Lost Child, Desperate Land

In and around a forgotten town, the search for clues to the disappearance of a 7-month-old girl proceeds with the grim pessimism of a cause already lost. Indeed, hope does not appear to have been a part of Shannon Dedrick’s birthright.

On Halloween morning, Shannon’s mother and her boyfriend told police that the girl had disappeared from their residence, though all three had been sleeping in the same room, a suspicious circumstance at best. The adults are purportedly cooperating with investigators, at least to some extent. Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies from three counties and volunteer firefighters have been searching the town and its surroundings for clues.

The Town Left Behind

Chipley is a small backwater in Florida’s panhandle, about 80 miles northwest of Tallahassee, far removed in time and space from the opulent communities and tourist meccas to the south. It is a place whose dirt roads, beat up trailers and tin roof shacks reflect the quiet desperation of its residents. Neighbors keep largely to themselves amid ‘Beware of Dog’ signs, jacked-up clunkers and clotheslines sighing in the breeze.

Chipley is also an enclave from the encroaching terrain that encircles it, a desperate land of trees, tangled vines and swamps. It is an area straight out of an H. P. Lovecraft novel, difficult to search and capable of swallowing up secrets very quickly.

Bobby Haddock, Washington County Sheriff, is quarterbacking the investigation into Shannon Dedrick’s disappearance. He hasn’t released the names of the mother or her boyfriend, who have been interviewed. Sheriff Haddock has identified a ’person of interest,’ whom he hasn’t identified, either. He has issued a missing child alert, but that appears to be pro forma when analyzed in light of other things he has said and done.

First, Haddock spelled out the obvious point that Shannon could not have walked or crawled out of the room. Not only is she a mere seven months in age, but may be developmentally disabled. “This child cannot walk or crawl,” he said. “It did not leave the residence by itself.”

Of equal import is this finding: “There’s nothing to lead us to believe at this time that this was an abduction,” Haddock told the Panama City News Herald. This means two things. Haddock has rejected the significance of a mysterious grey van spotted on several occasions near the trailer where the child had lived. It also means that, by default, the boyfriend and/or mother are under suspicion. The interest in Shannon’s immediate family is heightened by Haddock’s belief that the child went missing no later than 8 AM October 31, 2009, encompassing a delay of at least three hours before the police were notified.

Haddock also said he is not concerned about the safety of anybody else in the community, further strengthening the perception that he is focused on the trailer’s adult occupants.

Shannon would be helpless if alone, and the places being searched could only yield her remains. Late Monday, Sheriff Haddock claimed: “We have searched every dumpster in the city limits of Chipley, we have turned over every garbage can.”

As to efforts in the outlying wilderness, the pattern of the search is telling. It began near the point of disappearance and is radiating outward in concentric circles. That would be the most efficient means of finding a girl alive if she were seven years old rather than seven months. It looks like a body search. It could be the investigators are looking for clues also, but if Shannon had been secreted to any safe place, the clues would not be in the woods or swamp.

Your writer would change these facts if he could, but can only keep you informed. Those who hope that Shannon will be found alive will need a miracle, so keep her in your prayers.

Update: Shannon Dedrick Found Alive in Babysitter’s Home

Just after this article went to press, baby Shannon was found, in a box under the bed of babysitter Susan Baker. County Sheriff Bobby Haddock is considering charges against the sitter and Shannon’s mother, Chrystina Lynn Mercer, probably for filing a false police report. Yet Shannon Dedrick lives, and that makes this writer’s morning.