Timeline outlined by BPD video above:
Monday June 19 8:15 p.m:
Police are called. Police respond, create a report, and enter Kaytlynn into local/national databases as a missing child.
Stepfather said Kaytlynn may be at a friend's house.
Later that night Kaytlynn's mother called police back with the name "a friend Kaytlynn may be staying with." Mother did not have the address.
Police tracked down address, made contact with the people there on Monday night, and Kaytlynn was not there.
Police continued to follow leads throughout the night. Info provided by family and not by family.
Early Tuesday morning June 20:
Bedford PD begins searching apt. complex for additional leads.
Investigations continued throughout the day.
Police did not think she had been abducted or was "at risk."
Tuesday afternoon, June 20:
Bedford PD initiated the following alerts:
"A Child Is Missing" alert (automatic phone call to residents)
Community Message Alert (he said they're often called "Blackboard Connect") Bedford PD posted bulletins about Kaytlynn on all social media.
Partnered with families (He said plural, "families." Idk if he means both her mother and father's sides of the family or if there is another family involved? Or if he is referring to Bedford citizens as families? It's at 4:25 in the video if you want to look.) to hand out "bulletins" with Kaytlynn's info on them.
Tuesday night: Officers worked through the night.
Wednesday, June 21: Officers and detectives continued to investigate and canvass the apartment complex.
Wednesday afternoon: Bedford PD contacted by Arlington PD about body found in landfill, Arlington PD said body found had similar characteristics to Kaytlynn.
Both PDs assisted in processing the scene.
Kaytlynn was taken to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office where she was examined and identified.
Officers worked overnight Wednesday night.
Thursday morning, June 22: Officers and detectives continue following leads while "other members" of the "criminal investigation division" attended the autopsy at the ME's office.
Thursday afternoon: ME positively identified Kaytlynn to Bedford PD. Began working case as "death investigation." Officers and detectives continue working "all available leads." Bedford PD has been in "constant contact" with the family.
He says there's nothing they (the PD) could've done differently.
He spends a lot of time talking about how supportive Bedford PD has been to the family.
Says he will release cause of death as soon as he knows it.
Very careful to call it a "death case" but then at the very end calls it a "criminal investigation."
Says they have no information to show that there's a threat to any other families.
He said he knows people are upset with him for not issuing an Amber Alert.
No suspect. No person of interest.
"No
Chief of Police: "Right now, we have absolutely nothing that points to a risk to our community in terms of further danger. We are still, again, waiting for the cause of death but all of our information that is coming in through our investigative teams do not indicate a further risk to our community. We have an unknown situation at this point."
Chief of Police: "There is not a suspect or person of interest. We are, in fact, following every lead that comes in...we don't have a singular suspect."
Reporter: "How can you say there's no threat to the community?"
Chief of Police:"We have no information that leads us to believe this is an ongoing situation."
Police have been asking about a certain person by name while canvassing the apartment complex, per a reporter's question.
Case is the highest priority the PD has.
Reporter: "If a lot of it is an unknown situation, how are you so comfortable telling the community that there is nothing to worry about if it's that big of a mystery?"
Chief of Police: "Through all our investigative leads, we do not see anything that would indicate a repeat offender at this time."
A reporter asked "How does that happen without an offender, somewhere?"
It was not a public area of the landfill.
First FB post on Bedford PD page was 18 1/2 hours after she was reported missing. Police chief says based on the first information they got that she would be found within the apartment complex.
This is really helpful!!
I am having such a hard time understanding why the police were so convinced that Kaytlynn was not in immediate danger, and I would love to be privvy to the initial conversations between Kaytlynn's parents and police.
Once, as a 7th grader, my son told me he was staying after school for tutoring. Instead, he snuck into the library and went to a far, sort of hidden, corner to play a computer game with a friend, and both boys lost track of time. When I arrived at school to pick him up, he was not waiting outside, and he did not respond to my calls or text messages. I was mildly concerned, but I figured his phone battery had died, so I waited for an additional 30 minutes in the carpool lane.
When he still hadn't appeared after those 30 minutes, I entered the building as a teacher was leaving and made my way to the front office. No staff was there as it was now 1.5 hours after the end of school, so I proceeded to search the building by myself. A teacher working late came around a corner, stopped me, and I explained my situation. He helped me look. After another 20 minutes, we could still not find my son (the school was huge), so I called 911.
I remember feeling panicked. Had he tried to walk home and been abducted? Had he been beaten up and was lying hurt in the bathroom? Had he simply snuck home with a friend? Was there some sort of medical emergency? All sorts of things go through your head, but you try to be reasonable.
I wanted to believe that something harmless and easily explainable had happened, but my son was ALWAYS so reliable and trustworthy, and although I was making a mental list of all his friends and was checking my phone to see whose contact information I had readily available to pass on to police, I was also trying to control my rising panic. He was not a kid who just disappeared.
So, I understand why Katylynn's parents went through her friends and suggested friends she might be with to police initially. You try not to immediately think the worst, and you know your kids are not perfect--usually the simplest answer is the right one anyway. However, I am not clear as to why police still believed, on the following morning (Tuesday), that she was likely NOT in danger. Had my son still been missing on the following day (A teacher found him in the library just after police arrived, and I tried so hard not to strangle him and become my own thread on this website!), I would have known 100% something was absolutely wrong, and I hope I could have made police understand that--maybe an Amber Alert still would not have been issued without having some sort of evidence that an abduction had taken place though.
I am not blaming police for not issuing an Amber Alert, and I do not wish to second guess their actions and rekindle that debate. So, assuming that police were RIGHT in NOT issuing the alert, I wonder what made them so sure Kaytlynn was not in immediate danger. What details did those "friends" give to police? What information did Kaytlynn's parents tell them? What made them so sure she was likely just "off somewhere?"
OR...maybe they were NOT sure she was okay at all. Perhaps the police WANTED to issue an alert and spent a long time at the apartment complex on Tuesday trying to find any witnesses or additional information that would allow them to issue an alert, but didn't turn up anything concrete.
What do you think: were police convinced Kaytlynn was likely just "off somewhere" based on information from "friends" and the family (I don't buy it), or were police worried for her safety but unable to issue an alert due to lack of evidence of an abduction?
If it's the latter, it must have happened SO QUICKLY....or it must have looked like such a normal interaction that no one paid any attention. That's the scariest thought.
--Jamie
