized that, hey,
this is a big deal. Eight months is too long, Yeah,
And I think somebody just needed to draw some attention
to that so that the startling fact that she'd been
gone eight months would shine through again.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Well, what have they done since I started poking around?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
From what I understand, They've added a whole lot of
resources to the case, additional detectives. They're doing a lot
more legwork. They're starting over from the beginning, so it's
almost like the whole investigation has kicked off in high gear.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, I wish this had happened eight months ago. But
to the TELEHASSEPD, we would love for you to join
us and help us find Lorie Page. The whole reason
I was working up to the fact that she had
stability with her father is to dispel the idea that
(08:03):
she has gone run away and is voluntarily staying away
from home in school, isn't it true, Margie sommers that
she was doing well at school and seemingly happy with friends.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
I would say she was doing well at school. I
never saw her with any particular friends, but she was
so driven and so focused on school. It was almost
like she didn't see school as a social environment. She
thought as a very serious learning endeavor. She would literally
run from one class to the next, even though it
(08:37):
was across the hallway, just to make sure she wasn't party.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Summer of twenty twenty three to early twenty twenty four,
detectives pursued hundreds of leeds across state lines. Laurie is
never located, and the story provided by Wiley begins to
show inconsistencies.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace in the Last Days Heartbreak,
The search for Lori Page is over. The Tallahassee Police
Chief Lawrence Ravel announced that the PD has recovered the
(09:23):
remains of Lorii Page after a prescribed burn revealed her
remains in a remote brush covered area of Thomas County, Georgia. Quote.
I told you two years ago we would find Lori
and we would bring her home. Yes, it was about
(09:48):
two years ago that we begged the police department to
help us find Lori, and I believe she was found
by a prescribed burn of oberbrush found basically accidentally arrested
Laurie's father, thirty six year old Andrew Wiley, who originally
(10:09):
reported her missing. After investigators pursued hundreds of leads in
multiple states. They say in an exhaustive investigation, he has
been charged with second degree murder. What happened when Laurie disappeared.
Listen to Lieutenant Laura Varble.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She was home by herself. He had He had worked
nights since she had come to live with him, and
she would always be home while he worked his overnight shift.
It was a quadruplex, so it's like a there's a
lot of little place and there, I mean, there is
a there was a neighbor reference obviously for her, an
(10:51):
adult person that if she needed something, she had somebody
to reach out to.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Okay, to Chris mc dunn and joining US, director the
Cold Case found Foundation, former homicide detective. I found him
on his YouTube channel, The Interview Room. Chris McDonald, thank
you so much for being with us. Does it irritate
you as much as it irritates me that this child
had been labeled a runaway? You know how many cases
(11:18):
I've covered where the child was first designated a runaway
and they end up dead one, Nancy.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
I mean in this situation, obviously, you know, twelve year
olds they just don't disappear. They can you know, sometimes
circumstances they do run away. However, in this particular case,
if we look at it, you know, from a thirty
thousand foot view, you've got to take into consideration. When
we talked many times on your show about this the
(11:46):
victim risk continual and when you look at that this
child falls within a medium risk in relationship to the
totality of her life circumstance.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
With that, I don't even know what you're saying. She's
a medium risk in totality with her life circumstances. What
in the hey are you saying? Can you listen? I
feel like I'm hearing someone read a police report. Please
dummy down for me. What are you saying?
Speaker 7 (12:19):
So, what you do is you have like an L
like an L shaped risk continuum, and on one side
you write environment, situation, circumstance. On the bottom you'll put low, medium,
and high risk. The lower to the left the child's
(12:40):
daily activities to hire the opportunity is for a suspect
and or somebody in her environment.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Okay, I do still do you know what he's saying? Okay, again,
we don't know what you're saying. Let me try to
interpret and regular people talk. Okay, Chris McDonough, Are you
saying that she was at a low risk for being
a runaway?
Speaker 7 (13:03):
No?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Okay, See, I did not have any idea what you're
saying medium category for what.
Speaker 7 (13:08):
For potentially somebody luring her out of the home through
an internet situation, through anything.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
So at medium risk for kidnap or luring? Is that
what you're saying?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Luring?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Okay, medium risk because of what? Because just so you know,
we have learned that she did not have a social
media profile, she was not online.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
Well, that's not uncommon for somebody to within the family
to say, well, wait a minute, you know, she could
have had a phone, she could have had access to
her friends. There could have been a variety of circumstances.
That's why I'm saying, you take a look at her environment,
the totality of her environment. Who are our friends, what
(13:55):
access points to the internet does her father or friends have?
And those are kind of things that kids.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
You know, you know more than anybody when I've raised
four of them, they sometimes use their friends stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Well, the only thing that raises a risk in my
mind is the fact that her dad had to work
over not in mom's not in the Patriot she had
recently moved to the area. I guess, Margie Summers, it
was over a year ago.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Yes, it was approximately a year earlier. I think it
may even have been August, so the beginning of sixth grade.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Gotcha listen to this, guys.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
She was recently recently moved to the area to live
with dad. She had been with dad for about a year.
She has had a lot of things happen in the
course of her life, so there could be several reasons
with regards to her background. We just really can't speculate
as to which that could be.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
To doctor Bethany Marshall, I want to follow up on
what we're hearing the lieutenants say about having had a
tough time of it starting these school is hard enough
on its own. Then your dad is gone. You get
home in the afternoon and your dad leaves to go
to work. So she's there by herself, probably musing about
(15:14):
whatever happened during the day, maybe being homesick. So that's difficult, Nancy,
That's profoundly difficult. You know how much time you spend
with your kids processing the events of the day, and
imagine there's no one there to process the events of
the day with her. So if she is falling prey
to some other person outside the house, there's no one
(15:36):
for her to attach to in the house to steady her,
to help make sense of her experiences.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And the world is down even further.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
This is a little girl who ran from class to
class even if the other class was across the hallway.
This tells me she was a good little girl. Good
girls are victims, right, little girls who can't say no.
So she's going to be huh angree four attachments. Anybody
who gives her love, Anybody who says they can fulfill
(16:05):
her needs. Anybody who says I'll keep you safe, I
know you, I know you better than your own parents.
She's going to gravitate to those people because she is
like a thirsty little plant. Every little drop of water
is going to make her spring to life, even if
it's from a predator.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Joining me now is high profile family lawyer joining us
out of North Carolina now at Triangledivorcelawyers dot com. Kathleen Murphy.
Before you tell me what you think, I want you
to hear this, take a listen to Sidney Sumner crimeonline
dot com.
Speaker 9 (16:40):
When police began looking into the disappearance of twelve year
old Lori Page, detectives started by looking for her digital footprint.
But Loriipage has no digital footprint. She's not on social media.
Old school methods are being used to find the middle schooler,
knocking on doors and talking to neighbors, putting up flyers
with her name in personal details, sharing information with neighboring
police agencies, and asking the public for help.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Knowing that, according to police, there was no digital footprint.
She's not on a snapchat, she's not on install They
can't find her anywhere. But we do know there was
a computer in the home. We know that because cop
said that, but yet no digital footprint. What does this
(17:24):
mean to you, Kathleen.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It means to me that the police have not gotten
that computer and looked at it carefully. It also means
to me that the police have not fully investigated this case.
Twelve year olds are going to find a way to
connect with somebody that makes them feel good. They're going
to have that reach out. And if she's alone for
(17:48):
a significant amount of the evening and nighttime and she
has a computer, WHI has access to the computer? I
wonder if the police have reviewed that computer.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Good question, Margie Summer or would did the school have computers?
Could she access a computer at school?
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Matter of fact, Nancy, all of the kids at our
school are issued computers. And they maintain those computers with
them and take them home at night, charge them and
bring them back to school each and every day. Every
student at Griffam Middle School has a chromebook.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So she did have a computer. Has that computer been found, Largie?
Speaker 5 (18:26):
I do not know the answer to that.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Wouldn't they return it to the school?
Speaker 5 (18:29):
Yes, she would have checked it in at the end
of the year, and I'm quite certain that she did
because justice the kind of student she was. I also
wanted to mention, based on what your other guest said
regarding her self esteem, I know that Laurie received result
of a negative test score. She was absolutely distraught and
(18:51):
feeling terrible about her test score. She is the only
student that I've ever had to say, Laurie, it's not
that serious. It just means we're going to have to
help you in this one area. Other students, to get
them even interested in their test score is a bit
of a chour, but not Lorie. She took that low
(19:11):
score very much to her and I was actually concerned
about how sad she was regarding that test.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
That just breaks my heart. It breaks my heart with
me right now, Megan crying. Director Communications at Child Help
and if you've never heard of child help, Please go
online to childhelp dot org. It's amazing they care about
one thing, helping children. Megan, thank you for being with us.
(19:42):
When I think of this little girl twelve, so upset
about a bad grade and now she's missing, and she
was immediately described as a runaway, a child that's that
upset about one bad test, I just don't see her
(20:03):
running away.
Speaker 10 (20:04):
I don't see it either, Handy, and thank you for
having me when I hear we see children like this
a lot, and that tells me that she's felt said
about a brave it's a perfectionist. It's one way to
get her mother's approval. Keep peace in the family, as
there's been a lot of discoord And like you said,
she's a baby, she's twelve. She cannot sustain eight months
(20:25):
by herself.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
In the last days, a heartbreaking in to a search,
to an investigation that we launched into the disappearance of
a beautiful young girl, Lori Page out of the Tallahassee area.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
February second, twenty twenty four. A phone is sees from
Miley's residence. A forensic analysis and covers questionable Internet searches,
including queries about remote areas with bodies of water in
Alabama and Georgia.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
What happened when Laurie went missing, Doctor Bethany Marshall. When
the mom tells us that how scared the child is,
she's afraid of the dark, she doesn't like the outside.
She loves to eat, she loves the meals. What none
(21:18):
of this makes sense with the phrase this little girl
just took off, I'm just not buying it.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
No, none of it makes it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Remember, Doctor Bethany, when she disappeared, it was nighttime. What
do you think this little child, the old girl is
going to go out and take an aber That did
not happen.
Speaker 6 (21:35):
No, and her knows her daughter, right, I mean, who
guess would know her than her own parents. However, one
thing concerns me, and that is that the mother is
talking like a police detective, not like somebody who's concerned
about her daughter.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Now, I'm not.
Speaker 6 (21:50):
Saying she's not concerned, because she might be shocked, dissociated,
unable to express her love. On the other hand, a mother.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Who's this methodical, in detached, I'm going to defend the mother. Really,
all I care about is finding the girl. I don't
care who did what when I want to find Laurie.
In defense of what the mother is saying, she's extremely
defensive and angry that the police and others have just
(22:20):
written Laurie off as a runaway. Take a listen to
what missus Brosey, the mom, has to say about her
daughter being labeled a runaway.
Speaker 11 (22:30):
The police report said that she ran away and there's
no reason why they believe that she was taken. And
that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Because you
can voluntarily leave under manipulation of circumstances. So whether she
voluntarily left or not, she's a child. What rights do
(22:54):
children have to move around if they please? Can she
get in the car voluntarily drive? Now your block, because
just as sure as she gets in a car and
starts to drive it, that's going to be a problem.
But when she voluntarily leaves and is missing like this
doesn't make sense things that don't make me sense. It
(23:15):
made me upset. I get irritated. Where is lori page?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
See what I mean, doctor Bethany. She's responding to her
daughter being called a runaway and it doesn't make any.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
Sense, you know, Nanthy, I completely retract my comments from before.
She's sounding like a police detective. Because there are no
detectives helping her. She's having to think this entire thing
through herself. And she makes the most excellent point. Even
if a child walks out of the house to a stranger,
that's not voluntary. It's never voluntary when a minor leaves
(23:49):
the house and never returns. So this poor mother is
falling back on her own psychological and mental resources to
find her own child. Can you imagine as John David
or Lucy went missing and you had to be the detective.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You know another thing, Doctor Bethany, I think that she's doing.
I'm certainly no shrink. I want everybody else on the
panel to jump in on this. She's methodically as best
she can, going through Well, she left a twelve year old, Well,
who's going to feed her? What is she going to eat?
She's afraid of the dark. She wouldn't have done that.
What does she get in the car? She's not going
to drive. I mean she's going through all these permutations
(24:26):
and possibilities and ruling them out. And I have found
doctor Bethany, that when you're faced with this horrible happening,
you try to make sense, You try to apply logic
to an illogical situation, and it doesn't work, and it
gets harder and harder and more difficult. And that's what
I hear the mom doing.
Speaker 6 (24:46):
You know, I agree with you, And you know part
of being a mother is something called maternal preoccupation. And
what that means is, no matter where your child is,
no matter who's taking care of your baby, you're thinking
about them all the time. Now, imagine your child is missed.
That's going to be thinking about your child in a
desperate kind of way. I like your use of the
(25:07):
word permutations. She's trying to think of every single possibility.
But not only that, these are rebuttals.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yes, you're right. What about it? Megan crying? You're hearing
doctor Bethany Marshall. Do you agree or disagree?
Speaker 6 (25:20):
Well, yes, the mom got a control, She has no control, right?
Speaker 10 (25:22):
Can you imagine I have two children not knowing where
they are and for eight months. I mean we're coming
up on a year.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
What the mom is saying right now makes a lot
of sense to me, guys. Also the specter of a
mother's and father's worst nightmare. Take a listen to what
the mom is, Brasi says.
Speaker 11 (25:42):
Tala hassee has some of the worst sex trafficking in
the state. And it's twenty minutes of Georgian So yes, yes,
I'm concerned, very concerned.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Joining me, Nicole Parton Crimeonline dot Com investigative reporter. Isn't
it true that we have learned the night before she
goes missing, she and her dad we're at home as normal,
watching TV. No problem, correct.
Speaker 12 (26:10):
That is correct?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yes, Sam. Now he then goes to work, and there
are witnesses that saw them there together chilling and watching TV.
Everything was fine, yes, no, yes, correct. Then he goes
to work as usual at a nearby prison facility, and
he works at a CI correctional institute. He goes to work,
everything's fine, locks the door, she's there. He comes home
(26:35):
the next morning and she's gone.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
March twenty twenty four is more consistencies than Wiley's statements
are identified, and new information about his relationship with Laurie emerges.
Detectives shift their focus more heavily towards Wiley.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Crime stories. With Nancy Grace, the remains of a beautiful
little girl, Lori Page have been found. What let up
to her disappearance? Nicole Parton, There was one unusual circumstance
that happened the night before, early in the evening. Didn't
(27:19):
the mom show up at the house and that upset Laurie.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
She did.
Speaker 12 (27:25):
The mom showed up at the home and there was
an altercation to the point that her father, being protective,
called the police and said, can you police come out
and remove the mother from the home. The police were
not at their home all of the time. This was
one incident where the mom showed up. The father did
the right thing, called authorities and said, there's an altercation,
(27:48):
my daughter is upset, and the police came out and
asked the mother to remove herself from the home.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Kathleen Murphy joining me, high profile family lawyer. I'm sure
this is not the first time you've seen trub against
warring exes and the child is the casualty.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
And these children at age twelve start to find their voice.
They haven't quite found their voice, but they don't like that.
They're going to want.
Speaker 13 (28:15):
To be to a judge, be to their teachers, and
speak out about what they should not be subjected to.
And this little girl probably saw something that traumatized her.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Margie Summer's with US paraprofessional Griffin Middle school, who knows
Laurie very well? What do you make of it?
Speaker 5 (28:36):
I believe that it was an upsetting incident because the
cops never showed up at their house. For the cops
to even have to be called would have been traumatic
in and of itself. And I'm sure after that happened,
I'm sure her mind was whirling and she was trying
to figure out what to do and how to take it.
Speaker 6 (28:56):
She turned to a stranger. Maybe she turned to a
stranger to process the experience, or somebody was already predating
on her, and at this point she had nobody to
process it with, which made her incredibly vulnerable to anybody
who showed love and wanted to talk to her.
Speaker 5 (29:11):
I feel like Laurie may have been overwhelmed. Even the
bad grade she got on the standardized test overwhelmed her,
and the burden of it was far too great for
what's normal. And I'm sure the burden of what she
just saw and maybe even felt responsible for would have
(29:31):
weighed heavily on her. And I know sometime here they're overwhelmed,
they flee that feeling of being overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Doctor Bessy, what do you make of that?
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Well?
Speaker 6 (29:40):
I think what's happening with twelve year olds is that
they're slowly reassigning their attachments outside of the home, and
this serves the biological function of preparing them to leave
home when they're seventeen, eighteen or nineteen, so already they're
looking outside the house. But this little girl, her primary
interest was with her parents. And you can imagine your
parents fighting, and the idea kids blame themselves whenever the
(30:06):
parents fight, whenever a parent's neglectful or abusive. I'm not
saying these parents were.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I hear you, and I would love the opportunity to
psychoanalyze Lori Page, the twelve year old missing girl, but
we have to find her first, and right now she's
labeled as a runaway. She may have been upset that
her mom and dad were having this war, and there
was a verbal confrontation. The cops came over and blah
blah blah. Okay, but where is she? I mean, is
(30:32):
it just me, Jackie? Help me? We have to find
the girl. I don't need to figure out what she's
thinking right now. I need to find her and get
her to safety. If she was upset that night and
went out and sat on her front porch, if she
went outside in the front yard, where they is she now?
(30:55):
Now you've heard Margie Summers state that the computer was
handed in, So whatever computer she had was not the
school computer. But witnesses saw her on a computer watching
TV with her dad before she disappeared, before the mom
came and raised a ruckus. So where is she now?
(31:17):
I think on your Chris mcdonna, can we psycho Analysi's
child later after she's safe.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
You're right, Nancy, And this is why, this is why
the fourteen detectives right now are realizing holy.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
One of fourteen detectives would come on and make a
plea for her.
Speaker 7 (31:36):
You're right, it's all wrong, critical.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Turning since his child disappeared, right.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
The critical turning point.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I mean, why did you, Margie Summers, have to have
to form the search the search committee? Why did you
have to go out looking for her? Tell me about that?
Speaker 5 (31:54):
Because other little girls, there's press conferences, there's rallies, there's newscare,
there's all kinds of attention, and my student, someone I
cared about, was getting none. That's not fair, not right.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
A dam and thing, no pressers, no big searches, no
guys and women on horseback, No k nines.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Nothing, nothing, nothing. And luckily the media in my area
did take interest in the story, and shortly after we
asked them to help us, two news channels and the
local newspaper all ran stories when fourteen days after she
went missing.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Okay, that was eight months ago.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
Yes, it was eight months ago, and nothing's happened since
until the last week or so, and it's picked up
steam again.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
G I wonder why, Okay, so were there any sidings
of her that night? I do not know where was
she last.
Speaker 12 (32:55):
Seeing lasting at her home?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
And the home, yeah, correctighbors saw her come outside, That's correct.
This was in June June three. School had just ended.
No neighbors saw her outside, right right? Do we have
any idea Nicole parton Megan crying? Chris mcdonne, doctor Bethley,
Kathleen Murphy, Margie Sommers. Was a search done of the
(33:23):
home to see if any altercation had occurred, where any
windows broken? Was the lot? Jimmy, do we know anything?
Was the home even processed?
Speaker 12 (33:33):
And my knowledge the home was not processed.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
Yes, but I can tell you what they were thinking. Man,
she what okay? When they got there? And this is
where I was going. The critical turning point here is
when they look at the father and they say, tell
me about your daughter, and he tells them. The critical
turning point here is, Okay, twelve year olds don't vanish
at that moment eight months ago. They should have immediately
(33:58):
turned on.
Speaker 14 (33:59):
All of the resource because at that point, everybody knows
you have a twelve year old who has vanished. Now
they could have been thinking, well, maybe she ran away.
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Why do we keep saying maybe she ran away. I
don't give a flying sig how this whole thing started. Okay,
go ahead, But.
Speaker 8 (34:21):
It's critical now when we look eight months later back
and we now see resources that should have been put
on within three hours of this child's disappearance.
Speaker 7 (34:33):
It should have all been in motion back then, and
it wasn't. And that's a huge problem. That is a
huge problem.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Well not only that, think about this, Chris, let me
throw this wrench into the works. If she's home alone,
no one is there to see what she's doing on
the internet. Margie Summers, what do you think about the client?
She had no social media presence, she didn't text, she
didn't email, nothing.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
I never saw personally involved with social media. But I
will say she was smart, and all of the kids
at our middle school are tech savvy. There issue the
computer for the duration of the year, So to think
that she wouldn't know how to use a computer or
how to get on the internet would be categorically false.
(35:21):
All the children and I use the internet every day
and we.
Speaker 10 (35:24):
Are childho We're seeing an uptick in human trafficking.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
It's ramblant. And that's where my head went first.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
As well, is this Megan crying? Yes with Megan, Okay,
tell me about that? And why was it stated by
the mother that Tallahassee is notorious for sex trafficking. It
is close to the Georgia Florida line, very close and
close to I seventy five, which takes you all the
(35:52):
way from Florida to New York City and beyond.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
And we have we're on I Can. We are exactly
dead center. Run to the middle of our town. I
Can runs all the way from Jacksonville to California.
Speaker 10 (36:05):
And she sounds like Lauria sounds I'm sorry, anthey, no,
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Place. What I was going to say is I'm wondering
I had a girl disappear from a stadium arena at
a football game, and you know they found her. Her
face popped up on an internet I want to say
dating website, but it was an escort site. This child
(36:32):
had been taken and was being pimped out of a hotel.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Yeah, that's so sad.
Speaker 10 (36:37):
And that's why I think education is so important. And
we have the Child Help Speak Up the Faced curriculum
which schools Apascination can implement it and it teaches kids
that I'm old enough to remember the good touch bad touch,
and this is an offshoot of that. And we just
implemented a human trafficking prevention curriculum, so kids like Laurie
(37:00):
forget this did happened.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Based on a Megan crying from Childhelp dot org. You say,
Chris McDonough, we have no indication the child has did
yet the police still think she didn't have a social
media presence. I don't know if she had a phone
or not. I don't think she did. So what in
the hey do we do now? I mean, if it
(37:22):
hadn't been for Marchie Summers, there would not have even
been a search. By the way, Marchie, where did you search?
What did you do during your search?
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Me and some of the other teachers and staff members
from the school got together and we handed out flyers
in the immediate area. And then also on other days,
I just went to some of the local convenience stores
taped them up there in case she popped in it
out for a drink or a snack, somebody would see her.
I also have the police, is there a place that
(37:50):
we can look, Is there anywhere that we need to
focus to put flyers? And they just had no search
parameters at all. So I had a couple of apartment complexes,
spoke to the managers, gave them flowers in case they
saw her in their pool area, on one of the chairs,
something like that. But it was really really hard to
(38:10):
know where to look because it's just not any clues
in any particular direction.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I'm just thinking, you know about what Margie Summers said,
Chris mcdonad, This little girl. The teachers got together and
did a search for her. It wasn't the police, as
I said, It wasn't ATVs and helicopters and seeking so gnar.
(38:38):
The teachers got together. Why is this happening to this
little girl? Why hasn't anybody championed her? Is it because
she's black. Is that it that nobody cares about a
twelve year old little girl? I mean, look at her, Chris, Auntie.
Speaker 7 (38:57):
Nobody ever ever wants to see a child injured, hurt, harmed, etc.
And in this particular case, what you're doing is the
tip of the spirit. Raising public awareness, continuing is what
is necessary and what the cops need to do, and
they're long overdue. It's a shame that we're even having
(39:21):
this conversation today.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Early twenty twenty four, based on digital evidence, detectives begin
searching a remote brush covered area of Thomas County, Georgia,
known locally as a plantation. Multiple searches are conducted but
yield no results. April fifth, twenty twenty five, following a
(39:44):
prescribed burn, they cleared heavy brush in the area. Detectives
return to the plantation for another search. This time they
located human remains.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Now we wait for justice to oncold I friend Jim