shannon2008
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2008
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I read this story and I am amazed that the exact same thing didn't happen to any one of my neighbor's children who live two houses down from us.
They have 8 kids, and many, many times we have seen one or the other of the youngest (youngest at the time of occurence, this happened numerous times over the years) walking barefoot up the road. Sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. We would always run down the driveway and snatch them out of the road and take them home, and it would always be the same response, "Oh, I had no idea he/she went outside."
The two most dangerous occurrences happened several years apart. One little girl went walking up the middle of the road (which is a curving country backroad with lots of woods, tobacco fields and ponds) barefoot and in her nightgown at dusk in the late fall. My mom was driving back from the grocery store and thank goodness she was driving slow and had her high beams on or else she could have hit the girl.
That time my mom carried the little girl back, had some very choice words with the parents and threatened to call the police if one more child ever wandered off from their home.
A few years later their little boy went missing and he had wandered off the road. Everyone was in complete panic. The police were called and they had a local pilot flying overhead trying to spot him from the air. People were in the tobacco fields behind our houses, searching the pond. This went on for hours. We spent hours looking for the little boy until he was, thankfully, spotted in another tobacco field that was about 10-15 minutes away from the house. He had followed the family dog that far, gotten lost and thankfully sat down where he was and started crying.
Ten minutes or less further up the road, he could have gotten to the bridge and drowned in the creek.
It was ONLY then, when the police brought him back to the house that time and told them what could happen to them if it happened again, did the parents realize they had to watch their kids and stop them from wandering off that way. Only then did it stop happening.
I think this is a fairly common story in small communities and country areas. People just think it's not possible for it to happen in their town. Also, I think that they believe their kids would never wander off, or that they know the area well, everybody is good and friendly, etc.
I feel terrible for this little girl and hope that one day she can be found alive, or otherwise to be laid to rest. If someone went to all that trouble to wrap up the bookbag and bury it, in my mind I think she is also buried somewhere. It's so sad.
Also, someone mentioned about the Dad looking in on his daughter. Did he work a late-night shift possibly? If he wasn't getting in until late, I would not find it unusual that a father would look in and check on his daughter. Maybe that's just me though....when I was a kid in the 80's-90's my mom did hang cans in my window sill and my Dad always checked on me one last time before he went to sleep at night, no matter how late he or my mom was up after I went to bed.
They have 8 kids, and many, many times we have seen one or the other of the youngest (youngest at the time of occurence, this happened numerous times over the years) walking barefoot up the road. Sometimes during the day, sometimes at night. We would always run down the driveway and snatch them out of the road and take them home, and it would always be the same response, "Oh, I had no idea he/she went outside."
The two most dangerous occurrences happened several years apart. One little girl went walking up the middle of the road (which is a curving country backroad with lots of woods, tobacco fields and ponds) barefoot and in her nightgown at dusk in the late fall. My mom was driving back from the grocery store and thank goodness she was driving slow and had her high beams on or else she could have hit the girl.
That time my mom carried the little girl back, had some very choice words with the parents and threatened to call the police if one more child ever wandered off from their home.
A few years later their little boy went missing and he had wandered off the road. Everyone was in complete panic. The police were called and they had a local pilot flying overhead trying to spot him from the air. People were in the tobacco fields behind our houses, searching the pond. This went on for hours. We spent hours looking for the little boy until he was, thankfully, spotted in another tobacco field that was about 10-15 minutes away from the house. He had followed the family dog that far, gotten lost and thankfully sat down where he was and started crying.
Ten minutes or less further up the road, he could have gotten to the bridge and drowned in the creek.
It was ONLY then, when the police brought him back to the house that time and told them what could happen to them if it happened again, did the parents realize they had to watch their kids and stop them from wandering off that way. Only then did it stop happening.
I think this is a fairly common story in small communities and country areas. People just think it's not possible for it to happen in their town. Also, I think that they believe their kids would never wander off, or that they know the area well, everybody is good and friendly, etc.
I feel terrible for this little girl and hope that one day she can be found alive, or otherwise to be laid to rest. If someone went to all that trouble to wrap up the bookbag and bury it, in my mind I think she is also buried somewhere. It's so sad.
Also, someone mentioned about the Dad looking in on his daughter. Did he work a late-night shift possibly? If he wasn't getting in until late, I would not find it unusual that a father would look in and check on his daughter. Maybe that's just me though....when I was a kid in the 80's-90's my mom did hang cans in my window sill and my Dad always checked on me one last time before he went to sleep at night, no matter how late he or my mom was up after I went to bed.
