Missing: The Oregon City Girls. Rick Watson
daughter.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s twelve. She would never run away though.” The woman’s voice wavers as her restraint starts to crumble.
“Okay. You don’t think she would ever run away?”
“No, I know she wouldn’t.”
“Just a minute please.” The dispatcher switches between lines and addresses a radio transmission coming in behind the call. “Fifty-two fourteen…Yeah, we have a potential runaway, suspicious circumstances.” The dispatcher quickly examines her caller-ID display and then resumes. “Newell Creek Village, off Beavercreek Road. Stand by for further.” She switches back, “Okay, ma’am, I’m back. Go ahead… How long has she been missing?”
“Well, she left for school this morning, and I have contacted all her friends and none of them saw her at school. And she has dance after school. She wasn’t at dance so she’s been missing since this morning.”
“Where does she go?”
“Gardiner Middle School. This is so out of character for her. She always calls and informs me of everything.”
“Well, if you’ll tell me what she was last seen wearing…”
“Um, you know, I didn’t get up with her this morning, but I know that she…she was wearing blue jeans, Tommy Hilfiger blue jeans. I’m pretty sure she was ‘cause they’re not here. I looked.…and white Skechers…”
“Okay, what’s her name?”
“Ashley, A-S-H-L-E-Y Pond, P-O-N-D.”
“Last seen wearing blue jeans.”
“Yeah. And white Skechers, like sneakers, you know? And ma’am, I have no idea what shirt she was wearing. I didn’t get up with her this morning.”
“Hold on a moment ma’am.” The dispatcher turns her attention back to the officer standing by on the radio. “Fifty-two fourteen, we have a twelve-year-old possible runaway, Ashley Pond, last seen wearing blue jeans, white Skecher shoes…”
The radio speaker vibrates with the officer’s response. “I know the address…”
There is no time to register her surprise. The dispatcher continues, “…That’s correct, apartment 228.”
She then turns her attention back to the caller. “What color jacket does she have?”
“She normally wears sweatshirts. It probably would be, um, she only wears a blue sweatshirt, so she probably would be wearing a blue sweatshirt or some type of sweatshirt. She doesn’t like coats.”
“Okay.”
“We looked at what ones are missing. There’s—yeah, I think she’s wearing her blue sweatshirt. Let me ask her sister real quick. She might remember.
“Honey? Hon, do you remember what shirt Ashley was wearing this morning, or what she was wearing?”
A child’s voice replies, “I didn’t see her this morning.”
The distraught woman on the phone returns to her conversation with the dispatcher. “But she…because she got up at 7:00 and said… and thought she was late getting up for school, and I fell back to sleep.”
She asks the child again, “So you didn’t see her at all, huh?”
Getting a shake of the head in response, she says into the phone, “Okay, yeah, cuz I remember her getting up this morning and thinking she was late and she wasn’t. And then I fell back to sleep. So, she doesn’t remember, but I know she most likely…is wearing some type of sweatshirt.”
“Just a moment please.”
“Thank you.”
The dispatcher takes yet another police radio transmission. “Fifty-two sixteen…you’re 10-7 at nineteen-thirty hours.” She shifts back to the caller. “Just a moment please, okay?”
“Okay. Are you trying to do two things at once?”
“Yeah, about ten things, actually. What is your name?”
“Lori, L-O-R-I.”
“Your last name?”
“Pond, P-O-N-D.”
“Okay, just a moment here. Okay, we’ve got an officer on the way out there.”
Attractive, thirty-four-year-old Oregon City Police Detective Viola Valenzuela-Garcia catches the assignment. Following procedure, her first move at 9:30 AM takes her to Gardiner Middle School where the missing child attended the seventh grade. Garcia’s plan is to individually seek out Ashley’s friends and acquaintances since she prefers the informality of one-on-one interviews. In the school counselor’s office, she conducts her first interview with thirteen-year-old Miranda Gaddis, Ashley’s neighbor and classmate. After brief small-talk, Garcia gets right to the point. “So in your opinion Miranda, where is Ashley right now?”
“I believe that she took off, ran away.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She told me her life sucked, big time. She was real mad at her mother, Lori Pond.”
“Was she close to her mom?”
“I don’t think so. You see, Ashley’s mom has a drinking problem, and a lot of the time she is really awful to Ashley.” Miranda rolls her tongue piercing around in her mouth.
“Can you think of a specific example of this?”
“Ashley told me she locks her out of the house for hours sometimes. And she grounds Ashley a lot for no good reasons. Just before Christmas I had a long talk with Ashley about her problems and stuff. You know what she said? She told me she wanted to run away, just get far away from all the stuff going on around her.”
The policewoman looks up from her notes and says, “A lot of adolescents are going through a tough period of adjustment. When most kids talk about getting away, they usually have some destination in mind. Maybe a friend’s or relative’s place. Somewhere safe, maybe. Did Ashley ever confide in you about that?”
“Not really.”
“Now I know you’ve already told me about Ashley having problems with her mother, but setting that issue aside for a bit, can you think of any other reasons Ashley would have for taking off?”
Miranda’s expression changes and she looks suddenly sad. “Yeah… She hates living where she lives and she hates the way most of the other kids have been treating her. She gets a lot of grief tossed at her every day. I mean, she is kind of rude and snobby a lot of the time, but they’re really mean to her.”
“When did this all start?”
“When Ashley told everybody that Mallori Weaver’s father had been touching her and stuff. But in the end it was never proven. The kids that thought she was lying got pretty mad at her. It caused a lot of hassles for awhile.”
“Miranda, think hard for me; is there anybody you know of that could or would want to hurt Ashley?”
The girl is quiet for a moment as she studies the floor, thinking. She looks up. “Her mom’s new boyfriend Dave lives there with them, but I don’t think Dave would ever hurt her. She actually likes him. He’s nice and buys her stuff. If you ask me, her real problem is Lori, her mom.”
Ironically, the second student to confer with Garcia in the counselor’s office is twelve-year-old Mallori Weaver. Mallori is one of Ashley’s closest friends and is the daughter