Two women in right place at right time to find kidnapped child

COLUMBUS (WCMH) – Two young women were in the right place at the right time Tuesday, playing a major role in helping unite a child with his mother after her vehicle was stolen with the baby still in it.

Taeyonna Webb and Nave Dowe said in the moment they found the baby, all they could thing of is his mother and her fear during the whole situation.

Four-month-old Alpha Kamara was in the back of a maroon 2008 Acura MDX with Ohio plates that was stolen from Tamarack Circle Tuesday morning.

The pair said they got the Amber Alerts on their telephones earlier this morning, but the second alert is really what caught their attention.

Child found safe after Columbus Amber Alert 

Webb said she was charging her phone and the Amber Alert went off the second time when she was near the intersection of Ohio and Hildreth avenues.

That is when she spotted the Acura with the license plate that was listed on the alert she had received just moments before.

“I’m driving slow, it’s snow out here,” Webb said. “So I’m driving slow and I see this big red Acura just sitting here and I’m, like, ‘Maybe it’s somebody’s that live here,’ and I checked the Amber Alert again and I see the plates.”

THANK YOU TO THESE HEROES!

Taeyonna Webb & Nave Dowe found the stolen SUV with the 4mo baby inside nearly 4hrs. after the crime occurred.

Deputy Chief Becker @buckeye_becker showed his appreciation at the scene by presenting them with his Division challenge coin.💙#AmberAlert https://t.co/b1y5aNZPUz

— Columbus Ohio Police (@ColumbusPolice) February 10, 2021

Both women said it’s thanks to that second Amber Alert which drew their attention to the SUV and ultimately baby Alpha.

“I stopped, she got out and ran to the car to check if anybody was in it,” Webb said. “There was nobody in the car, but there was a baby.”

“Calm, I opened the door and the baby just looked at me and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Dowe added.

The women then called the police, who later gave them special coins for helping find the child.

Both said they were happy to help, saying all they could think about during the situation was the child’s mother.

“It does because if I was a mother, I know, I know the mother is probably in shock right now, not knowing if she would ever see her baby again,” Webb said.

Both said they urge people to be on the look out when something like this happens again.

“If you see or hear an Amber Alert, don’t just blow past it like, ‘They’ll find it,'” Webb said. “You never know, just like us. I didn’t think I would ever come across a kidnapping car. Like, don’t blow past things like that.”

Family says teen was lured to her death by boys she thought were friends

Sylvia McGhee, 14, murdered in Canton, Ohio (Image source: GoFundMe/ Sylvia McGhee lost her life In cold blood)

by MO BARNES

By all accounts, Sylvia McGhee, 14, was a bright and outgoing middle school student who had a full life ahead of her. Now her family is grieving and wondering why Sylvia snuck out of the house in the early morning hours of March 30, 2019, only to be found dead a short distance away from her home in Canton, Ohio.

According to Canton police, Sylvia’s body was found just a few blocks away from her home around 4 a.m. with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 5:01 a.m., according to the Stark County Coroner. Police have poured over Sylvia’s cellphone and social media postings and have identified two suspects. The suspects are reportedly 13 and 14 years old and were allegedly her friends.

The 13-year-old has been charged with obstruction of official business and is in custody. According to Canton Police Captain Dave Davis, “He lied to officers. He gave false information during his interview.”

The second suspect has not been arrested or charged at this time. Davis stated to ABC News-5, that all information regarding the murder has been turned over to the Stark County Prosecutor’s office. It will be up to a juvenile justice prosecutor to decide what charges may be filed.

Sylvia’s grandmother, Sylvia Milina, believes her granddaughter was lured to her death. “She didn’t even have a chance. … It was like it was a set up to me because she’s never been out at that time,” she said to the media.

This sentiment was echoed by the teen’s mother, Ashley Milina who has created a GoFundMe campaign titled “Sylvia McGhee lost her life in cold blood” to help with funeral expenses. She wrote, “My poor baby was murdered in cold blood. Her life was taken senselessly and carelessly. She was set up by people she considered her friends. She was only 14 years old. She was lured out of her home by some of her friends into the alley behind her house, and murdered, right behind her own home. That person who murdered her stole a part of me and my family, my heart, my soul, my world, that I will never get back nor can it be replaced. #JusticeForSylviaMcGhee.”

Missing Black girls and the individuals and organizations trying to help

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent 

Have you seen Iniaya Wilson?

Just 14, Iniaya has been missing from her Columbus, Ohio home since January 25.

She’s African American, has brown hair and brown eyes; standing 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing 120 pounds.

Have you seen Skylar Mannie?

From Lancaster, Calif., Skylar is also Black and just 13 years old. She was last seen on Feb. 14.

She has black hair, brown eyes, stands 5 feet 5 inches and weighs 130 pounds.

The two are among the estimated 64,000 Black girls and women across the United States that have gone missing. Iniaya and Skylar are also among an unfortunately growing number of young people listed in the “critically missing” section of the expansive database of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

That includes girls and women of all backgrounds, an important distinction because of the lack of media coverage of African Americans who’ve gone missing.

That has spurred activists and some in Congress to action.

In efforts to address the problem of missing Black children nationwide, Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), and Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY) initiated the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls in 2016. Through the caucus, they hope to create public policies that “eliminate significant barriers and disparities experienced by black women.”

According to BlackNews.com, members of the caucus believe that more federal assistance and collaboration is needed to further eliminate the problem.

“I feel like knocking on every attic, every garage to see where those girls are,” House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi said. “Let’s be an example to the world that we can’t rest until these girls are found.”

Further, the nonprofit Black and Missing But Not Forgotten, also has focused its attention on spotlighting and finding missing African Americans.

Since 2007, the organization has sought to develop relationships with media, government agencies and the public to ensure that missing African Americans receive prompt attention and concern to garner the best possible outcomes for each case.

A 2010 study about the media coverage of missing children in the United States discovered that only 20 percent of reported stories focused on missing Black children despite it corresponding to 33 percent of the overall missing children cases.

The report revealed that missing Black youth – especially Black girls – are underreported in the news and it seems that many people don’t even care.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that in 2018 alone, there were 424,066 reports of missing children made to law enforcement around the country.

John and Revé Walsh and other child advocates founded the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as a private, non-profit organization to serve as the national clearinghouse and to provide a coordinated, national response to problems relating to missing and exploited children.

Walsh, who formerly hosted “America’s Most Wanted,” now does similar work with his show, “In Pursuit.”

The show, which airs on the Investigation Discovery network, has remained relentless in its pursuit of missing children.

Original Article

Witnesses rescue 8-year-old Cleveland boy from suspicious men

Julia Tullos | January 28, 2019 at 3:14 PM EST - Updated January 28 at 3:14 PM

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) - According to police, an 8-year-old boy was walking to school Monday on the city’s East Side, when he was approached by two men in a white truck, with a light on top.

Cleveland police said the child was in the area of 2200 E. 55th Street around 8 a.m. when the suspects pulled up next to the child and asked if he wanted a ride to school due to the cold.

Witnesses thought this looked suspicious and got the child away from the men.

The witnesses then took the child to his school and had staff call police.]

Police said there are no arrests and no better description of the men or truck.

Ohio Community will never get over it: 4-Year-Old with Autism Wanders from Home and Drowns

BY ADAM CARLSON

https://www.safety.com/autism-safety/

The community of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, will never forget the moment the body of 4-year-old Sidney Heidrick was pulled from Lake Erie. 

"I don't think anyone is going to get over any of this anytime soon," Mayor Dennis Bring tells PEOPLE. 

Bring, a Sheffield Lake resident since 1958 who is in his fourth year as mayor, says he can't even remember the last time a tragedy like this struck his community, which is home to 9,000 people. 

It's a grief made more unimaginable by how unlikely it seemed, even minutes before Sidney's body was recovered. 

On Friday, the barefoot little boy, who had autism, walked away from his grandparents' house on the lake, Bring says. 

He was spotted around 4:30 p.m. by a passerby – but the man who called police must have hesitated between the sighting and dialing, Bring says. Officers responded to the scene within 30 seconds, according to Bring, but Sidney was already gone. 

By Friday evening, "people were coming from all over" to look for Sidney, scouring the woods and vacant properties, Bring says. Thousands eventually joined in, assisting the FBI, Coast Guard and a myriad of regional agencies in the search efforts. 

The search continued into the next day. Bring says he went home at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, and the town's police chief didn't head home until 4 a.m. 

"I fully expected I'd get a call that night," Bring says. He dreamed his phone rang with the news that the had found Sidney. But he awoke to discover the search was still ongoing. 

The community stayed hopeful, Bring says, telling one another Saturday afternoon to keep their fingers crossed, not knowing their search was minutes from ending. 

Sidney's body was found in Lake Erie around 3:30 p.m. He wasn't more than 60 feet from shore – not even a quarter of a mile from his grandparents' home. 

Sidney probably entered the water soon after he went missing, Lorain County Coroner Stephen Evans tells PEOPLE, and he died of an apparent drowning. 

Wandering is one of the greatest risks to children who have autism, officials with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tell PEOPLE, and nearly half of children with autism will wander. 

Being able to find these children is complicated further by the fact that they may hide from other people or head straight for water, says Robert Lowery, vice president of NCMEC's missing children division. 

Higher-functioning children have been known to travel several miles with the help of public transportation. 

Water poses a particular danger. From 2009 to 2011, 91 percent of the deaths of children 14 and younger with autism were due to accidental drowning after wandering, Lowery says, citing the National Autism Association. 

"It's a very frustrating issue," he says. It's the worst during "wandering season," which runs from early spring to fall, when the weather is warm. 

The ripples of grief from Sidney's death touched many. Bring and other officials were visibly emotional at a Saturday news conference soon after Sidney's body was found. 

One dispatcher was particularly overcome by the news. "I said [to her], 'Some things just happen and there's nothing you can do,' " Bring says. 

The police responded as quickly as they could, but it wasn't enough. 

Bring even broke the news to his 5-year-old granddaughter, who asked him if they had found the missing little boy. 

"It's one of those things that you can't believe," he says. 

Bring says he is grateful for the support of the thousands of searchers who volunteered their time. 

A GoFundMe page set up for Sidney's family has raised more than $32,000 so far. 

It's during times like these that you learn "what kind of community you have," Bring says. 

To aid the search for missing children with autism, the NCMEC has developed protocols for first responders and law enforcement and will dispatch advanced teams around the country to support officials trying to locate a child, Lowery says. 

"I just feel terrible for those people," Bring says. "They'll never get over it."

Source: http://goo.gl/3ZFebL

Original Article: https://www.safety.com/autism-safety/

Trinity Mount Ministries Website

12 year-old Autistic boy: body found Sunday at Mud Brook:

Fire officials: Body of missing Akron 12 year-old boy believed to be found Sunday at Mud Brook:

AKRON, Ohio - Akron police and fire officials confirm they have found the body Sunday of what is believed to be the missing Akron boy who fell into Mud Brook creek.

Police released a statement Sunday:

After three days of extensive searching the Akron fire department water rescue team along with the assistance of the Cuyahoga Falls water rescue team found what we believe to be the remains of Nicholas Shaffer in Mud Brook Sunday morning at 11:21 a.m.

We would like to thank everyone who helped in the search.

Shaffer went missing Thursday after falling off of a wall and into the creek while sitting with his mother.
Several good Samaritans jumped in to try and locate him but they were unable to find him.

One of those good Samaritans, Kameron Williams, said Sunday, “It's just sad to hear that he's gone.  I wish it would've turned out different.  I hope the family's okay.”

Mark Farrar also said Sunday, “It's a tragic situation and, you know, my heart goes out to the family.”

But just as unfortunate, added Farrar, is if those with autistic family members ignore this tragedy.

Farrar is a Sergeant with the Akron Police Department who teaches first responders how to work with autistic children.  He’s also a member of the Autism Society of Ohio, but speaking to NewsChannel5 as a parent of an autistic child, he said Sunday, “…unfortunately, this type of thing happens all too common because this, children with autism are often drawn to water and the problem is they don't recognize the danger that's recognized with that.”

Farrar told NewsChannel 5, “Children with autism, they have a brain imbalance and they respond to different senses different than typical children do.  So often times, is sudden behavior that we as parents might not be able to anticipate because we don't know what they're thinking.”

Authorities are now working to determine 12-year-old Nicholas’ cause of death.

Fire officials tell NewsChannel5 that the last time someone drowned in a similar area, it took four weeks to located the body.

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/oh_summit/fire-officials-believe-body-of-missing-akron-12-year-old-boy-was-found-sunday-at-mud-brook