1/21/2006: Another dead girl
Something's very wrong with this story.
15-year-old Kayla Reed of Livermore, CA was last seen in her room at home on December 3, by her mom. I don't pay close attention to the news every day, but I do notice missing kid stories and I didn't hear anything about this girl until a few days ago. I was shocked when I heard she'd been missing a month and a half before I heard anything about her. Police made a plea to help locate her on January 18 when they decided she was a missing person rather than a runaway.
On January 21 a body found in an irrigation canal near Tracy - some 20 miles away - was identified as Kayla. They are calling it homicide.
That's tragic enough, but it gets worse: the body was found January 10.
Why aren't the authorities matching up records of missing teens with dead bodies discovered relatively short distance away? Why did it take 11 days to tie this together?
Not to mention the fact that the girl's mother and friends all said at the time of her disappearance that they didn't believe she'd run away, but it took 45 days for authorities to decide there might be something wrong, that they might be looking for a victim rather than a runaway.
Kayla had a page on myspace.com, which has gotten a lot of bad press lately regarding teens who use it. Kayla's friends say she was very active on her page, but she hadn't made any entries since before her disappearance.. maybe that's what finally kicked in and got police to start looking for her.
Apparently Kayla's father didn't know she was missing for a few weeks either: he hadn't had any contact with her or her mom for over a year. He said "One of the last times I saw [Kayla], I did make an effort to make amends with her and make the situation better."
People who claim Natalee Holloway got so much press when she went missing in Aruba because she was a pretty, blue-eyed blonde will have trouble explaining this one. Are we that numb to hearing stories of missing kids that they aren't even reported anymore?
There's something very wrong here, beyond the obvious, maybe a few things. Hopefully they'll come out in the days and weeks ahead.
