April 7 2023
Transcript of today's Winona Police update.
Bonney Bowman: Is everybody ready? […] OK great. Well, good afternoon everyone, thank you so much for being here today. I’m Bonney Bowman, I’m a Public Information Officer for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension [BCA], the BCA is assisting the Winona Police Department in investigating the disappearance of Madeline Kingsbury. Today we’ll hear from Winona Police Chief Tom Williams and Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge. We will have time for some questions at the end of the conference, but as always, I need to remind you this is a very active investigation, and as such, we are limited with what information we can share today. So, with that said, I'd like to bring up the chief.
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Thank you all for being here today. I am Winona Police Chief Tom Williams. Today's large volunteer search happened because we heard from people in Winona, our surrounding neighbors, and across the state of Minnesota that they wanted to help. We are so thankful for the outpouring of support for Maddi and her family. We are having volunteers meet at two locations and from there fan out to search multiple areas. This is tough terrain and we are grateful to the hundreds of volunteers who are taking their personal time to assist with the search. As to the investigation, I can only say that it remains very active. Our department and our law enforcement partners are working relentlessly to find Maddi and determine the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
We continue to ask people living in Fillmore, Houston, and Winona Counties. Walk your property if you haven't done so already. Look for signs of anything suspicious. A disturbance or anything out of place. We are continuing to ask people in these areas to check their cameras and please save the video. And if you have any information that can lead us to Maddi or the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, please call Crime Stoppers Minnesota at 1 800 222 T - I - P - S. Again, Crime Stoppers Minnesota at 1 800 222 TIPS or the Winona Police Department at 507 45 762 88. We remain very hopeful that we will bring Maddi back home to her family. Now, I'll ask Sheriff John DeGeorge from Fillmore County to step up.
Sheriff John DeGeorge: Thank you Chief. Good afternoon everyone. My name is John DeGeorge, I am the sheriff in Fillmore County. Thank you all for coming here today and helping us get the word out. We've been assisting the Winona Police Department since early on in this investigation. We've committed every available resource of the Fillmore County Sheriff's Office to finding Maddi. We've worked around the clock with Winona PD and the BCA to follow up on leads and to search any possible areas to help find Maddi.
Assistance and support from our community in Fillmore County has been incredible. It's been overwhelming at times. We are utilizing that today with a large scale search in Fillmore County similar to what's going on in Winona. Our search involves hundreds of volunteers and professional team leaders from multiple different organizations. As the chief indicated, it's incredibly important for people in Fillmore County to search your properties, walk your acreage, check your outbuildings, check your vehicles, walk trails, check your cameras, surveillance cameras, doorbell cameras, your trail cameras, or any indications of anything suspicious or for any sign of a dark-colored Chrysler Town & Country van that may have traveled through the area. You know properties better than we do. If we search your property, if you give us permission, if we bring a search team, we don't know what's out of place like you do. Please check your properties anything. We have a team of investigators ready to respond to any calls, call us at 507 765 3874 and report anything to us that needs to be checked and we will respond immediately. As a sheriff's office and as a community, Fillmore County is going to continue to work tirelessly with every resource around the clock to help find Maddi. Thank you.
Bonney Bowman: And on behalf of the BCA, I’d just … I would like to thank the people of Winona, the surrounding counties, and all across the state of Minnesota who have volunteered. We’ve had messages on Facebook, we’ve … they’ve come into our Messenger, we’ve had calls. It has been just incredible, and as an agency, we … makes us even more Prout to serve the state of Minnesota. So, thank you to everybody who has pitched in, anything that you can do if you have information, again call that Crime Stoppers number or the other numbers that you’ve heard today. Uh, and for now we are ready to take some questions.
Reporter: How did you narrow down which two areas that you wanted to search today and, erm… yeah.
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: So, in terms of the areas that we decide to search, it was erm… really, I wouldn’t say that it was narrowed down. It was given a distance erm that we felt was achieved to be traveled in a period of time. Um, again, John DeGeorge and Fillmore County has some knowledge of that area obviously and then Winona County … We are actually looking for a larger-scale area than what we had initially looked at based on the number of individuals that came out and volunteers to help today.
Reporter: Is that the direction that the van traveled that you talked about earlier this week?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Erm, it’s open and active. I’m sorry, I can’t answer that.
Reporter: Are you any closer to finding a suspect or person of interest?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Erm, again it’s open and active. The leads that are coming in are unbelievable. We are actually getting hundreds of them. Um we have a lot of information that we’re trying to process right now to help do that. So, it continues to be open and active.
Reporter: Do you have an idea of how many volunteers came out today this morning to help?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Um, I think our Emergency Operations Director Ben Klinger stated that we had 400 here at … at Winona, and Sheriff DeGeorge, did we have?
Sheriff John DeGeorge: [inaudible] 300.
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: A little over 300 in … in Rushford.
Reporter: How many agencies were involved in the coordination today?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Um, I will [looks to the side] have to defer to Ben, how many emergency management directors did you have?
Emergency Operations Director Ben Klinger: Um we have the entire Southeast Region Emergency Management here. Um, many of the counties are represented. Minnesota Task Force One is here helping coordinate the search, and then numerous volunteer search and rescue fire departments, er.. volunteer police reserves, police departments, er we’ll we’’ll work on and get in a release out once we go through our sign-in sheets and stuff to recognize and thank everybody. I’m sure I miss some.
Reporter: You may have touched on this, but as far as the terrain goes, are there any challenges with walking this? Is it pretty ideal with the weather and everything right now?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Of course in Southeastern Minnesota as you know, we have a lot of bluff country and an awful lot of valleys and … and some of those valleys are extremely steep and difficult to walk up and down, Um, so, that’s difficult. They’re also, erm, somewhat difficult from aircraft capabilities, erm, and what they can actually fly over and their abilities to see down into these deep crevices. The weather again, erm… for those that are searching, it’s probably goos. Um the the sun is out. It’s dry conditions. Um it’s not super hot and it’s not super cold. So I think that the volunteers that are searching are probably pretty thankful for the weather that we’ve got.
Reporter: Can you expand at all on Maddi’s partner's whereabouts during those few hours and, if and how, he’s maybe been cooperating?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Um I am sorry, I can’t comment on that.
Reporter: Can you clarify though on Monday, I know that it was … you walked through the timeline of when the van was seen and er… I thought I heard you say that he had left her home with the van around 10 and there’s this window of time between 10 and 1:30 where the vehicle was seen driving round. Can you clarify that timeline, do you know whether he got out of the van at this point or whether he was driving, or again, um…
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Again, I’ll leave it at the statement that I had left on Wednesday. It’s an open and active investigation and anything that I stated on Wednesday is the information that we know at that time that we felt comfortable releasing.
Reporter: And you did say that he had been driving around 10, correct, on Wednesday?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: If I, if that’s what I said on Wednesday then yes.
Reporter: Has he been in the search [inaudible]?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: I’m not going to comment on that.
Reporter: Do you have a message for any suspect or person of interest?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Again we don’t have a suspect or person of interest. What we are looking for is anybody with any knowledge to please come forward and either contact the Tip line or the 101 Police Department.
From the background, probably Bonney Bowman, “We’ve got time for one more question”.
Reporter: Has there been any change in the areas that you want people to look?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Uh, as I mentioned a little bit earlier we've expanded our search just because of the fact that we have so many volunteers and we have the ability to cover more territory. Erm, so I think on Wednesday I dod not include Houston counties, erm but we’ve added that obviously because they had joined Winona County as well as Fillmore County.
From the background, probably Bonney Bowman, “That’s all we have time for, thank you guys”.
Reporter: How much [inaudible] your mileage and trying to cover, so [inaudible] can you give us of just how far the search is?
Winona Police Chief Tom Williams: Thank you! [Leaves.]
Bonney Bowman: It’s the three counties that we had mentioned and obviously it’s a lot rural acreage and that’s part of the challenge. Um I do want to just share with our media partners here: we will not be able to do daily updates about this case. As you can see, it’s incredibly active. We have a lot of people working on this. We don’t want to have to take their time by doing daily updates. When we have something new, we will absolutely share it with all of you. I think most of you have my contact information. If you don’t, please stay back, I can share that with you. I am the the PIO for the BCA, but because Winona Police don’t have … doesn’t have a PIO, I’m just helping them out with this. So, please feel free to contact me but please do not expect daily updates.
www.facebook.com
www.independent.co.uk
www.foxnews.com
