Search for girl ends in agony for family holding out hope (STL GIRL - UPDATE)

Post-Dispatch ^ | 7/26/02 11:30pm | HEATHER RATCLIFFE AND TIM O'NEIL

[stlnative]

Suspect was often seen wandering around town alone
BY PHYLLIS BRASCH LIBRACH
Of the Post-Dispatch
07/26/2002 11:13 PM

In the river community of Valley Park, neighbors knew Johnny A. Johnson as the red-headed young man with tattooed arms who wandered the low-lying residential streets on foot or bicycle and behind the wheel of a pickup.

Late Friday, police arrested Johnson, 24, and expect to charge him in the murder earlier in the day of Cassandra "Casey" Williamson, 6, of Valley Park.

Casey slept Thursday night at 810 Benton Street, where Johnson, who has a criminal record, had spent the night on the couch.

On Thursday evening, Johnson had hung out on Benton Street, where he grew up, talking with Bradley Stuart, 13.

"We were just sitting around talking and stuff, and he said, 'I am going to kill my mom,'" said Stuart. "I just thought he was playing around, and he said it again. Then he kept saying, 'Let's go swimming in the Meramec.' I just didn't go."

Stuart's aunt Lesley Stuart, 23, said Johnson had been sleeping at 810 Benton Street for about a week.

Just before dark Thursday, Johnson, as he often did, made a stop at the Corner Market store in Valley Park where he typically bought soda, cigarettes and sometimes a six-pack of beer.

"He was very quiet and always alone," said Wajdi Abuhamdeh, the store's clerk.

Abuhamdeh said that in the past several weeks, he had received phone calls at the market from women identifying themselves as Johnson's mother and girlfriend.

"They said, 'Have you seen Johnny? Can you please give him a message?'" said Abuhamdeh. "They said they missed him and so did his young daughter. They wanted him to get the message to call them."

Several neighbors described Johnson as a wanderer who acted weird and appeared to be mentally slow.

Richard Hopper, 21, said he spotted Johnson earlier this week.

"He said he was visiting friends, and it was none of anyone's business," said Hopper.

Johnson, who served prison time, is on probation for stealing firearms, felony theft, misdemeanor stealing and burglary stemming from crimes he committed in St. Louis County since 1997.

Neighbors said that Johnson had grown up on Benton Street until the family moved away about 10 years ago and that he also spent time with his grandmother in Kirkwood and an older brother, Robert Johnson, who lives out of the area.

Tim O'Neil and Donald E. Franklin of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

[Utah Girl]

What's this world coming to?

[stlnative]

Search turns traumatic for the finder and is too familiar for police detective
BY JEREMY KOHLER AND HEATHER RATCLIFFE
Of the Post-Dispatch
07/26/2002 10:57 PM

David Hults of Valley Park is comforted by his brother-in-law is Richard Fikar moments after Hults located the body of Casey Williamson, 6, in former Valley Park glass factory.
(GABRIEL B. TAIT/P-D)

More than seven hours after the search began for neighbor Cassandra "Casey" Williamson, David Hults broke away from a group scouring 20 acres of nearby woods.

Hults, a local hunter and friend of Casey's grandfather, decided to search through the ruins of the St. Louis Plate Glass Co. factory off Marshall Road less than a mile from where Casey disappeared.

He crawled into one of the many tunnels beneath the ground - tunnels known to harbor teenage partiers and transients.

Then beneath the rocks, he saw something. Toes peeking out from under the rubble.

"Oh my God! I found her!" he screamed.

He yelled for help. But he was too far from other searchers and police. So he called officers on his cell phone.

Then he sat down on a rock and cried.

Minutes later, police would suspend their search through the woods and Meramec River banks - a search that began soon after Casey disappeared from her father's home about 7 a.m. Friday.

A familiar scene

Friday's search was only too familiar to some.

St. Louis County police Detective Luther Hanna had done this before - nine years ago.

Hanna was one of the detectives who went door to door searching for Cassidy Senter, 10, who was kidnapped as she walked three blocks from her home in Maryland Heights to a friend's house after school.

After a nine-day search, Cassidy's body was found in an alley in St. Louis. "Not a good ending, but at least we got the bad guy," Hanna said.

On Friday, Hanna was one of more than 100 police officers looking for Casey, who was abducted from the Valley Park house where her father lived.

Police searched the river in johnboats. A county tactical team searched the woods with tracking dogs. Two helicopters circled overhead. Police, in pairs, went door to door, searching every house, quizzing neighbors on what they had seen.

Hanna and his partner, Howard Eaton, searched a four-block area near where Casey disappeared in Valley Park, a largely working-class town of modest, low-lying, wood-frame houses surrounded by industrial sites.

A century ago, Valley Park was built as a company town for St. Louis Plate Glass Co., which was founded in 1902 and moved to Crystal City in 1917.

"It's so crazy"

At each doorstep Friday, the detectives asked to come in "in case she's hiding in there," Hanna said, to clarify.

Two neighbors reported seeing Johnny A. Johnson walking around town. Johnson, a drifter who had spent the night on the couch where Casey's father lived, was arrested Friday in connection with Casey's murder.

"It's so crazy so many things like this are going on in the country," said resident Marcus Johnson as Eaton stepped into his basement.

"Did you know Cassidy?" Hanna asked him. He meant Casey, but part of his mind was nine years in the past.

"Yeah, we grew up with her mom and uncle," Marcus Johnson replied.

The detectives visited five houses before the order came over the radio: "All search parties return to command post."

Lynn Venhaus of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

[stlnative]

I don't know... I know the PIG buried her under a pile of rocks. This little one was from my hometown area. It surely hits harder when it is from your area of the country.

[stlnative]

Tragedy united family as they waited in vain for girl's safe return
BY HEATHER RATCLIFFE
Of the Post-Dispatch
07/26/2002 10:41 PM

Chelsea Williamson, 11, sister of Cassandra Williamson, 6, sits in her front yard Friday evening in Valley Park, with a memorial of flowers, candles and stuffed animals that friends and relatives brought to comfort the family.
( Jerry Nauheim Jr./P-D)

About three hours after Cassandra "Casey" Williamson disappeared, her family and friends joined hands in the yard of her home and took turns praying out loud.

"Please wrap this family in your arms and keep them safe," said Laurie Roberts, a friend and neighbor.

The girl's mother, Angela Williamson, wailed while others recited the Lord's Prayer.

The tragedy brought together Casey's parents, who are separated. They hugged and cried on each other's shoulders while they made pleas for their daughter's safety.

The family has lived in Valley Park for decades.

Angela Williamson and her children had been living with her father, Jim Wideman Jr., at 805 Benton Street for the last four months. Casey has two sisters and a brother - Chelsea, 11, Elizabeth, 4, and Ernie Jr., 2.

Angela Williamson works as a medical technician drawing blood from patients at local health clinics. She lost her job several weeks ago after she crashed her car while visiting family in Indiana.

Casey's father, Ernie Williamson, a union carpenter, lives with a friend across the street at 810 Benton Street so he could be near his family.

Angela Williamson and the children stayed with him Thursday night.

Ernie was especially close to Casey, friends said.

"She's just one of those girls who loved her daddy," said Marian Jayox, Ernie Williamson's mother who lives in St. Clair, Mo. Jayox and others spoke while searchers were still trying to find Casey.

Ernie Williamson said his daughter was quiet and well-behaved.

"She always stays out of trouble," he said tearfully. "She just does her own thing."

Casey, who would have been a first-grader at Valley Park Elementary School this fall, spent most of her time riding her bike through the neighborhood and playing with other children on the street.

"She's with her friends all the time," Angela Williamson said.

Casey and a boy who lives on the block staged a make-believe wedding in the back yard several weeks ago. She didn't invite her parents.

"I told her she couldn't get married without her mother there," Angela Williamson said.

Casey's grandfather, Jim Wideman Jr., said she was quick to learn math.

"She was very intelligent," he said. "She knew numbers better then any 6-year-old."

Angela Williamson said friends and neighbors supported the family throughout the day. Many took off from work to join search parties.

"I think the whole town has been by here," she said.

[Utah Girl]

These poor families who are losing their children, my heart breaks for them. And my heart also breaks for the men who find their broken bodies. They have to live with that sight for the rest of their lives.

[stlnative]

Picture from last article

What really makes me mad is this PIG was sent to prison on a 7 year sentence and only served 90 DAYS! This was reported on the local STL news!

[landerwy]

We have five year old daughter too. It has been especially hard to see this one and Samantha. It makes one wonder if this will continue! I sure hope not.

[Jeremy_Reaban]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm from St. Louis too. Stories like this are always terrible, but when it's someone only a few miles away, it's shocking. And enfuriating. I can see how lynch mobs used to happen.

[stlnative]

Body Found Is Missing Mo. Girl's

Fri Jul 26,11:51 PM ET

By JOE STANGE, Associated Press Writer

VALLEY PARK, Mo. (AP) - A 6-year-old girl vanished from a suburban St. Louis home Friday and was killed by a man who had stayed there overnight, police said.

AP Photo

Cassandra Williamson was reported missing Friday morning from her father's home. Police said the suspect, a 24-year-old local transient who had slept on the couch, later told them the girl's body was at an abandoned glass factory a few blocks away.

A group of search volunteers who had been going door-to-door arrived about the same time as investigators at the factory, where the girl's body was found.

Late Friday night, Cassandra's parents went to the crime scene and identified the body, said James McCrady, a St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office investigator. The parents, hugging and crying, later were chauffered away behind the coroner's van carrying their daughter's body.

St. Louis County Police Chief Ron Battelle said Johnny Johnson was arrested but charges had not yet been filed. Johnson spent the night at a home shared by Cassandra's father, Ernie Williamson, and a roommate, the father said.

Ernie Williamson and Cassandra's mother, Angela Williamson, had separated but still spent some nights together at a neighbor's home, where Ernie Williamson had been staying for about a week. Thursday night, the entire family stayed at the home — Ernie and Angela Williamson and their four children.

Police described Johnson as a local transient who sometimes slept in the factory. Ernie Williamson said he had only known Johnson a few days and that his roommate and Johnson were up late drinking the night before. He said Johnson was sleeping on the couch Friday morning.

Authorities said Cassandra was in the kitchen around 7:30 a.m. with her father. Williamson said he was about to pour his daughter a bowl of cereal and left the room briefly to go the bathroom. When he returned, the girl, barefoot and dressed in a white nightgown, had disappeared.

The father said he also noticed that Johnson was gone. About a half-hour later, Williamson said, Johnson returned to the house, wet and muddy, and said he had been swimming in the nearby river. Police began questioning him soon after he returned.

Before the body was found, Cassandra's mother, Angela, said, "She never walks off without telling me she's going somewhere. She doesn't even go to her friend's house without telling me she was going. I just want my baby."

As word of the disappearance spread, volunteers began joining in the search, which also included helicopters and bloodhounds. Many were looking around an area along the Meramec River, which runs through Valley Park in southwest St. Louis County.

Several cases of child abductions involving young girls have been in the news in recent weeks.

Cassandra, who would have been a first-grader in the fall, had been chosen as the kindergartner to represent a new generation and launch a handful of balloons as part of a Sept. 11 remembrance ceremony at school, said Valley Park School District spokeswoman Barbara Roux.

"She was thrilled. She just wanted to do it perfectly," Roux said. "She kept asking, 'Am I standing right?' She just wanted it to be perfect, and she was perfect."

[landerwy]

With our current court system you can see why people want to take the law into their own hands. Who wants to watch this "PIG" paraded before the cameras for the next 15 years or more?

[stlnative]

Cassandra Williamson was reported missing Friday morning from her father's home. Police said the suspect, a 24-year-old local transient who had slept on the couch, later told them the girl's body was at an abandoned glass factory a few blocks away

I guess he told them where her body was right when the searcher found her or they acted like she had not been found yet and worked the location of her body out of him to get more evidence against him, telling the cops where she was is admitting he did it, in my book.

[Mo1]

What really makes me mad is this PIG was sent to prison on a 7 year sentence and only served 90 DAYS! This was reported on the local STL news!

WHAT!! ... 90 days .. OMG

[stlnative]

Yes... I have been thinking about all night since I heard it at 10pm. They let him out because he was not considered dangerous and he has low IQ or is slightly retarded.

[littleleaguemom]

She'd save her money to buy Britney Spears posters and CDs. Casey would watch the movie "Titanic" again and again.

Huh? By no means do I mean to criticize the grieving parents, but Britney Spears and Titanic at this age? I'm pretty lax, allowed Titanic in 4th grade, Britney NEVER... No wonder they weren't phased at a family sleepover with criminal vagrants...

[Mo1]

What was he sentenced for???

[Freedom2specul8]

I don't see how you do this.., but many of us appreciate it..and share your passion.. Thank you.

[stlnative]

I think it is in the articles above what he did. Stealing Weapons and some other stuff. I am looking at the local TV station websites now to see if I can reference to his short stay in Prison.

[Freedom2specul8]

I honestly don't think I can read the entire article..