Hello Websleuth community,
Apologies for the long, long, post...
I'm an acquaintance/friend of Alanna's family. I know her non-biological father best (an incredibly sweet guy), and once spent a really fun afternoon playing board games with the whole family. They're all wonderful people, and I have vivid memories of a 4 ½ year old Alanna giving me lots of hugs and demanding to be picked up and swung around. She was so beautiful and full of love, my heart just breaks for all of them.
As a mom, these cases are always really tough on me, but this one hit so very close to home... I want justice for Alanna and some measure of peace for her family, and I'm posting this because something has been bothering me increasingly over these last weeks – especially after hearing that LE are at a standstill. I'd like your opinions on something that happened at our home, less than 48 hours before Alanna was murdered.
On the night of June 29th, we had a friend in from out of town. We had taken our daughter (an occasional playmate of Alanna's older sister) to see Peter Pan in Fort Worth that day. By the time we left the theater, it was nearly 11:00, and our friend wanted us to meet him for drinks before he had to go home. Since the bar was in Fort Worth and we only had the one car, I dropped my husband off there before taking my daughter home and dropping her off with my son (almost 18). By the time I met back up with the guys, it was midnight. We stayed a little past 2:00 AM, and by the time we arrived back home it was nearly 3:00.
Being the driver, I was completely sober of course, and my husband had also been drinking conservatively – he was not drunk in any way. As we approached our home we saw a strange man emerging from the immediate vicinity of our house. Our memories of the event differ slightly, but it definitely raised our hackles. I thought the man came from the very dark area between our house and the neighbors', while my husband (who didn't have to watch the road) said he came from the front porch. Either way, he was definitely on our property in the middle of the night.
The man saw our headlights approaching, and quickly walked down our driveway and across the street. By the time I parked he was on the other side of the street, a couple of houses down, and increasing his pace. My husband told me to check on the kids, and took off after him. I was torn for a moment, not wanting him to get hurt, but the kids took priority so I raced inside to make sure they were okay. I was met by our dogs as usual, and they didn't seem particularly agitated, but then again, Mom was home. I pounded upstairs to find two sleeping kids, and then back outside to check on my husband.
He was walking back toward me. He said that the man had apparently gone into a house four houses down from ours, on the other side of the street. I asked him later if he actually saw the door open and he said he hadn't, and couldn't be sure if he'd even heard it open and close. He took photos of the house and the cars in the driveway, in case anything at home was wrong, and headed back. We checked all the doors and found no sign that anyone had attempted to force them.
We didn't call the police. I wish now that we had, but I'm too willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt. My husband was upset and wanted to call them, or knock on the door of the house and demand to know what was going on, but I argued that nothing looked out of place, everyone was fine, and that the guy might have been drunk and looking for a dark place to pee (the house directly across the street from where he seems to have gone has young people in it, and they sometimes have raucous parties), or chasing Marshmallow - a neighborhood stray cat. (I was still convinced he'd come from the side of the house, and when I went to check back there, Marshmallow was there as she often is.) I also didn't want a confrontation with a possibly drunk neighbor at 3:00 in the morning, and in the end I convinced my husband to let it go. Thirty-seven and a half hours later, Alanna's body was found.
When I heard that a child's body had been found in Saginaw Monday evening, I called my husband, distraught. His first thought was the creeper guy from two nights ago, and so I called the tip line and told them about the incident, including a description of the man. I gave them my information, and they said they'd call if they had any more questions. Wednesday morning I heard the identity of the child, and went into hysterics. No one has contacted us about the incident.
I know I'm an idiot for not wanting to call the police, when we had an apparent prowler while our kids were home alone. I also know there's a good chance it's completely unrelated. But it's driving me crazy hearing that LE have no leads, while no one has followed up on this. For a while I was hoping that they weren't calling us because they had a description that didn't match ours, but that hope is fading with each desperate call for information. Monday I called the tip line again, having heard that they were looking for two dark SUVs – there's a dark SUV in the driveway of that house at night. But they said they were only looking for a red truck, and that investigators were going through all tips carefully.
Other relevant information:
We have an eleven year old daughter.
We live about 2 ½ miles away from Alanna's home, and the place where her body was found is about halfway between her house and ours.
A couple of days ago on this site, there was discussion about a swimming pool, and a map to the nearest one. That pool is in our sub-development, my kids walk there all the time.
I have not mentioned this to the family. It's tenuous at best, and while I consider them friends, I don't feel I know them well enough to intrude on their grief for any less-than-concrete reason.
I've been following the discussion here for several days, and there are some very smart people here. I guess I just needed to get this off my chest, and see what others think. I'd like to think that we haven't been called because LE is following other, better, leads. But the complete lack of information is wearing on everyone, especially residents of this haunted little town. I was hoping that at least you guys might be able to make something of the fact that we haven't been contacted.
If you've made it all the way through this enormously long post, thanks for your time.
- A
