BLYTHEVILLE, Ark. — It took a Sky Cop camera to find a missing 6-year-old Blytheville girl, but it turns out she hadn’t gone far.
Monday evening, Captain Ward assembled patrol officers and contacted the Blytheville Emergency Squad in an all out effort to find a 6 year old girl, missing from her home on East Rose Street.
“She said it was very out of character for her daughter to disappear like this. So, she was very concerned,” Blytheville Police Captain Jeremy Ward said.
The girl’s mother didn’t want to be identified, but she did speak to our reporter.
“I went into straight panic mode, went into the house looking under the bed, in the closet, in the shower, in the car porch, look literally everywhere,” the mother said.
She said she and her 6-year-old were about to head a local store in their SUV when the youngster disappeared. As darkness closed in, neighbors got involved in the search as well.
“So we all come out, matter fact the whole neighborhood was out looking with flashlights and walking the whole neighborhood,” Jerome Young, a neighbor, said.
Meanwhile in Blytheville PD’s Real Time Crime Center dispatchers were reviewing footage recorded earlier from a Sky Cop camera near the 6-year-old’s house.
“I spoke with the dispatcher, and she could see on the Sky Cop that the child was playing in the front yard,” Capt. Ward said.
When he asked the dispatcher to fast forward the video, pieces of the puzzle started falling in place.
“She tells me the child is seen getting into white vehicle. I said, ‘well the mother drives a white vehicle…a white SUV is what she described.” And she said, ‘yea, there’s a white vehicle parked in front of the house,” Capt. Ward said.
He had one of his officers contact the woman, who’s been driving around looking for her daughter, and ask if she checked the rear storage area.
“I checked my whole vehicle but I didn’t check the ‘back’ back…she was in the ‘back’ back asleep. So he opened it and ‘voila’ there she was. It was amazing. So, I thank God for that,” the girl’s mother said
The youngster said she’s learned a lesson too.
“I will sleep in the front this time,” the little girl said.
Captain Ward said the child slept so soundly that she was totally unaware that her mother and dozens of volunteers were searching for her.