It took hours of searching, but police found a missing little girl in the early hours of Saturday morning. One-year-old Zyia Roch-Quelle Alyssa Turner hadn't left her grandmother's Detroit home at all, it seems. The baby was found inside the closet, buried under some 20 pounds of clothing.
It's a heartbreaking end to what is already a sad story. Zyia's family called police late Friday afternoon, thinking she was gone. It would take hours for police to find her body inside the house ... after they searched the neighborhood.
According to police, her mom left the 17-month-old in the care of an uncle so she could go to a medical appointment. He went into his own bedroom, leaving little Zyia and some other children unsupervised for a short period of time.
Kind of makes you wonder why they didn't start the search for little Zyia inside, doesn't it? I'm not a cop, but we are talking babies after all. Crawling babies. Kids who love to disappear into any section of the house and hide.
I know parents who have found their kids under their own cribs after their backs were turned for just a second. Heading to the closet isn't exactly ... rocket science. So I'm more than a little curious how it took nine hours (the time between 4 p.m. when she was reported missing and 1 a.m. when she was found by a cadaver dog) until this missing baby was discovered.
I don't blame the family right now. I blame the searchers. What happened to common sense, people? Can you imagine the agony this family went through?
It seems like this isn't the first time police have found the body of a missing child closer to their own home than you would expect. Last week a missing boy in Michigan was found under his porch -- although reports are now pointing to the body having been moved. Zyia, on the other hand, seems to have spent the sad last moments of her life right there in the closet. And that makes my heart hurt.
What is the first thing you do when you can't find your child? Where is the very first place you would search?
Image via brianteutsch/Flickr
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Comments 89
Just watched the video. That was a dirty house with stuff EVERYWHERE. If they kept it clean she'd still be alive. No child should have to live in filth like that. MAybe now CPS or the county will force these people to CLEAN their home.
You graduated from the police academy when and you've been a detective for how long? With so little understanding of the process, it's appalling that you are allowed to write such drek. A number of years ago, my senior research was about what police officers understand about small children (cognitive processes, behavior and ability to report). The department that graciously allowed me to survey their officers understood that I was not attempting to do a hatchet-job on the police, but was attempting to support the notion that additional training was necessary. What I learned was that the police know very little about small children and this lack of knowledge correllated directly to age, parent status and life experience. Most officers who would be responding to a call such as this would be younger, with little (if any) experience with children. While it's easy to say that parents know to look under the bed, in the closets, etc., that's because when they were fairly new at parenting, they "lost" a child who was found hours later sleeping under their bed or hiding in their closet (as they giggled watching Mommy and Daddy through the crack). We had to learn these skills, generally at the hands of our children so why are you arrogantly expecting a police officer to magically arrive with this wisdom?
IF YOUR CHILD OR ANOTHER OTHER CHILD IS MISIING FROM YOUR HOME OF COURSE YOU PANIC. RUNNING AROUND THE HOUSE SCREAMING AND RUNNING OUTSIDE UP AND DOWN THE STREET ASKING FOR HELP. BUT, WHO WOULD NOT LOOK THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE? EVEN IF IT TAKES MORE THAN ONE PERSON. IF YOU CAN YOU GET SOMEONE TO HELP YOU THAT IS WHAT YOU YOU DO. IT IS SAD TO KNOW THAT THE WHOLE TIME THE CHILD WAS RIGHT UNDER EVERYONES NOSE.
All of these posts written by this author are either gossipy or blaming. This isn't the searchers fault. This is the fault of whoever was responsible for watching a 17 month old child. You don't take your eyes off of them! Was she killed and then buried? Or did all that junk fall on top of her? No one noticed? As usual, the author is off the mark again!
About the search : (1) Apparently the police did a big search OUTSIDE the house - "Detroit police, with K9s, searched the area near 7 Mile Road and Conant Street. Officers went house to house and broke down the door to a nearby home to make sure Zyia was not inside." (wouldn't a canine have alerted INSIDE the house?!) (2) Apparently according to the news 1 person is in custody (but there's nothing further) (3) As for what Kedu wrote - I haven't seen the pictures BUT I did read there were something like 10 to 12 people living there - now, I lived like that in my first marriage, and I surely do know what type of mess that can make ;- but to misplace a baby in all of that?! "More will be revealed"
And the chance of a toddler being able to get under 20 pounds of clothes alone is...? If my 2 year old was missing, I wouldn't look under all that laundry - I would think she wouldn't be able to get under it.
And the chance of a toddler being able to get under 20 pounds of clothes alone is...? If my 2 year old was missing, I wouldn't look under all that laundry - I would think she wouldn't be able to get under it.