Little Girl Missing

[denjac]

I know alot of deer hunters are on this site, so wanted to pass this on for this upcoming weekend:

Keep your eyes open for sighns of the little girl that came up missing Friday night from Stella Mo. Her stepfather has an unexplained absense for about 5 hours Friday night and saturday morning. Doesnt look good, she could be anywhere in 3 hours drive from Stella. Keep your eyes open for her this weekend. No this is gruesome but needs to be addressed.

STELLA, Mo. | Searchers continued to comb the rugged Ozarks countryside Wednesday for a 9-year-old girl last seen in her bed Friday night, while the girl’s distraught mother warned other parents to keep tabs on their children.

Rowan Ford was reported missing Saturday after her mother, Colleen Spears, returned home from a night shift at a Wal-Mart in a nearby town and found the girl had disappeared. Rowan’s stepfather, David Spears, told investigators he last saw the girl asleep in her room around 10:45 p.m. Friday before he left her alone and went out with friends.

At least eight FBI agents have joined the investigation by the Newton County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Ken Copeland has said he believes foul play was involved but has not elaborated. No charges have been filed.

The Sheriff’s Department said there were no developments as of midday Wednesday and searchers were still out, although a department spokeswoman declined to specify where.

Colleen Spears said investigators have told her that a three-county area has been searched.

Stella, a village of less than 200 people, is surrounded by miles of thickly forested hills, narrow valleys and cattle pastures. Temperatures have dipped to near or below freezing for the past two nights.

“There’s not been any news yet. So we’re still looking, still hoping. Everybody around here is praying that she’s going to be all right,” a red-eyed Spears told reporters as she hugged an oversized teddy bear of Rowan’s outside their ranch-style home.

Spears told other parents to “never, ever leave your kids alone.”

“If you go out to check the mail, when you come back, check on them,” she said.

Spears appealed again for anybody with any information on Rowan to report it.

She said she was grateful for support from the community, including a candlelight march Tuesday night that brought out more than 200 people for a procession from a nearby church to Spears’ home.

David Spears has said he did not harm his stepdaughter. He spoke Monday, after the sheriff said the stepfather had been uncooperative with investigators and initially withheld some information about his whereabouts the night Rowan vanished.

Colleen Spears said she saw Rowan just before she left home at 8:30 p.m. Friday to go to work.

David Spears and two male friends were with the girl until they went out around 10:45 p.m. Spears returned home around midnight when one of his friends dropped him off, Copeland said, but did not check on the girl.

Spears later acknowledged that he called his mother sometime after 1 a.m. Saturday and asked to use her vehicle. She took it to him about half an hour later, then stayed at his house while her son left for about 5½ hours, Copeland said.

Colleen Spears got home around 9 a.m. Saturday and discovered that Rowan was not there. She and her husband spent much of the day looking for Rowan at the homes of acquaintances where they thought the girl might have gone, then reported the girl missing at 6:50 p.m.

David Spears, who is staying with his parents, said it was wrong for him to have left the girl alone.

[Phil Lilley]

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Stella,+MO,+...ap&ct=title

for location

[troutgal]

Sadly, the little girl has been found.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=133784

[jeff]

This is terrible news, I was really hoping for a happy ending. The stepdad's story makes absolutely no sense to me. What kind of father leaves his child alone to go out drinking with his friends, and he called his mother at 1am to borrow her truck and she actually came right over. Noone checked on the girl, and he was gone for five hours after that. I'm sorry that I'm casting judgement, and if he's innocent I apologize. I just need to vent. This story and it's outcome really bothers me.

[WebFreeman]

I think everyone agrees, Jeff. None of it makes sense.

[Bob A]

A lot of things don't make sense in this senseless murder of a young child. All we can do is hope and pray that the person or persons responsible will be caught and that whoever is responsible burns in hell. As a retired Army CID agent,my personalfeelings are that this case will be solved and rather quickly. Then all that remains is to hang the SOB and/or his accomplices.

Bob A

Springfield, MO

[Rusty]

I had a bad feeling about this today, as we talked about it at the RR gathering. I am glad the mother can get some sort of closure. I just wish it would have not happened at all. Shame on the lost souls that were involved in this.

[The Caddis]

a senseless tradgedy

[Daddy Carp]

This is terrible news, I was really hoping for a happy ending. The stepdad's story makes absolutely no sense to me. What kind of father leaves his child alone to go out drinking with his friends, and he called his mother at 1am to borrow her truck and she actually came right over. Noone checked on the girl, and he was gone for five hours after that. I'm sorry that I'm casting judgement, and if he's innocent I apologize. I just need to vent. This story and it's outcome really bothers me.

No need to apologize!!! I was going to (after reading the stepfather's story)suggest, that a few of us good-ole-boys, invite him to tag along on the hunt. I think we could have found her and saved a lot of time after a "heart-to-heart" discussion with him. The "nice, upstanding" citizenry won't employ efficient methods in cases like this. Where innocent kids & lives are at stake........I can and would! Guess that's why some call me a crude A-hole. Yepper!, I resemble that!

My heart & sympathy goes out to the ones who truly loved that little girl. At this point, that excludes the mother as she knew the guy she brought home, or should have. Certainly, before she would leave her daughter in his care. No excuse, Stupidity don't exist if decisions are made on true love. Besides, she was at work. If she was smart enough to find her way there & back home.....she was smart enough to know better than to leave her daughter. She was just a horny ole gal who put herself first, ahead of her child.

I better sign off, these kind of happenings really put me in "kill" mode.

[John Smoot]

Daady C, can't say I disagree with much of what you said. I wish that more people, including the so-called justice system, could really put themselves in the spot where what if that child were theirs. I think there'd be less of this crap going on in just a few years....because punishment would be swift, severe, and for all to witness. I think that would be a deterrent. It sure seems that the status quo isn't much of one. People preying on children is at epidemic levels it seems.

If it would happen to one of mine, God forbid, I don't think I could stay out of prison...