Yesterday's presser.
Presser.
6th Oct.
LE - She woke up in the morning. Her 20 month old baby boy, Quinton Smalls, was missing from his pack and play. Quinton was last seen wearing a sesame street light blue T-shirt and black shorts or black bottoms. So, we got here as quickly as we can. Trying to assess the situation, trying to determine the nature of why Quinton was missing.
So, let me try to get ahead of some things or some anticipated questions that you may have of me. We've located the biological father. He works very much, very north of here. We don't believe he has anything to do with.... being a custody thing or anything like that, at this point. We have not determined whether or not it is an abduction or kidnapping. Therefore, we did not issue an amber alert. That is a requirement of an amber alert is to - law enforcement has to have that belief that an abduction has taken place.
So, currently we're interviewing all parties involved to the extent that we can. They've all been cooperative so far and we're in the business of interviewing them, securing a search warrant for the residence so that we can do a more invasive search. Officers did do a cursory search of the residence to see if the child may have been hiding or something of that nature. We did not locate the child in any of those spaces that we thought, perhaps, that a child could hide, but we would require a search warrant to do a more invasive search, so we're in the process of doing that.
We also... I think there was a question asked whether or not we had any prior visits to this residence. We've only had two calls for service here in the last 2 years. They were not of a missing child or anything like that, so just for the sake of context.
I do want to thank all of the agencies that have come out here and assisted the Chatham County PD. As you can hear, we got mosquito control up ahead of us in the helicopter doing an air search for us. The Savannah PD. has come out to assist us. Chatham Emergency Management, the LIberty County Sheriff's Office came up with 2 deputies, 2 K9 officers. They're out with their bloodhound trying to do a track to see if there's anything of value that we can. Concerned citizens of this neighbourhood have showed up, participated, or are participating in a grid search, out here, in this geographic location. So, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank all of those individuals and entities for being out here. Chatham County Sheriff's officer's are out here. So thank you very much Chief Wilshire for lending his staffing out here.
This a fluid situation. All things are still possible. We don't have any concrete belief in any one theory or any one thing. So, we're very concerned about Quinton. We're hoping we can find him safe and bring him home to his parents.
Reporter - I know you said this is very fluid right now and you don't want to go into it just being one specific scenario, but have you found anything, thus far, in this search... you've been going for 4 hours, that would lead you to believe that foul play might be something that's involved in this?
LE - We have not, quite frankly. There's nothing that leads us in one direction or another. You know, it's really kind of wide open right now. Unfortunately, wish we had something more of substance that we could, you know, kind of focus our energies on, but like I said, everything's on the table right now and we're attacking it at all angles.
LE - So you've talked to the mother - Have you asked what happened in that three hours from 6 am. to 9 that she didn't know that her child was missing... obviously parents can get distracted with young children.. What happened in that three hours and what explanation has she given so far?
LE - Well, I don't have that information. I'm not doing the interview and I'm not going to interject myself in my detective's work. Hopefully we'll be able to, through those interviews, get some of those answers and be able to release some of those details as we go forward.
Reporter - Just to clarify. Your referred to him as Quinton Smalls. Is Small's his last name or middle name?
LE - Did I misspeak? My apologies, my handwriting is horrible. Quinton Simons. I'm sorry. My apologies. So, thank you for that clarity though.
Reporter - What goes forward now? Obviously the search... nightfall is going to be in the next couple of hours, will the search continue throughout the night? Have you changed your directives?
LE - Well, once we have exhausted or... you know, daylight obviously is going to be an environmental factor that we're going to have to contend with once we get there. Obviously, if visibility is low.. obviously this isn't a very well-lit area. So, it would be my assumption that once daylight fell and we didn't have any visibility that we'd have to suspend the search until daylight tomorrow morning, but we'll make those decisions as they come and as we confront those impediments as we go forward.
Reporter - Since you started searching, has there been any sign of this 20 month old child?
LE - I have not been reported of that whatsoever. No, sir.
Reporter - I'm just going to ask. I know you said that all things are possible at this time, but do you guys have any leads with the bloodhounds or the helicopters or the drones?
LE - We have not gotten any leads. No, ma'am.
Reporter - (
Asks about bloodhounds)
LE - The handler just took the K9 out for one last track. you might have seen that right before we started the interview. So, we'll see if that yields anything, but I would imagine after that they probably have to let the dog rest. There's only a certain amount of time that they can track without them getting tired and their senses get a little diminished.
Reporter - (
Asks about timeline of streets opening back up)
LE - We've slowly started opening them back up. Obviously, the actual crime scene is contained to the residence and then, obviously, if we were to find anything out here in the area we would tape that off so we can do a proper forensic search of that, but we are going to be opening the roadways fairly soon.
Reporter - (
inaudible) an emotional connection? Have you worked a case like this before and being the head of this agency, you're looking for a small child, what's in your head?
LE - You know, I can't.... nothing comes to mind. I'm 32 years in the business. Nothing that comes to my immediate mind. Certainly dealt with child deaths and things of that nature and having children myself, you know, six kids who are all older now, but you know I can't imagine what's going through the parent's head. I mean, you're fearful, you're scared, you're worried, and you know, it affects not only the immediate family but the neighbours who maybe had contact with him. I think they're, you know, they've probably seen the kids, played with them or said hi to him. You know, the officers that are out here searching, the residents that are out here searching, everybody has an emotional investment in these type of cases and it takes its own toll on people in their own magnitude. So, you know, I just want to thank everybody out here. You guys being out here. You guys feel it, right? I mean, you're human beings. You have hearts and you bleed and everything like that. So, you know, you're not callous individuals that don't have any feelings. You know, you're going to going to be impacted by what you see out here. We got a lot of help out here. A lot of people that care, a lot of people that want to find him and hopefully he'll come home safe and get this behind us.
Reporter - (
Asks what people should do if they have any tips)
LE - Just have them call 911, that's the quickest way to get us. We'll take that information on it's merit and hopefully it'll be useful for us.
