PrayersForMaura
Help Find Maura Murray
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Arrest made in slaying of runaway
Nearly two years after a 15-year-old Georgia runaway was found dead on a California street corner, an arrest may finally close a chapter in a murder mystery that raised questions about how Georgia tracks abused children.
On Wednesday, a 20-year-old car salesman accused of killing Hanna Montessori will be arraigned on murder charges. The man, police say, met Hanna while she was working as a prostitute on the streets of Santa Ana, Calif. It was a sad end to a life that seemed full of promise.
Hanna's great-great-grandmother, Maria, founded the Montessori teaching method in Italy a century ago. The method, which stresses individual achievement, is now used in thousands of schools worldwide.
Phillip and Cheryl Montessori raised Hanna, the second of their three children, in a modest five-bedroom home in Maine. Her parents separated in 1999, and after their divorce, Hanna began experimenting with drugs and alcohol and skipped school often, her father said.
In 2000, Hanna and her younger brother, Daren, moved to metro Atlanta with their mother, and Hanna was shuffled among several shelters and group homes after state welfare workers reported that she had been abused in her home. They never said when or by whom.
Hanna visited her father in Maine about once a year, Phillip Montessori said, the last time for a four-month stay in the summer of 2003. "I thought she was doing better," her father said.
But in September of that year, Hanna slipped out of a Marietta facility for abused teens and never returned.
A few months later on Jan. 5, 2004 Hanna called her father to wish him a happy birthday. Her older brother, Derek, answered the phone.
"She said, 'I'm fine. When I'm 18 I'll tell you where I am,' " Derek Montessori said in a 2004 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the Montessoris' home in Gray, Maine. "I asked her to come home, but she wouldn't."
Fourteen days later, on Jan. 19, 2004, Hanna was found badly beaten on a California street corner and died on the way to the hospital.
But her family didn't know it for months.
After Hanna's death, the Division of Family and Children Services provided The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a copy of the police report on her disappearance from the shelter and a copy of the form that indicates that Cobb County police entered Hanna's disappearance into the nationwide police database. But for reasons that still aren't clear, Hanna's name never made it into the National Crime Information Center database.
So when she was picked up by Santa Ana police for loitering in December 2003, officers had no way of knowing she was a runaway. Hanna was fingerprinted and photographed, but was released the next day.
So for three months, Hanna's unclaimed body was stored at a Santa Ana morgue while her family prayed for her safe return.
Phillip Montessori eventually found his daughter's picture on a Web site for missing children. It read: "Jane Doe, Santa Ana, California. Deceased."
Much more: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/1205/20metmontessori.html
Nearly two years after a 15-year-old Georgia runaway was found dead on a California street corner, an arrest may finally close a chapter in a murder mystery that raised questions about how Georgia tracks abused children.
On Wednesday, a 20-year-old car salesman accused of killing Hanna Montessori will be arraigned on murder charges. The man, police say, met Hanna while she was working as a prostitute on the streets of Santa Ana, Calif. It was a sad end to a life that seemed full of promise.
Hanna's great-great-grandmother, Maria, founded the Montessori teaching method in Italy a century ago. The method, which stresses individual achievement, is now used in thousands of schools worldwide.
Phillip and Cheryl Montessori raised Hanna, the second of their three children, in a modest five-bedroom home in Maine. Her parents separated in 1999, and after their divorce, Hanna began experimenting with drugs and alcohol and skipped school often, her father said.
In 2000, Hanna and her younger brother, Daren, moved to metro Atlanta with their mother, and Hanna was shuffled among several shelters and group homes after state welfare workers reported that she had been abused in her home. They never said when or by whom.
Hanna visited her father in Maine about once a year, Phillip Montessori said, the last time for a four-month stay in the summer of 2003. "I thought she was doing better," her father said.
But in September of that year, Hanna slipped out of a Marietta facility for abused teens and never returned.
A few months later on Jan. 5, 2004 Hanna called her father to wish him a happy birthday. Her older brother, Derek, answered the phone.
"She said, 'I'm fine. When I'm 18 I'll tell you where I am,' " Derek Montessori said in a 2004 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the Montessoris' home in Gray, Maine. "I asked her to come home, but she wouldn't."
Fourteen days later, on Jan. 19, 2004, Hanna was found badly beaten on a California street corner and died on the way to the hospital.
But her family didn't know it for months.
After Hanna's death, the Division of Family and Children Services provided The Atlanta Journal-Constitution with a copy of the police report on her disappearance from the shelter and a copy of the form that indicates that Cobb County police entered Hanna's disappearance into the nationwide police database. But for reasons that still aren't clear, Hanna's name never made it into the National Crime Information Center database.
So when she was picked up by Santa Ana police for loitering in December 2003, officers had no way of knowing she was a runaway. Hanna was fingerprinted and photographed, but was released the next day.
So for three months, Hanna's unclaimed body was stored at a Santa Ana morgue while her family prayed for her safe return.
Phillip Montessori eventually found his daughter's picture on a Web site for missing children. It read: "Jane Doe, Santa Ana, California. Deceased."
Much more: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/1205/20metmontessori.html
