Posted on 11/07/2007 11:31:44 AM PST by Luke Skyfreeper
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Rowan Ford, 9, has been missing from her home in Stella since Friday evening. If you have any information about her, please call the Newton County Sheriff's Office at 451-8300 or 451-4242. COURTESY PHOTO |
Foul play is suspected in the disappearance of a 9-year-old Stella girl who has been missing from her home since late Friday night.
Rowan Ford, 9, was reported missing at 6:50 p.m. Saturday by her mother and step-father Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said Sunday afternoon. The girl was last seen at her home at 777 Grove St. in Stella at 10:45 p.m. Friday night.
Copeland said the mother, Colleen Spears, last saw the girl at about 8:30 p.m. Friday when she kissed her goodnight before leaving for work at Wal-Mart in Jane.
Copeland said the stepfather, David Spears, and two friends remained at the home until about 10:45 p.m. when they left the home after David Spears checked on the girl, who was still asleep.
"They leave the house unlocked and left a 9-year-old girl by herself," Copeland said. "They cruise around a while, then took one guy home in Wheaton. The other guy brought the step-dad back home around midnight. He failed to check on the girl at that time."
Around 1:30 a.m., Copeland said, David Spears called his mother to ask if he could borrow her car to go somewhere.
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"She comes over, gives him the car and goes into the living room, failing to check on the girl," the sheriff said. "About 7 he returns and again fails to check on the girl."
Colleen Spears came home from work at about 9 a.m. and notices something amiss. Usually, on Saturday mornings, the girl greets her mother. But this past Saturday, there was no hug or kiss, no shout of elation that Mom was home.
"She checked the girl's bedroom, and she was not there," said Copeland. "She woke her husband up - he's a very sound sleeper - and he told her she may have gone to a girlfriend's house in the night, he didn't know.
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"They hope she's at a girlfriend's house, and waited all day Saturday for her to call. She doesn't," Copeland said.
The couple then began searching for the girl, notifying the sheriff's department of her disappearance shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday night.
"The mother is extremely cooperative with us. She's real distraught over his missing daughter," said Copeland. "The step-dad, he's not cooperating very well. From our investigation, we have every reason to believe foul play is involved. We don't have a suspect at this minute, but we haven't eliminated anyone from being a suspect, either."
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Deputies and volunteers were out Sunday searching on foot and on four-wheelers. A group of volunteers were out on horseback looking for the missing girl, while Stella residents fanned out to help. A Missouri State Highway Patrol helicopter took to the skies to aid in the search, Copeland said. Tracking dogs were able to follow the girl's scent to outside the home, but the trail then stops, as if she entered a motor vehicle at that point, Copeland said.
"We started in the house and yard, then broadened our search to the city of Stella, then broadened it to other wooded areas," the sheriff said. "The helicopter was able to search a large, large area.
"We have no reason to think she's out wandering around. This little girl was asleep in bed and within an hour and 15 minutes later, she was abducted? The odds are big for that kind of stuff."
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The search was discontinued late Sunday because of darkness, and was to begin anew this morning. Copeland was in meetings this morning and could not be reached for comment. A sheriff's department spokeswoman saisd the search continues today for the missing girl.
Miss Ford is described as being 3-feet 11-inches tall and weighing 62 pounds. She has brown hair and brown eyes. Authorities are uncertain what she was wearing at the time of her disappearance.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Newton County Sheriff's Office at (417) 451-8300.
It was me and the media should be ASHAMED!!
And Me? I’ve avoided getting entangled since the split-up.
Darling Daughter is successfully launched into college, and Ratboy starts high school next year. They’re out of the worst of the danger zone.
One of Ratboy’s teachers was astonished to discover that we’re divorced. She told us she could always tell which of her students were children of divorce, but with Ratboy, she had absolutely no idea.
I can think of no finer complement!
I’m not sure if it’s been posted but after a quick search I’m assuming the step-grandmother is Ramona L. Spears. None of the articles have actually named her. Of course she had to have known what had happened. No way she brought the car over in the middle of the night with no questions and calmly sat on the couch watching tv the rest of the night without checking on Rowan. Wonder if she did any “house cleaning” during the commercials?
A brief summary for people just now arriving to this thread:
9-year-old Rowan Ford was reported missing from a small town in rural SW Missouri last Saturday. After days of searching by dozens of police, FBI agents and volunteers, her body was discovered yesterday morning by two police. Her body had been placed in a sinkhole-type cave, with a narrow entrance just wide enough to admit a person, and was found about 20 feet down, either on or under a ledge.
Yesterday evening, a 32-year-old man from Wheaton, Missouri turned himself in to police. It has not yet been announced publicly (to my knowledge), but all indications are that the man who turned himself in is Chris Collins — friend of David and Colleen Spears.
Colleen Spears is Rowan’s mom. David Spears is her husband and Rowan’s “stepfather.” David Spears is 24 years of age (25 next week), about 20 years younger than his wife. Collins was a friend, apparently, of both Spears and his wife.
The second person arrested last night is David Spears, the “stepfather.” Spears was seen on local TV blubbering about how he would never have done anything to harm “his little girl.”
Spears stated to investigators that he had gone out drinking with two buddies and returned home around midnight, while the mom was doing an overnight shift at Wal-Mart.
At 1 o’clock in the morning, Spears called his mother and asked her to come over so her could borrow her Suburban. He wanted to go out again, and his pickup was low on gas. Spears was then gone for approximately 5 1/2 hours, from about 1:30 am until about 7 am. He avoided mentioning this to the police. The mother claims she did not check on Rowan while she was there.
Police have indicated that Rowan was removed from the home in Newton County and taken to Barry County, where she was murdered. They are processing a “crime scene” in Barry County.
An autopsy is expected to be conducted today, and charges are also expected to be filed against David Spears and Chris Collins for the murder of Rowan Ford. We do not know at this time whether any other arrests may be made.
Check out this interview with the step-father.
http://www.ky3.com/news/local/11100216.html
Make sure to watch the video. VERY CREEPY.
That would be correct. I’ve had the parents name and address for a while now, but hadn’t posted it. Both of Spears’ parents are 47 years old, just 3 years older than Spears’ wife.
It looks to me like his mom seems to have variously gone by Mona, Ramona, Myrna, and Myra.
And check out the mother’s interview. She knew yesterday around 5 pm that her husband was involved.
http://www.ky3.com/home/video/11159601.html
That jumped out at me, too. From everything that's been found out about that whole family, I'm curious if CPS had any prior calls or if the school had any concerns. Poor little child looks so sad in that picture.
Yeah, I saw that... more than once, earlier on, before we knew he was going to be arrested.
I try to be real careful not to judge people just by looking at them, because you can so easily make a mistake that way. But after watching that video a couple of times, I came away feeling that my first impression was correct, that there was some definite acting going on there.
This is Chris Collins:
Wow, this is bringing back memories of us all sitting through hours of forensic entymology testimonies!
(bugs don’t lie like the Van Dams).
Absolutely.
His mother wouldn’t just get up at 1:00 AM unless she knew it was some kind of emergency.
Dear lord! I had a sister die from SIDS. After my son came home from the hospital, he caught a virus and he needed to go to the hospital. We didn’t have a car either (living on VA benefits), I was still recuperating from childbirth, and so my husband wound up running w/the baby to the hospital, about 10 blocks away. I think I have some feeling about what you went through.
It tears me up to read your post; I don’t think I will be the same the rest of the day. God bless you.
I wouldn’t even loan my car at 1pm unless I knew why someone wanted to borrow it.
Supposedly Spears mom sat at his house til he brought it back 5 hours later.
His mom had to know what happened as the daughter obviously wasn’t home. What would stop her from checking Rowan?
Of course not. I checked on my son all the time (partly, as noted above, because I had a sister who died of SIDS); I would always check that he was breathing.
He's 30 and if he goes to bed before I do, I still open his door a crack and make sure he's ok before I go to sleep. It's hard to get out of the mom business. : )
Heartbreakingly sad picture. Thinking about little Rowan and how many times she must have held and hugged that teddy bear. That poor woman has a lot of grief ahead of her.
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