CHIPLEY — Months before a 7-month-old girl disappeared from her family’s home, her baby sitter pleaded with the governor to “please, please save that child” from her parents’ alleged pattern of drug use, abuse and “really strange things,” according to an e-mail obtained Tuesday by The News Herald.
In response — on the third day in the search for little Shannon Dedrick — top officials with the state Department of Children and Families told The News Herald they were revisiting the case to see if they missed signs of danger.
“Did we miss anything? Were there any red flags? Should we have been more skeptical over the progress? We’re digging as hard as we can to see if there’s other things that we should’ve been doing,” Peter Digre, DCF’s assistant secretary for operations, said Tuesday night.
“As to whether we were being as smart as we could be, I’m not totally sure yet.”
In an interview Tuesday, Shannon’s baby sitter Susan Baker claimed the little girl’s mother said she wished her daughter “would disappear” weeks before the tiny infant vanished.