GRACE: And now live to Arkansas. A 2-year-old baby boy vanishes from his own home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Days of searching and still no sign of 2-year-old Malik Drummond.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn`t have a coat on. He just had a shoes and a t- shirt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he was hiding, we should have found him. So what else happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Regardless of what may have happened --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ain`t going give up until that little boy is found.(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to reporter from KARK-TV, David Goins. David, thank you for being with us. How do you disappear from your own home? I understand that the father was asleep in the room where the 2-year-old boy was with his 2-year-old twin sister and the stepmom was taking a bath?
DAVID GOINS, REPORTER, KART-TV: Stepmom was giving Malik Drummond`s twin sister a bath. That`s the story from the stepmom and the father. That`s the last time anyone saw Malik Drummond back on Sunday, more than a week ago now, eight days. Really the development late this afternoon is that the police department is calling off the search telling volunteers who came out in the hundreds to essentially go home because they think at this point he`s not out here. They cannot believe that he`s hiding and waiting to be discovered anywhere in the area that he could have traveled on his own. The criminal investigation has been going on as is nature of any missing child especially someone as young as two who would have limited mobility. The FBI, Arkansas State Police along with the searching police department had been involved with that criminal investigation. I can say early this evening they will say there`s only three scenarios they can look at, at this point. One is that Malik indeed walked off from his home here in Searcy and someone picked him up or someone went into the home while the parents were asleep or bathing that other child and took him out of the house. The third is that somebody that the family knows took the child, but all three of those scenarios as you`re well aware, Nancy, are all crimes so this is certainly a criminal investigation at this point.
GRACE: You know, everybody with me from KARK-TV, David Goins, reporter there on the scene. We`re all distraught. This is right around the Thanksgiving holidays as we head into Christmas. And this 2-year-old baby boy, a twin, he`s got a twin girl sister vanishes seemingly into thin air. David, if you don`t mind, for the viewers that are just joining us and don`t know the story about little Malik, please take it from the top. What do the parents say happened that day?
GOINS: Essentially, Nancy, as we talked about, the girlfriend of the father was giving his twin sister a bath and then the father was asleep in
another room. Apparently Malik was unattended in the living room. That`s the last time anyone saw Malik Drummond was the living room of his home.Now, they believe perhaps he may have walked away, but there`s no evidence to indicate that at this point. In fact, one of the things that makes this so tricky for the police department and investigators, there`s not a lot of evidence of anything. Dogs have been involved on the scent trail and they didn`t get very far from his home. Places that Malik would have been anyway, a 2-year-old playing near his home. Since then the search lasted for eight days extensively hundreds of volunteers throughout the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend not wasting time to do that, but no sign of him at this point and certainly a criminal investigation now.
GRACE: On the scene for a desperate search for missing 2-year-old little boy Malik was in his home with his mom, stepmother, and his father, his
father asleep in the same room where Malik was. The stepmother was giving the twin sister a bath. There you see the home. Back to David, David, was there any forced entry in the home?
GOINS: No forced entry. There`s no sign of a crime at all. Let me clarify. His biological mother was not there at the time. Only two adults were there, the stepmom and the father. So I want to be clear about that. No sign of forced entry and really no evidence of a crime but given the lack of Malik`s whereabouts, Searcy police believe the only conclusion of
this case is a crime has been committed. They just don`t know by who and most importantly where that little 2-year-old boy is tonight.
GRACE: What was the temperature on the day that he disappeared? Was it day? Was it nighttime? And how cold was it outside?
GOINS: Near dusk and as is the case in the fall, Nancy, in this part of the country in the mid-south, there`s been a wild gradient of temperatures.
We`ve had mid 70s and right now in the mid-30s. We`ve had all of that over the last week, certainly conditions that no one would want to be out for any extended period of time much less a 2-year-old toddler not wearing shoes and only brown pants and a blue shirt.
GRACE: Was there any evidence that he got out of the home? Were the doors locked when the parents went looking for him? Were any of the windows open? I don`t think a little child could open a window, but he could certainly get out of a door at age 2.
GOINS: Searcy police have not shared whether or not a window was open or whether or not the door was unlocked. That`s unclear as far as forced
entry goes. Again, the speculation is from the stepmom saying I had his twin sister in the bath. His father was asleep. He was in the living room. My only conclusion is he got out and walked out the door but there`s no evidence. The last time anyone saw Malik Drummond, he was in that living room on Sunday evening eight days ago.
GRACE: OK. David Goins with me. Are you near the home right now?
GOINS: We are near the home just about 20, 30 feet behind me and we`ve actually talked with Malik`s father this afternoon about the developments related to the fact that the search has stopped. He said this is the first he`s hearing of it. He didn`t have a lot to offer actually saying in previous media interviews he felt like his situation had been misrepresented so he didn`t want to talk to us much beyond that. He said this afternoon when I showed him some of the newest information, it was the first he was aware of that the actual ground search for his 2-year-old son had ceased.
GRACE: Let me ask you this, David. Liz, if you don`t mind, could you show the picture of the home where the 2-year-old little boy goes missing. Now,
if you take a look at the home, we see that the windows are very low down from the outside looking in. Is this a duplex? Are there two families living in the home, David?
GOINS: It is a duplex. It`s a duplex, yes.
GRACE: OK. So did the people living on the other side of the home hear anything?
GOINS: Nobody heard anything and nobody saw anything. That`s what we`re dealing with right now is a lack of information and a lack of any sign and we hate to use that word vanish because so often that`s not the case. There`s an explainable reason why someone is missing, but at this point at least from police investigation and again the FBI and state police are assisting, that word has been used to describe Malik`s disappearance. Short of anyone else coming forward with information to clarify his whereabouts or what happened to him, that word vanish has certainly been spoken.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back. The search is on for a missing 2-year-old Arkansas boy who seemingly vanishes from his own home. Straight out to Grant Carey, host of "Wake Up Call" KSMD. This isn`t fitting together for me, Grant.
GRANT CAREY, CO-HOST OF THE WAKEUP CALL, KSMD (via telephone): Yes, Nancy. As everyone has hashed and rehashed, this has been an almost eight-day search for this child and it`s really taken over this community, lots of volunteers coming out to help. The announcement made this afternoon by Searcy police in a press release that the search efforts has been called off, right after they moved the command center for the search effort from the church, which is close to Malik`s home, to the central fire station, which is two blocks south. They made the announcement this afternoon at the press conference or press release that they`re calling off the search. The first time they`ve used the term active criminal investigation.
GRACE: With me, Grant Carey, co-host of "Wake Up Call" KSMD. Let me ask you this, Grant. Have the parents of the family taken polygraphs?
CAREY: I don`t know if they have or not. That was something that came up in the last press conference, which was held the day before Thanksgiving.
GRACE: Right, right. What do we know, Matt, have they taken polygraphs?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police have said they issued polygraph tests to family members. They won`t say what the results or, but the biological mother told us, Nancy, that she was not given one.
GRACE: Sheryl McCollum, what is your analysis?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They got something, Nancy. Something has taken a turn in this case and they`re on a trail, no question about it. And the polygraph is such an excellent tool when it comes to the stepmother for father. Those findings have put them on the right track, no doubt.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Where is a 2-year-old little Arkansas boy who disappears from his own home? Cheryl McCollum is the director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute. Cheryl, as you were saying when we went to break, what do you mean they`ve got something?
CHERYL MCCOLLUM, DIRECTOR, COLD CASE INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCH INSTITUTE (via telephone): In other words, this is no longer a search and rescue, it`s a criminal investigation. Say in one of the polygraphs, someone showed deception or showed that harm was done to the child. They`re going to stick with that. They`re going to search the home with black lights and dogs. You`re fixing to see a complete shift in this investigation.
GRACE: Grant Carey, I show you heard Cheryl just then. Grant, what do you make of it? It`s a duplex and the neighbors didn`t hear anything. We have a conflicting story. We were told that the stepmother was taking a bath and when she came out of the bath, asked where`s Malik, the little twin sister, the 2-year-old points to the door. What is your understanding, Carey?
CAREY: Well, initially it was said that she was giving the other child a bath. Then it was said that the other child was in the room alone with Malik. When she came out, she asked where did he go? So there`s been a little bit of conflict there. That`s one of the problems police have been dealing with. They`ve been investigating the criminal aspect of this since the beginning.
GRACE: This is what I know, Grant Carey is I want this baby back home. I remember my children, basically helpless, boy-girl twins at age 2. I want to bring Malik home.
