Family Torn Apart

Janelle let the police into her home and led them to the kitchen before taking Bryce to the bathroom to clean up and bandage his still slightly bleeding knee. Once finished that task, she led him to the living room and put cartoons on for him while he played with some toys, before she headed into the kitchen to talk with the police some more.

Both officers were sitting, a tape recorder in the middle of the kitchen table ready to record everything Janelle said. "Okay, Ms. Chapman, we need all the details of today, leading up to the kidnapping." Janelle gave a curt nod, more then willing to comply with the officer's orders.

"My son, Bryce, woke up at about eight o'clock. Seeing how beautiful it was out, he begged me to take him and Caylee to the park all morning. Given the bitter winter we had, and how warm it was today, after awhile of his insistent begging, I agreed. I got both of my children dressed and set up my daughter's stroller before strapping her into her seat and heading for the park shortly after eleven o'clock. I had planned to take them to the park for about an hour, or so, then come home to have lunch before nap time. Bryce kept running despite my many warnings not to. For a while, I got him to cooperate and walk, but at the very end, as we were leaving, my warnings slipped his mind due to over excitement He began running again, this time falling and scrapping his knee. I went to tend to him and his scraped knee. After seeing he wasn't seriously hurt, and it wasn't anything a band aid couldn't fix I helped him up and convinced him we'd clean it up and bandage it as soon as we got home. I turned around to grab Caylee's stroller, which was initially directly behind me, but when I turned around she was gone. All that was sitting in the spot where she had been was her lost shoe and the kidnappers note. The note scared me because it said not to get police involved if I wanted to see her again, so I called a friend. She convinced me I was stupid if I listened to the note, and when I hung up with her is when I called you."

By the time she had finished recalling the events, Janelle was in tears again. Finding it hard to breathe through her sobs she exscused herself from the table to get a glass of water. The lead officer, officer Murphy, he had said his name was, looked over the notes he had written of everything Janelle had recalled and briefly glanced at the tape recorded to make sure it was recording the interrogation. "And you said you can't think of anyone that would do this? Nobody with any sort of vendetta toward you or your fiance that would, or could try something like this to try to hurt either of you?"

Janelle shook her head. "No, nobody."

Chewing on his bottom lip, officer Murphy glanced over his notes again. "You mentioned dressing both Bryce and Caylee, but what exactly was Caylee dressed in? In order to put out the AMBER ALERT, we need a fairly accurate description of your daughter's outfit."

This question caused Janelle to flashback to her daughter sitting in the swing, giggling and having a grand ole time as she pushed her slowly making faces at her. She could see her big blue eyes light up every time the swing would come toward her and hear her giggle every time she'd push her away, and she could see the outfit she had dressed her in quite clearly. "I dressed her in blue denim overalls with a pink flower pattern." Seeing her discarded, lost, shoe on the table Janelle nodded toward it. "Her sneakers were pink with yellow and blue flowers on each side. I also had a pink bow head band on her head."

Once again taking notes of everything Janelle said, as well as making sure the tape recorder was still recording the officer nodded satisfied with all the gathered info. "Alright, we have all the notes we need, both in hard copy, via tape, and in our own words, via our notes. Now all we need, if you have one, is a recent photo of Caylee to put with her AMBER ALERT." Janelle took a moment to think about recent photos before remembering the family photos they had just taken. Running to Max's office she pulled the pictures out of the envelope and shuffled through them until she came to the photo of Bryce holding onto Caylee as both smiled widely for the camera. Shifting to the next one she pulled it from the pile. There sat Caylee, all alone, against a sand and ocean back drop. She had on a light blue dress with little orange and blue fish and pink and yellow sea horses boardering the bottom hem of the dress. All part of the summer theme Max and Janelle had agreed on.

She carried the photo back to officer Murphy. As she entered the room she saw Max talking with the officers. Janelle kept her head down as she handed the photo over and thanked the officers before disappearing to the living room to check on Bryce. Or at least, that was her excuse to escape the kitchen. In reality she went in and sat on the sofa to cry her eyes out while Bryce slept soundly in the middle of the floor, exhaused from the park, and too young to understand, or stress, over his little sister's sudden disappearence. She couldn't take seeing Caylee sitting in that photo all alone. It reminded her that she didn't and couldn't protect Caylee. Right now, Caylee was indeed all alone. Alone she indeed was, and what was worse is the fact Janelle wasn't sure she would ever see her daugther again.