XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: robertw@live.com   
      
   SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A middle-school football coach was charged   
   Wednesday with first-degree murder in the death of a 10-year-old   
   girl abducted the day before as she walked home from a friend's   
   house.   
      
   Craig Michael Wood, 45, is accused of pulling Hailey Owens into   
   his father's Ford Ranger pickup. Her body later was found in the   
   basement of his home, shot at the base of her skull, wrapped in   
   plastic bags and smelling of bleach, authorities said.   
      
   MORE: Suspect was school district employee   
      
   Wood also has been charged with armed criminal action and child   
   kidnapping in the case in which witnesses saw an unshaven white   
   man grab the girl late Tuesday afternoon after trying to get her   
   attention with a question.   
      
   Wood has worked for the Springfield School District since 1998   
   as a substitute teacher, coach and teacher's aide. A current   
   staff list on the Pleasant View Middle School website shows a   
   Craig Wood working there this year.   
      
   Wood does not appear to know Hailey, police say. And so far,   
   Wood has refused to speak.   
      
   "He's my son, and he's in a lot of trouble," Wood's father, Jim   
   Wood, said Wednesday afternoon after his son's arrest late   
   Tuesday but before Craig Wood was charged.   
      
   No other suspects appear to be involved in the crime, Williams   
   said. Officers also were searching a laundry in connection with   
   the case.   
      
   "I know an officer had to sit here all night 'til the FBI got   
   here," said Tressa Brown, an attendant on duty at the laundry   
   who initially was not allowed to report for work until officials   
   finished their search. "He (the suspect) was washing away his   
   evidence, I'm guessing."   
      
   Hailey had long sandy blonde hair, weighed about 90 pounds and   
   was wearing jean shorts and purple flip-flops, police said.   
      
   A witness, Carlos Edwards, told a News-Leader photographer that   
   he saw Hailey being abducted as he and his wife sat in the   
   garage at their home. He said the girl had been visiting with a   
   friend on the street and lived nearby.   
      
   The suspect drove up and down the street several times before   
   pulling up to the girl to ask if she knew the location of   
   "Springfield Street" to get her closer to the truck before   
   grabbing her, Edwards said. The man then pulled Hailey through   
   the open driver's side door, over the driver and placed her in   
   the passenger seat.   
      
   Williams said he has not dealt with an abduction by a stranger   
   in more than 30 years of police work. Similarly, Greene County's   
   former prosecutor said he had not seen any case like this since   
   he took office in the early 1980s.   
      
   Describing his shock while recounting what he saw, Edwards said   
   he tried to run after the truck as his wife got the license   
   number and called 911.   
      
   He spoke with concern about the girl and surprise that the man   
   had grabbed the girl right in front of him.   
      
   "I can't believe he didn't see us sitting here in the garage,"   
   he said, explaining he heard the man talk to the girl.   
      
   Another witness, Ricky Riggins, 23, said he heard yelling and   
   saw his neighbor trying to get the girl away from the suspect.   
      
   "He was yelling at her: 'Let her go. Let her go,' " Riggins said.   
      
   Then the suspect drove off. Riggins followed him in his car as   
   the man drove at an estimated 60 mph through the neighborhood.   
      
   "I couldn't keep up," Riggins said. "He was probably five to six   
   cars ahead of me. ... I think if we could have even been 10   
   seconds ahead. It's one of those things I thought would never   
   happen near my house or in front of my house. It was so fast."   
      
   On Tuesday, before Hailey's body was found, the girl's mother   
   said she was trying to stay strong — and positive.   
      
   "My nerves are shot," said Stacey Owens about two hours after   
   her daughter, a fourth-grader, was abducted.   
      
   Owens said the family lives a couple of blocks from where Hailey   
   was taken. She said she and her husband, Jeff, along with their   
   young son, are trying to find strength through the ordeal.   
      
   Springfield Public Schools officials are cooperating with   
   authorities in the case and assigned additional counselors to   
   three schools — Pleasant View where Wood worked, an elementary   
   school where Hailey attended and another school that she went to   
   last year — according to a statement from the school district.   
      
   Wood has been suspended from his job pending the outcome of the   
   case, school officials said.   
      
   "She's a very lively, bubbly, sweet little girl," Hailey's aunt,   
   Erin Petersen, said Tuesday night. "She's spontaneous, very   
   innocent."   
      
   "I'm in shock right now," Petersen said.   
      
   The Missouri General Assembly observed a moment of silence for   
   Hailey on Wednesday.   
      
   "I don't know what the parents are going through," GOP state   
   Rep. Elijah Haahr of Springfield said, choking up. "But it's   
   killing me today."   
      
   http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/19/missing-   
   girl-abduction/5603679/   
      
       
      
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