Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Jessica Ridgeway Family Speaks

The link is here


WESTMINSTER - The family of Jessica Ridgeway - the 10-year-old girl who went missing on Oct. 5 - spoke out on Tuesday as a heart-wrenching, statewide search rages on for their precious girl.
Jessica's family spoke to 9NEWS Reporter Dave Delozier Tuesday afternoon for the first time since Jessica was reported missing on her walk to school.
They encouraged community members to continue to help in the search attempts and thanked everyone for their donations of time, money, food and effort.
"We are strong, and we're just going to get stronger," Jessica's mom Sarah told 9NEWS' Delozier. "[Jessica's] my rock. She's all of our rock. When you're down, she'll come around, make you laugh, hug [and] kiss [you or] dance."
Her mom says Jessica is the light of the household. Even with all the people in the home, her mother says the house it too quiet without her exuberant spirit.
"I want her to come walking back through that door," Sarah said. "I need her to come walking back through that door."
Her mom said math is one of Jessica's favorite subjects and she would never miss school.
"It's not anything I want any parent to ever go through," Sarah said.
However, Sarah remains hopeful.
"We are a strong family," Sarah said. "We will get through this. We will find her and take care of her."
Jessica's father Jeremiah spoke also on Tuesday - echoing Sarah's sentiments and concerns.
"I just want to find my daughter. I just want her back home," Jeremiah said. "It's by far the worst thing I've ever been through - still is."
Even though Jessica's parents are separated and her father lives in Missouri, police asked both parents whether the other would have taken Jessica. Both parents said no.
Her family has kept her room tidy - just waiting for her return.
Purple and green are Jessica's favorite colors, thus Jessica's family hopes to "paint the town purple" so the community can remember she's missing.
THE SEARCH
Authorities continued to search the area around Jessica's home as well as some open-field areas. They brought dogs to help them in their efforts on Tuesday.
In a later press conference, Matarasso said 400 homes will be searched in Jessica's neighborhood on Tuesday.. He says authorities are halfway done with their search of the homes. Matarasso says they are working with Jessica's family to talk to the media, however it is not known at this time when that statement will be made.
Westminster Police released two new photos and a video of Jessica on Tuesday to help people better identify her.

38 comments:

New Vintage Studio said...

Hi Peter, please give us an analysis regarding Jessica's Mom. I am NOT buying her story.

CEC said...


I live in a suburb of KC and was surprised to see on the local news just now, that Jessica Ridgeway's great-grandmother and father live here. A reporter interviewed Jessica's great-grandmother. She said her son was upset by people thinking he took her, so he wasn't speaking out. Great -grandma said SHE was, because she wants her back. Huh? Doesn't the dad? The reporter stated that the dad has been going to work every day since Jessica went missing, which I also find strange. Why isn't he pounding the pavement, searching for her?

Here is a link to the interview:

http://news.yahoo.com/police-release-video-missing-colorado-girl-165319357.html

Statement Analysis Blog said...

Tamara, what did she say?

Peter

BostonLady said...

Reading the article above, I felt that the family was being honest. I didn't see any past tense references and they sound like they are united. There is another little girl who went missing in Wyoming and she was taken by a man who sexually assaulted her and then let her go. He enticed her using a puppy to get into the van. This is a classic ploy used by kidnappers. The little girl was seen walking by a group of hunters who brought her back. Could this be the same man ? The girl returned and this little girl could pass for sisters based on the pics I've seen.

awhitcomb said...

I belong to a Facebook page called Seeking The Lost, and there are further statements from the family, particularly the mom, and like I said, there's something just, I don't know--strange. Here's what was posted, with a link to a news article. I'm going to have to do this in two parts because the whole thing is over the limit for replies:

Describing her as a 10-year-old who “can’t wait to be a teenager,” Sarah Ridgeway talked about her daughter Jessica Ridgeway — and the last morning she saw her.

Surrounded by members of her extended family and speaking publicly for the first time since Jessica went missing four days earlier, Sarah was mostly composed.

Sarah described the alarm clock Jessica begged her to buy going off at 7:45 a.m. — “she wanted to be able to get up on her own,” Sarah said. The worried mother described seeing her daughter coming down the stars, watching T.V., eating a granola bar, getting dressed, peeling an orange for a snack later that day and walking out the front door.

“It was like any other morning,” Sarah said, breaking down in tears. “I watched her walk out the door. Her friend says she’s walking too. That was the last time I saw her.

“I want her to walk back through that door. I need her to walk back through that door.”

Appearing more consistently broken up than his ex-wife, Jessica’s father Jeremy Bryant was also on hand. He described getting the news in Missouri that investigators had found his daughter’s abandoned backpack and water bottle on Sunday.

It remains the biggest break in the nationwide search for his daughter. But for a father, the phone call caused him to break down.
“It was about time to get off work when I got that phone call,” Bryant said. “I told my boss I had to leave. I couldn’t stay. I’ve been lost ever since.”

All of Jessica’s seven other family members on hand for the recorded statement at the Westminster Police Department were draped in purple, which they say is Jessica’s favorite color. The child’s great aunt Gay Moore described missing a bubbly girl who was excited to take care of her neighbors cats over the weekend before she went missing.

“She’s a giggler,” Moore said of Jessica. “She giggles a lot — that’s all she ever does. She loves to try out jokes on the family, and she’s actually got some pretty good ones.

“Jessica is the light of our life. She’s a special girl.”

The family also described the community from which Jessica was taken. They called it a safe place — one so safe, in fact, that most of the children in the neighborhood made the mile-and-a-half walk to Witt Elementary School together every morning.

“Our neighborhood is safe,” Sarah said. “The kids go down and play at the park all the time. I’ve never seen anybody suspicions. There have never been burglaries.

“All the police activity (stemming from the search for Jessica) is very unusual.”

Sarah described a conversation she had with Jessica about taking a recently-introduced bus service to school this year. Instead, Sarah said, Jessica made a plan with her older cousin Jeremy to walk to school every day.

Saying that her cell phone was downstairs because she has been getting pestering calls from a college to which she has applied, Sarah said she did not immediately receive the notifications from the elementary school that Jessica had not shown up for class.
When she did get the calls, Sarah said she “knew right away that something was wrong.”

“Jessica loves school,” Sarah said. “I checked some of the places I knew she wouldn’t be just to make sure. But I knew if she wasn’t at school, something was wrong.”

Amaleen6

awhitcomb said...

Part 2:

The tough questions asked of Jessica’s family didn’t end there.
The family was also asked about their rather unorthodox approach to wait until the fifth day of the search for Jessica before coming forward with a public statement.

Sarah fielded that question, saying the group had planned to come forward on Sunday before they got the news that Jessica’s backpack had been discovered.

“That’s when we knew Jeremy was coming (from Missouri) on Sunday,” Sarah said. “He’s a part of this family, so we wanted to wait for him.”

Jeremy and Sarah are divorced and also involved in a custody dispute regarding Jessica. Jeremy is also currently on felony probation after being convicted of second degree domestic assault.
Neither Jeremy nor Sarah have been named as a person of interest in the search for Jessica, and both said there is a reason for that.

“I know I didn’t do anything,” Sarah said. “Everybody in this room knows I didn’t do anything. I know Jeremy didn’t do anything. Everybody who knows me, knows her and knows our family knows we didn’t do anything.”

When he was asked by the FBI if he thought Sarah had kidnapped Jessica, Jeremy said he offered a similar response.

“I said, ‘There’s no way she did it,’ — the same way she’d tell them there’s no way I would do anything like that,” Jeremy said. “I don’t see how anyone could do that to their child.”

The family concluded their 38-minute statement by thanking the hundreds who have showed up and continue to show up — both locally and around the nation — to aid in the search for Jessica. The family also called for that group’s continued help and support.

Sarah described being overwhelmed by the group of volunteers who were bused in to the search area near her Westminster home, saying a nearby parking lot was filled with more cars than it had been for the popular Rocky Mountain Air Show earlier in the year.

“That’s not something I would have every expected,” Sarah said. “I want to thank everyone who helped look for her and is still looking for her.”

If you have any information regarding the investigation, Westminster police are asking you to call the tip line at 303-658-4336, or email PDamberalert@cityofwestminster.us.

SOURCE: http://kdvr.com/2012/10/09/family-of-jessica-ridgeway-makes-first-public-statement/

Amaleen6

New Vintage Studio said...

I thought it was very odd for the mother to say "I can't make it to the vigil tonight". Here is the video
http://www.9news.com/news/article/293683/164/Missing-girl-Jessica-Ridgeways-family-breaks-their-silence

Anonymous said...

The dad has a felony arrest and is on probation, he probably had to get permission to leave the state. Watch the interview, the dad is beside himself, he is so broken up over this.
He asked for his daughter back in the full interview.

Jo said...

"We are a strong family," Sarah said. "We will get through this. We will find her and take care of her."

The "find her and take care of her" seemed odd to me.

I haven't seen anything besides this article regarding the what the mother said but don't see any plea for her daughters return. No comments to her daughter about loving her, missing her, looking for her...... Seems she is more concerned with convincing others that they had a good relationship.

Apple said...

"I know I didn't do anything." Know?

"She was the light of the house." Was?

I'd like to hear more statements from Jessica's mother.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-colorado-girl-jessica-ridgeway-parents-deny-involvement/story?id=17429455#.UHTarY7dKxI

d.c. said...

I don't hear any words of comfort going out to Jessica. Just self-referencing about the parents being strong. What about calling out? What about reassurance to J?

Forever Curious said...

I thought the description of the child as the rock and the person who cheered up the adults when they were down was odd. Isn't the parent-child relationship supposed to work the other way around?

Forever Curious said...

They did speak to her- it just didn't get written up here. Said something to her directly along the lines of you are strong and stay strong and we'll never give up.

Jo said...

Apple - I just found that quote also: "She's all of our rock. She's the one that when you're kind of down she's going to come along and she's going to make you laugh, she's going to give you a hug, she's going to give you a kiss," Ridgeway said. "She was (past tense!) the light of the house. With all the people there, it's still too quiet. It's way too quiet. It needs to be lively (lively vs what? dead?)and happy again."

When asked what message she would like to send her daughter, Sarah Ridgeway said,
"You know that your family is strong. We'll be there (there? not here)forever and we will do anything to find you. You are strong. We know you're strong and you can fight this and we are fighting for you, too.(fighting comes into her statement, who are they fighting? Or was there a fight before Jessica left that morning?) And we (less personal that "I love you") love her (goes from speaking to you to speaking of her) and we'll never stop loving her no matter what happens. (why would there be any question about loving her despite what happens?) We'll lover her forever and ever. We (should be highly personal, would expect I) just want her home."

She doesn't use Jessica's name. This is not going to turn out well.

CEC said...

I just watched the video on Tammera's link. The mom seemed more concerned with no other parent having to go through what she (they) are going through, than finding Jessica! "The moment" of your kid missing, is what you'd concentrate on - not on how a missing child affects other parents! Her "cry out" to Jessica was not strong, and I sensed no urgency. If I picture myself at a time like that, I don't even see how I'd be coherent! I wouldn't be able to sit still, I would be freaking out, crying, pleading with abductors to return my son, searching for him, etc. I don't know about the dad, either. She's only been missing since Friday. How could he be going to work since then? Wouldn't he immediately fly to to find out what the heck was going on and search?

Jo said...

"She wants to be a teenager before she's a teenager," (disparaging the victim) Sarah Ridgeway said. "I watch(present tense as in storytelling) her walk out the door and I shut the door and that's the last time I saw her ... walking through that door. I need to walk back through the door."

"Door" and "walking" are repeated, I don't believe she "walked" out the door. Most likely she was carried.

"Shutting the door" entered her language.

Forever Curious said...

I'm not sure if this is the same as what Tamara posted but it's the entire interview. http://denver.cbslocal.com/video/7819984-entire-news-conference-with-jessica-ridgeways-family/ Some of the questioning is so leading, it really bothers me. There's a lot of repeating the interviewer's language.

Lemon said...

I thought the same thing.

Jo said...

Mom is laughing during interview and Dad went to work on Sunday, two days after daughter disappeared. Mom says she "knew" it was Jessica's backpack before they even showed it to her. ????
She also uses the words "remember her" more than once in the interview.
She says all her blankets and clothing were washed so she would have a "safe place" to return to. Was her bedroom not safe previously? Why is washing her blankets making it a safer place? Why would they wash her things other than to cover up possible evidence. She claims it was done so the room would be the way Jessica liked it but then says Jessica will be mad that they picked up all her clothes. Most parents leave the room exactly as it was.
The mom is very creepy in my opinion, how could she be laughing during the interview? And the kid behind her has a black eye, I hope that is being checked into.

d.c. said...

Ah ok. Thanks. I only saw the parts about they themselves being strong. I'm happy they spoke directly to her. ... It comforts me, at least. Ha...sorry, poor joke.

d.c. said...

Good points, all. I don't want this to turn out the way it's looking... Um, but, why wouldn't they love her forever and ever?

d.c. said...

This disparaging is the biggest red flag for me. It's so unexpected. I was really surprised when I read it.

d.c. said...

Ugh. Thanks for your observations. I really don't want this to go in this direction. :(

d.c. said...

No reliable denial. :(
Referring to her in past tense. I don't like it.

Anonymous said...

Here's a spirit analysis to go with your statement analysis. That mom is full of crap! She is a liar. Cold as a fish and not a tear in sight.

Anonymous said...

In the family interview.
Did someone at the background just correct the mother when she said: "She WAS the light of the house"
corrected the was to IS?

"if they have to illimunate me, go right ahead!" mother said

"I wanna say to Jessica, that you know your family is strong, we are, will be there forever"- and she is strong too -someone said at the background

Anonymous said...

They will get through this. Would that really be the first thought of a mother of a missing child how THEY will cope with the situation? How strong they are?
Who were all those people in the interview? Do they all live together?

rob said...

If Jeremy is on felony probation, what argument is he using against the mother to gain custody of the daughter?

Anonymous said...

Oh boy.... If repeating makes something sensitive and she said "the door" four times in a row there, I wonder why the door is SO sensitive?

The washing comment concerns me, too. If that is usually a sexual abuse thing, does the mother have a boyfriend in the picture? Or can it sometimes be a "washing away of guilt" type reference? Even if only mentioned to make herself look like a good parent, it's worrisome.

I had only seen Jessica's picture and basic details prior to coming here. I had no idea it was going to turn out to be "another one of these cases" (i.e., with parental involvement), but unfortunately, it's looking that way. :(

I can't imagine what led to this. Does anyone else think the "teenager" comment is likely a clue?

Anonymous said...

"...Matarasso said 400 homes will be searched in Jessica's neighborhood on Tuesday."

Wait, so if I lived in her neighborhood, I would have to let my house be searched?

Am I the only one here who has a problem with this?

New Vintage Studio said...

When SR made the "teenager" comment, I said "Oh NO!" outloud. Too, I believe the backpack was planted, as a diversion.

The multiple mention of "the door" had me thinking that Jessica never exited via the front door that morning OR a door was slammed, in teenage angst, sparking an argument.

I felt very sad after watching the video.

Lucy said...

The "teenager" comment reminded me of Hailey Dunn, and how the mom and boyfriend tried to disparage her by calling her sexually promiscuous.

Jen said...

I've been reading all of these comments and I'm sad to say I agree with most of you...something doesn't feel right about this...even if I knew nothing about SA it still would stand out to me that the mother seemed to over detail things that don't really matter in the focus of locating her missing daughter. The 'teenager' comment, the alarm clock so she could get herself up, the details about her turned off & left downstairs phn and applying to college, needing her sleep to be rested for Jessica, the pain that she doesn't want OTHER parents to ever go thru....she does a lot of explaining and give a lot of useless detail. When sitting for an interview on her missing daughter I would expect her to be saying things more along the lines of what the attorney said...look at her distinguishing characteristics, the gap between her teeth, the sore mark that her glasses leaves on her nose...anything that would call the attention of the public to something that could help them recognize her child! I also echo the commentor who asked, what must this Dad have in his back pocket to seek custody when he has a felony conviction hanging over his head?!

MsCabinFever said...

Peter,
I was listening to the mother's account of the morning, when she spoke out the other day, have you listened to it in full? Here's just the first minute:

Reporter: take me back to last Friday morning, before she left, was it like a morning like any other morning?
Sarah: it was any other morning. I came home and she, you know, her alarm goes off at 7:45 She wanted an alarm clock so she could, you know, get up on her own and so her alarm clock goes off and she comes down and she watches TV and she and she eats her granola bar, goes up and gets dressed, comes down and, you know, we peel oranges for her for her snack at school. She fills up her water bottle. She does everything on her own because she wants to make herself look like she's a grown up. She wants to be a teenager before she's a teenager ..."

The interviewer asked her what happened before she left, and she answered every single thing in present tense. Because he asked if it was like any other morning, did that disqualify the fact that she did not answer from memory, and in past tense? She does not say that it was "like" any other morning and then proceed, she said "it was any other morning" which actually doesn't make sense but ... I am not sure if this is important. Also, it seemed like the person next to her had a paper in her (?) hand & she prompted her to add the part about getting the granola bar when Sarah paused for a second. So I have to assume they had all that she would say written down and this is why the lady kept interjecting throughout...but just my opinion.

MsCabinFever said...

and so, you know, she she gets ready and she gets dressed and she gets on her coats and I make sure that, you know, she's gonna meet her friend cause it is snowing and, you know, she she makes ..she (cuts off)..and her friend says yes I am walking too and I watch her walk out the door and I shut the door and that's the last time I saw her and I want her to come walking back through that door ...I need her to walk back through that door .."

Even the direct recount is not in past tense, so she is not pulling from her memory.

Anonymous said...

I think it usually works the other way around, but..playing devils advocate, my grandson now 14 months, has a very calming effect on everyone he comes into contact with. People mention it all the time. He recently accompanied me on a dental visit ( I usually have to take Valium a and receive gas once I'm at the dentists) I was able for the first time in my life go drug free, and just hold his hand while he "sang" to me. So while I agree it is usually the parent who cheers the child, there are rare children ..who have a large effect on everyone the come into contact with.

Anonymous said...

Not one tear by the mother. Father was real.All the red flags are up. Easy disposal of the body along the road as she cannot do heavy physical labor of burying. May explain the pieces. House has an attached garage. She had 8 hours with Jessica. Backpack and water bottle sound planted after the fact.I have searched to see if any of the kids even saw Jessica coming down the street. No one and also no struggle being reported anywhere. No reports of passed polygraphs either. This sounds more like a lawyer up to me.Pat Brown tried to bring up that the parents are cleared on JVM Show, how? JVM squashed her with what police said. I have known police to pull tricks on and with the media. Is this one of them?

Anonymous said...

Anon 10:17am,
you said you searched & can't find anyone that saw Jessica coming down the street....does this mean you live in their neighborhood?