Man, has this has been an ugly week for children or what? Shortly after six last night Nine-Year-Old Elizabeth Olten was sent home from a friend’s house. She lives about a quarter of a mile away from her friend. She never made it home.
The Cole County Sheriff’s Department has issued an Endangered Person Advisory for Elizabeth. She is a white, nine-year-old female, 5’2″m 108lbs, brown hair, brown eyes, and fair complexion. She was last seen wearing a pink scarf, pink shirt with butterflies, pink sweater, and blue jeans with white sneakers. She also had a cell phone with her.
AT&T pinged the cell phone at the request of the Cole County Sheriff to triangulate its location, which was deep in the woods near her house. According to her family the girl is afraid of the dark and the woods and would not have gone into them willingly.
Wednesday night the Missouri Highway Patrol searched for the girl using thermal imaging radar, with no success. About sixty people resumed the search this morning focusing on the stretch of woods where her cell phone had been detected along with a team of dogs from the Department of Corrections. Unfortunately, the cell phone battery has died, and they aren’t able to ping it anymore.
The FBI has also gotten involved in the search but as far as I can tell they have issued no Amber Alert because there has been no evidence of foul play or abduction. Sounds like a load of horse crap to me.
Unfortunately, as mentioned in a couple of the stories, not all the mid-west is as flat as you would think. Areas of Missouri and Arkansas are hilly, even mountainous. The area of St. Martins where Olten disappeared is difficult terrain, muddy and the weather is not conducive to a search right now.
As of shortly after 7 p.m. they had made no progress in the search. You can find more information and keep updated on the progress of the search at the Help Find Elizabeth Olten Facebook page. I will be out of town Friday thru Sunday so blogging or any other type of updates may be sparse.
H/T to the Dreamin’ Demon (the story has been up most of the day, but I’ve been out)
Update 10/25/09 – Just got back in town or I might have had this update earlier.
A 15-Year-Old girl has been charged with the murder of Elizabeth Olten. The suspect led law enforcement to the body on Friday, only a few hundred yards from her home.
Police aren’t releasing any other information about the murder.
I will try and update this tomorrow evening.
Update 10/27/09 – Law Enforcement in Cole County, Missouri still isn’t releasing the name of the 15-year-old girl charged in the murder of Elizabeth Olten but they did serve a warrant at her home and are not releasing the nature of the information they were looking for.
At some point soon prosecutors will be holding a closed hearing in juvenile court to petition for murder charges as an adult.
Update 10/27/09 #2 – There is to be a hearing tomorrow to determine whether the 15-year-old girl should continue to be detained and another on November 18th to decide if she will be tried as an adult. KSDK is reporting that both hearings may be open to the public.
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