Huge search on for a 3 year old girl likely swept into floodwaters just down the road from here.

I know the mom but couldn't bring myself to shove a microphone in her face while the search is still on.

I hope to hell the kid just wandered off from her backyard, but her shoes were found at the edge of the Aroostook River.

Searchers are hoping she's hiding somewhere, but it doesn't look good.

Also, there's an abduction possibility made to look like a drowning, I guess.

Mother was at the grocery store. Father apparently was home. Don't know why the little girl was in the backyard and father didn't see her wander off, but it wouldn't be the first time toddlers have wandered unsupervised in that town.

Been missing since noontime.

The police lieutenant I just talked to sounded emotionally overwhelmed.

Christ.
*looks to the heavens*

That's awful. I'll never understand how 3-year old kids can walk out of the house without the parents noticing, in this case, the father.

I hope they find her.

It would remind me of the Marcus search here, except it turned out the foster parents and live in girlfriend tied up the kid, put him in a closet, left for the weekend, came back to find him dead, then took him out to a farm and burned the body then dumped it into the Ohio River. The foster mom, then took the other kids to a park, faked a seizure, and when people came to help her she started asking where Marcus was like he had run away. They searched for days to find him. Those were the most insane people and unbelievable events that I have heard of.

I've had my son disappear in stores before as he runs off and hides in clothes racks. He can be hard to keep up with because he can fit through such small areas. It's scary when they are out of site. You start wondering if you'll keep turning corners and never see them again.

It's WAY too easy...even if the parents are fairly vigilant. Stories like this kill me.

My kids were easy to keep track of compared to one of my brother-in-law's foster kids. That 4 year old kid is a fetal alcohol syndrome former ward of the state, has all kinds of physical and emotional difficulties and fixates on things.

Like, he's in love with vehicle mufflers and loves to rub them.
He also seems to be a savant about picking locks.
Knows every swear word under the sun, too.

Lisa does respite for her brother and has lots of stories about what a little Jose Canseco superfreak the kid is.

But he's responding to her pretty well, despite all the medication he's on.

I'm hearing now that the girl's mother has given at least three different accounts to police about what happened.

She's a bit of a headcase, so it looks like there's more to it than just the girl slipping on a raging embankment.

Not good.

Horrible to hear. Hope it gets straightened out.

I got separated from my mom when I was 3 in a supermarket and instead of going to the front desk and having her paged, I just walked home. It was about 2 miles away. My grandpa asked where my mom was when I got home. haha

Same thing with me, except I was in a Richway (what Atlanta used to have before they all became Targets). I did go to the front of the store in tears though. Funny thing that... I remember my mom coming up and telling me that she knew where I was all along. If that sort of thing happened now (as people have intimated above), can you imagine the judgmental stares my mom would have gotten? Like "how DARE you not keep your child in sight at all times!" Weird.

Yeah my Mom freaked out when she got home but I guess I didn't think it was a big deal.

one time when i was around 3, my dad took me on a drive out into the woods and let me go and then ran back to the car and drove off. i found my way home, thankfully. he was a real joker.

I was knocked out of my mom's arms by a wave when I was only 2. Luckily, she dove in the water and was able to grab a hold of my foot.

"luckily"

I guess you'd rather I had drowned.

i wish that no one had spotted your mom drowning you in time to stop it

I remember when I was in elementary school, probably 3rd grade, they had 2 bus "runs". I was on the first. My teacher one day thought I was on the 2nd so I was held back. I went along with it thinking my bus was delayed. Anyway, when I went out to find my bus, it had obviously already left. My mom was by the busstop and didn't see me come off, and went into hysterics. Meanwhile, I was in the office calling her. My mom drove up in tears. I don't think I ever remember her being so upset. I didn't understand at all...I mean, what was the big deal. Here I am pushing 30, and considering a family one day of my own, and I get it. When I was in college and I worked at Toys R Us, we had different codes. Whenever there was a lost kid, we immediately shut and locked the doors. Immediately, workers were sent into a "search party" mode.

Maybe it's because I'm sleep deprived, but this thread cracked me up from Shiv on down. Being a (responsible) parent must suck.

Any updates on the missing girl?

my parents still get upset when I'm home for holidays and I go missing. This year over Christmas break I stayed over at one of my friends houses for 3 days without telling them where I was at or what I was doing. When I got back home they were so pissed off at me, I had figured that since I didn't live at home anymore it didn't matter but I guess that was stupid of me.

Searchers found the girl's boots about a mile apart, one boot in the river across the border in New Brunswick.

She now appears to have slipped out the back door of the mother's duplex when the mother left the room to change her one year old.

The mom and two kids had just moved to the apartment building four days before and were still unpacking.

My question is what 3 year old puts on her boots before running outdoors on a 65 degree spring day? And could she have slid open the sliding glass door by herself? Don't know if she's big enough for that.

Also, the station was faxed a National Missing & Exploited Children flyer on the kid this afternoon. Do they do that for kids who are presumed drowned?

I think maybe the state police are working an abduction case at the same time the warden service is doing a search.

In this world we live in, its probably prudent to do both so that they don't have egg on their face whatever the outcome. Hell, these days if she was presumed drowned, and found later to be abducted, the parents would probably sue the police for not following through with it.

This is just awful Frosted. Sadly I can't see this ending well, but I can hope that it does.

My son has always been really good at taking off on me in stores.

There's one particular Borders in Oak Park that he seems to prefer doing it to me in. He's disappeared in there TWICE on me in the past year or so. One minute he's next to me, next minute he's not.

Scares the hell out of me, both times I had to have an alert put out by the store employees as they've searched for him. Each time he's off in a different part of the two level store. grrr. I've had massive anxiety attacks over both situations. It's scary to imagine your kid missing even for a second.

I warned him I'm buying a leash if he EVER pulls that again. But yeah, it just goes to show how easy it is for kids to just take off on their parents.

When my brother was four he decided to play hide-and-seek with my mom and aunt without telling them after a trip to the grocery store. He hid in bushes by a neighbor's house while they were unpacking the car.

He didn't let his spot be known even while they were screaming for them and there ended up being a neighborhood search involving many people who were home and the police.

They finally found him and a police officer told him why it was very important to always answer your parents when they call for you.

I also had a bus incident much like FR's while in kindergarten in Florida.