BUTCH MABIN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, July 10, 2005 7:00 pm
A missing child it's a parent's worst nightmare, one that Angela and Kenneth Pillow experienced for three agonizing hours Monday morning.
Then came the good news. The couple's son, six-year-old Jonah, reportedly missing since around 8:30 a.m. that morning, was safe and sound at a Lincoln day camp.
"We were looking everywhere," a relieved Angela Pillow said minutes after receiving word Jonah had been located. "This was the scariest, scariest day I've had in a long time."
It began when Angela realized Jonah was nowhere to be found in or around the couple's home at 232 C St. Concern morphed into panic and she called authorities and her husband, who had already left for work.
Lincoln police responded in force. Eventually, 20 officers and a Nebraska State Patrol K-9 unit, as well as a patrol airplane, were involved in the search.
"It was a typical response, given the particular circumstances," Capt. Robert Wilhelm said after the boy was located. "The age of the child, the time of morning he was reported missing, the fact that the parents were not able to say, Well he could be with these people, or over here' … caused us to respond this way."
Wilhelm said Child Protective Services would not be involved in the incident.
The drama Monday morning developed out of a misunderstanding over when Jonah's day camp would pick him up Monday morning.
Jonah's parents thought the time would be around 11 a.m., as it had been in previous weeks. But Jonah was beginning a new camp under the same general program Monday morning, with a new pickup time closer to 8:30 a.m.
When the day camp driver, who knew Jonah from the previous weeks, arrived, the boy called into the house that he was leaving. But nobody heard.
About 11:30 a.m., the driver saw news reports about the search for Jonah. The day camp program then notified police.
Wilhelm said the cost of the search would be minimal. The officers were already on the clock and the patrol airplane would likely have been in flight anyway, he said.
He said the department's reaction Monday was not shaped by news reports of the missing American woman in Aruba or of the arrest of a man in connection with the murder of an Idaho family and abduction of two children, one of whose remains were discovered in Montana.
"We have hundreds, thousands missing persons reports a year," Wilhelm said. "How we respond to them depends on the particular circumstances of each."
Reach Butch Mabin at 473-7234 or at bmabin@journalstar.com.