Jessica Ridgeway Case: Homicide Detective Points Out 'Unusual' Aspects of Disappearance of 10-Year-Old Colorado Girl
Colorado police have released a home video of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway, who was last seen walking to school on Friday morning. The girl's parents also spoke out for the first time last night, pleading for their daughter's safe return.
Both denied having any knowledge of Jessica's whereabouts.
Her mother, Sarah Ridgeway, works overnight hours at a tech company, so she said she was asleep Friday morning when the school called her to report that Jessica had not shown up. That delayed the initial call to police to report the disappearance.
Jessica's father, Jeremiah Bryant, lives in Missouri, and the couple is divorced.
Jessica's backpack and water bottle were recovered over the weekend on a sidewalk six miles from the family's Westminster, Colo., home.
This morning on America's Newsroom, Bill Hemmer spoke to former D.C. homicide detective Rod Wheeler about the case. Wheeler said it is "a little unusual" that no one reported a child screaming or any kind of confrontation, since it was a Friday morning with people in the neighborhood heading to work and kids going to school.
Wheeler noted that the presence of the backpack six miles from the home is "really peculiar."
"From an investigator's standpoint, if this little girl was abducted not far from her home, why would this backpack be six miles away? She didn't walk those six miles, so obviously someone had to take that backpack there. That's the part that investigators are a little bit puzzled with right now," said Wheeler.
Check out the full interview:
