Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - IS ANYONE SEARCHING FOR MISSING TALLAHASSEE GIRL,12? Where is Lori?

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Lori Paige, a student at  Griffin Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida is one of Margaret Summers' favorite students. The paraprofessional says the 12-year-old is attentive and smart, but Lori is missing. The middle schooler hasn't been seen since June 3, and police are asking the public for help. Lori Paige is 5 feet tall and weighs about 120 pounds with black dreadlocks. Lori Paige and her father have a routine. He works nights and Lori stays in their home with trusted adults nearby if she needs help. The day Lori went missing, her father went to work, but when he came home, Lori was gone. Anyone with any information about where Lori Paige might be can call the Tallahassee Police Department at 850-891-4200. Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Margie Summers - Paraprofessional at Griffin Middle School (close with Lori Paige at school, organized search for Lori); Facebook: Margaret Adams Summers Kathleen Murphy - North Carolina, Family Attorney, TriangleDivorceLawyers.com Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive/ Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall; Appearing in the new show, “Paris in Love” on Peacock Sheryl McCollum  – Forensics Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder; Host of Podcast: “Zone 7;” X: @149Zone7ps  ​Nicole Partin – CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter; X: @nicolepartin  Meghan Krein - Director of Communications and PR at Child Help See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How can a 12-year-old little girl just disappear and nobody knows anything. Not only that, this little girl goes missing June 3. Let's see, June, July, August, September, October, November, February, and nothing is being done. Why? Where is this beautiful 12-year-old girl, Lori Page, out of Tallahassee, Florida? Got a lot of questions about this investigation. But most important, where is she?

Is she dead or alive? Who has her? What's been done to her? Has she been sex trafficked? Is she being hidden? Is she even alive? Let me give you a tip line right off the top. 850-574-TIPS. 850-574-8477. We really need your help. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. This is how the whole thing starts.

Take a listen to Lieutenant Laura Varble. She was reported missing to us on June 3rd by her father with very limited information. So dad works overnight. He is a, he works in our correctional facilities. So he leaves, he left the night late the night before, returned the next day after his shift and she was gone. And this was not abnormal like she that was their regular pattern. OK, let me clarify what Lieutenant Varble is saying. After I started investigating this case, I learned when she says that's not abnormal, she doesn't mean that the girl is gone is not abnormal. What was not abnormal is the dad works a night shift. Mom's

out of the picture. Dad has the 12-year-old girl. Everything's going along fine. He works a night shift, and then he comes home, and she's there. This is a responsible dad who works within the correctional facility, I believe at a prison, and holds down a regular job and is taking care of his 12-year-old little girl. With me, an all-star panel, but first I want to go to a special guest who has emerged as an unlikely hero in this scenario. Margie Summers, paraprofessional at Griffin Middle School, very close with the little girl Lori Page, who is missing, just 12 years old. I'm thinking of my little girl, who is now 16. You know what she did this morning? When she left to go to school, she left the door wide open. She walked out the door with her hands full and just left. I mean, that's the thinking.

They're not thinking, right? They're children. And this little girl is just 12 years old. Margie Summers knows Lori very well and she is the one who actually went out and organized a search for Lori on Facebook, Margaret Adams Summers. Ms. Summers, thank you for being with us. First of all, I want to address the home situation because you know, like we all know, that when a child goes missing or a child is killed, it's very likely someone in the family. And the first place you look are the male family members. You look at the dad, the stepdad, the boyfriend, the live-in, the older brother, the ex-boyfriend, anyone connected to that family. In this case, we're not seeing that kind of suggestion against Lori's father. Do you agree or disagree? I agree with that. What can you tell us about their living situation? I know that about a year prior to her disappearance that her mother brought her to the father and basically left her with her father.

At that point, her father was somewhat new to parenting, but the two of them were making a go of it. Hey, we're all new at parenting. I'm open to any and all advice. And believe me, I get plenty of advice online. You know the other day with me Nicole Parton CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter and I want everybody to know one of the reasons we have her on today is not only is she a phenomenal investigative reporter but she is the mother of 10. 1-0-10. She has taken in children, fostered them and adopted them that had all sorts of learning problems, moms that neglected them and abandoned them. So she is a super mom. All right.

So Nicole Parton, for instance, the other day I posted a picture of Lucy and John David. They were being acolytes at church and Lucy had on the cutest little dress ever. People actually wrote in that I let her wear a dress that was too short. I'm like, hello, do you notice she's in church on Sunday morning? Anyway, no matter what you do, somebody is going to find fault with it. But from all I can tell, as Margie Summers says, this dad was doing his very best. And like my dad, my whole life, he worked, as we called it, the night trick, a night job. And there was no way for him to get out of doing it. So as far as I can tell, there is no suggestion at all that this father has had anything to do with his daughter's

disappearance. In fact, he is distraught. Absolutely. That's what we're hearing. And another thing to note, it's been mentioned repeatedly. She was a wonderful student. Here's a girl who loved to go to school. She loved education. She loved learning. So that in part has to be a reflection on somewhat of the dynamic at home. This dad was doing his very best. She loved learning. So that in part has to be a reflection on somewhat of the dynamic at home. This dad was doing his very best. She was in school every day. He was working. As was said, they were making a go of it. And it sounds like he was doing a really good job. 12 years old. I have an 11-year-old daughter, a child. It's a child. She's disappeared almost 250 days now. She's been missing, a little girl. Well, I didn't even know about the story. Margie Summers, back to you. And I'm going to

introduce the rest of our all-star panel, who are incredible. You'll recognize a lot of their names. Margie Summers, I was just thinking about what all this child has gone through, but you knew her. It's my understanding that she was doing really well with her father, never missing school, upbeat. Is that true? That is very accurate. And when I later learned that there were issues, I was actually surprised. She was so put together at school. I just want to guess that she was struggling put together at school. I just want to guess that she was struggling with

issues at home. Let me go straight out. Speaking of irreparable harm caused by moms and dads in your youth, Dr. Bethany Marshall is joining us. We're now psychoanalysts joining us out of LA at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, we need some help. Because see, my memories of my mother is that she did, and my dad did, everything she could to help us. Of course, we grew up on a red dirt road in the middle of rural Bibb County. But every day we were at school, we never thought of laying out of school. When I woke up at 7 a.m. in the morning, my mom was already gone to work, but she had laid out three breakfasts, grits and eggs,

and things for us to drink. Everything was done. Our clothes were laid out the night before. We never missed school. We never missed church. In fact, I asked her one time, Mom, what would happen if I told you I didn't want to go to Sunday school this morning? And she didn't miss a beat, Bethany. She said, oh, well, I would just pull you out of the nice school you're in right now and let you go to the Georgia Industrial Home for girls to learn a trade. And she just kept going. I went, I got to go get ready. So that was that.

I never brought that up again. But my point is, see, it's so hard for so many people to identify with a mom that drops you off and leaves. Nancy, when the one person who is entrusted with taking care of you, making sure you're safe in this world, making sure your hair is combed, there's breakfast on the table. The person who's supposed to have a secure attachment with the father, when that person cannot hold on to their relationship with the child, she's perhaps antagonistic with the father. That really destroys a child's world. And I'm going to tell you something about this little girl. Her primary attachments were with her father and with her schoolmates. Just now, the little bit I've heard on this show tells me that this is not a runaway. This is

somebody who had attachments in their immediate circle. Runaways are children who have such a huge amount of trouble in their home that their primary attachments are with strangers. And that's not the case here. That's exactly where I was headed, Dr. Bethany. Once again, you've read my mind. Margie Summers is with us, who, again, has turned into a very unlikely hero. She is the one that has organized the search for little Lori Page. She is the one being heard on media speaking out about a girl gone, a little girl gone. Now, you know, Margie, I called hunting for information

about this girl. And no matter how many times I called, it seems as if police didn't want to speak publicly. Isn't that unusual? But I did notice after I started investigating the case myself, suddenly things started changing and moving. What happened, Margie? I think your phone calls may have made a difference and they may have realized that, hey, this is a big deal. Eight months is too long. Yeah. And I think somebody just needed to draw some attention to that so that the startling fact that she's been gone eight months would shine through again. Well, what have they done since I started poking around?

From what I understand, they've added a whole lot of resources to the case, additional detectives. They're doing a lot more legwork. They're starting over from the beginning. So it's almost like the whole investigation has kicked off in high gear. Well, I wish this had happened eight months ago. But to the Tallahassee PD, we would love for you to join us and help us find Lori Page. The whole reason I was working up to the fact that she had stability with her father is to dispel the idea that she has gone runaway and is voluntarily staying away from home and school. Isn't it true, Margie Summers, that she was doing well at school and

seemingly happy with friends? I would say she was doing well at school. I never saw her with any particular friends, but she was so driven and so focused on school. It was almost like she didn't see school as a social environment. She saw it as a very serious learning endeavor. She would literally run from one class to the next, even though it was across the hallway, just to make sure she wasn't tardy. So she was friendly with other students and she talked to them, but she was way more serious about school than anything else. crime stories with nancy grace guys where is this little girl what do we know listen to lieutenant laura varble she was home by herself herself. He had worked nights since she had come to live with him and she would always be home while he worked his overnight shift. It was a quadruplex,

so it's like there's a lot of little places. And there, I mean, there is a, there was a neighbor reference, obviously, for her, an adult person that if she needed something, she had somebody to reach out to. Okay, to Chris McDonough joining us, director of the Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective. I found him on his YouTube channel, The Interview Room. Chris McDonough, thank you so much for being with us. Does it irritate you as much as it irritates me that this child had been labeled a runaway? You know how many cases I've covered where the child was first designated a runaway and they end up dead? 100% Nancy. I mean,

in this situation, obviously, you know, 12 year olds, they just don't disappear. They can, you know, circumstances, they do run away. However, in this particular case, if we look at it from a 30,000-foot view, you've got to take into consideration, and we've talked many times on your show about this, the victim risk continuum. And when you look at that, this child falls within a medium risk in relationship to the totality of her life circumstances. I don't even know what you're saying. She's a medium risk in totality with her life circumstances. What in the, hey, are you saying, can you listen?

I feel like I'm hearing someone read a police report. Please dummy down for me. What are you saying? So what you do is you have like an L, like an L-shaped risk continuum. And on one side, you write environment, situation, circumstance. On the bottom, you put low put low medium and high risk the lower to the left the child's daily activities the higher the opportunity is for a suspect and or somebody in her environment okay i do still do you know what he's saying? Sort of. Okay. Again, we don't know what you're saying.

Let me try to interpret in regular people talk. Okay. Chris McDonough, are you saying that she was at a low risk for being a runaway? No. Okay. See, I did not have any idea what you're saying. Medium category for what? For potentially somebody luring her out of the home through an internet situation, through anything. So at medium risk for kidnap or luring.

Is that what you're saying? Luring. Okay. Medium risk because of what? Because just so you know, we have learned that she did not have a social media profile she was not online well that's not uncommon for you know somebody to in within the family to say well wait a minute you know she could have had a phone she could have had access to her friends there could have been a variety of circumstances that's why i'm saying you take a look at her environment, the totality of her environment. Who are her friends?

What access points to the Internet does her father or friends have? And those are kind of things that kids, you know, you know more than anybody. I mean, I've raised four of them. They sometimes use their friends' stuff. Well, the only thing that raises a risk in my mind is the fact that her dad had to work overnight and mom's not in the picture. She had recently moved to the area. I guess, Margie Summers, it was over a year ago? Yes, it was approximately a year earlier.

I think it may even have been August, so the beginning of sixth grade. Gotcha. Listen to this, guys. She was recently moved to the area to live with dad. She had been with dad for about a year. She has had a lot of things happen in the course of her life, so there could be several reasons with regards to her background. We just really can't speculate as to which that could be. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, I want to follow up on what we're hearing the lieutenant say about having had a tough time of it.

Starting a new school is hard enough on its own. Then your dad is gone. You get home in the afternoon and your dad leaves to go to work. So she's there by herself, probably musing about whatever happened during the day, maybe being homesick. So that's difficult. Nancy, that's profoundly difficult. You know how much time you spend with your kids processing the events of the day? And imagine there's no one there to process the events of the day with her. So if she is falling prey to some other person outside the house, there's no one for her to attach to in the house to steady her, to help make sense of her experiences. And just to boil this down even further, this is a little girl who ran from class to class, even if the other class was across the hallway. This tells me she was a good little girl. Good girls are victims,

right? Little girls who can't say no. So she's going to be hungry for attachments. Anybody who gives her love, anybody who says they can fulfill her needs, anybody who says, I'll keep you safe. I know you. I know you better than your own parents. She's going to gravitate to those people because she is like a thirsty little plant. Every little drop of water is going to make her spring to life, even if it's from a predator. at TriangleDivorceLawyers.com. Kathleen Murphy, before you tell me what you think, I want you to hear this. Take a listen to Sidney Sumner, CrimeOnline.com. When police began looking into the disappearance of 12-year-old Lori Page, detectives started by looking for her digital footprint.

But Lori Page has no digital footprint. She's not on social media. Old school methods are being used to find the middle schooler, knocking on doors and talking to neighbors, putting up flyers with her name and personal details, sharing information with neighboring police agencies, and asking the public for help. Knowing that, according to police, there was no digital footprint. She's not on Snapchat. She's not on Insta. They can't find her anywhere. But we do know there was

a computer in the home. We know that because cops said that. But yet no digital footprint. What does this mean to you Kathleen? It means to me that the police have not gotten that computer and looked at it carefully. It also means to me that the police

have not fully investigated this case. Twelve-year-olds are going to find a way to connect with somebody that makes them feel good. They're going to have that reach out. And if she's alone for a significant amount of the evening and nighttime and she has a computer computer she has access to the computer i wonder if the police have reviewed that computer good question margie summers would did the school have computers should could she access a computer at school matter of fact um nancy all of the kids at our school are issued computers and they maintain those computers with them and take

them home at night, charge them and bring them back to school each and every day. Every student at Griffin Middle School has a Chromebook. So she did have a computer. Has that computer been found Margie? I do not know the answer to that. Wouldn't they have returned it to the school? Yes, she would have checked it in at the end of the year. And I'm quite certain that she did. Because just the kind of student she was. I also wanted to mention based on what your other guests said, regarding her self esteem, I know that Lori received results of a negative test score. She was absolutely distraught and feeling terrible about her test score. She is the only student that I've ever had to say, Lori, it's not that serious.

It just means we're going to have to help you in this one area. Other students, to get them even interested in their test scores is a bit of a chore, but not Lori. She took that low score very much to heart, and I was actually concerned about how sad she was regarding that test. That just breaks my heart. It breaks my heart with me right now. Megan Krein, Director of Communications at ChildHelp, and if you've never heard of ChildHelp please go online to ChildHelp.org It's amazing. They care about one thing.

Helping children. Megan, thank you for being with us. When I think of this little girl, 12, so upset about a bad grade and now she's missing and she was immediately described as a runaway it's been

eight months a child that's that upset about one bad test grade I just don't see her running away I don't see it either Nancy and thank you for having me. When I hear, we see children like this a lot, and that tells me that she's so upset about a grade. It's a perfectionist. It's one way to get her mother's approval, keep peace in the family. There's been a lot of discord. And like you said, she's a baby. She's 12.

She cannot sustain eight months by herself. I just pray to God that she's still alive. And speaking of, speaking of this little girl's nature, I want you to hear what the mom, Lori Brass, has to say. Listen. Did she leave in the middle of the night to go be outside voluntarily without being manipulated? In no world does that make sense. She wouldn't be outside voluntarily without being manipulated? In no world does that make sense.

She wouldn't be outside. In the dark, she is scared of everything. How are you outside in the dark for this long? And who's feeding you? Who is feeding this child? Because again, I know my child her first word was eat so Dr. Bethany Marshall when the mom tells us that how scared the child is she's afraid of the dark she doesn't like the outside she loves to eat she loves the meals what none of this makes sense with the phrase that this little girl just took off. I'm just not buying it. No, none of it makes sense. And remember, Dr. Bethany, when she disappeared, it was nighttime. What do you think, this little 12-year-old girl is going to go out and take an Uber? That did not happen.

No, and her mother knows her daughter, right? I mean, who best would know her than her own parents however one thing concerns me and that is that the mother is talking like a police detective not like somebody who's concerned about her daughter now i'm not saying she's not concerned because she might be shocked dissociated unable to express her love on the other hand a mother who's this methodical and detached. Wait a minute. I'm going to defend the mother. Really, all I care about is finding the girl.

I don't care who did what, when. I want to find Lori. In defense of what the mother is saying, she's extremely defensive and angry that the police and others have just written Lori off as a runaway.

Take a listen to what Mrs. Brazzi, the mom, has to say about her daughter being labeled a runaway. The police report said that she ran away and there's no reason why they believe that she was taken. And that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Because. You can voluntarily leave. Under manipulative circumstances. So. And then. Whether she voluntarily left or not. She's a child.

What rights do children have. To move around if they please. Can she get in the car. And voluntarily drive. Down your block? Because just as sure as she gets in the car and starts to drive it, that's going to be a problem. But when she voluntarily leaves and is missing,

like this doesn't make sense. Things that don't make sense make me upset. I get irritated. Where is Lori Page? See what I mean, Dr. Bethany? She's responding to her daughter being called a runaway, and it doesn't make any sense. You know, Nancy, I completely retract my comments from before. She's sounding like a police detective because

there are no detectives helping her. She's having to think this entire thing through herself. And she makes the most excellent point. Even if a child walks out of a house to a stranger, that's not voluntary. It's never voluntary when a minor leaves the house and never returns. So this poor mother is falling back on her own psychological and mental resources to find her own child. Can you imagine if John David or Lucy went missing and you had to be the detective? You know, another thing, Dr. Bethany, I think that she's doing, and I'm certainly no shrink, I want everybody else on the panel to jump in on this, she's methodically, as best she can, going through.

She left a 12-year-old? Who's going to feed her? What is she going to eat? She's afraid of the dark. She wouldn't have done that. What, does she get in a car? She's not going to drive. I mean, she's going through all these permutations and possibilities and ruling them out. And I have found, Dr. Bethany, that when you're faced with this horrible happening, you try to make sense. You try to apply logic to an illogical situation.

And it doesn't work and it gets harder and harder and more difficult. And that's what I hear the mom doing. You know, I agree with you. And you know, part of being a mother is something called maternal preoccupation. And what that means is no matter where your child is, no matter who's taking care of your baby, you're thinking about them all the time. Now, imagine your child is missing. That's going to be thinking about your child in a desperate kind of way. I liked your use of the word permutations. She's trying to think of every single possibility. But not only that, these are rebuttals. Yes, you're right. What about it, Megan Crying? You're hearing Dr. Bethany Marshall. Do you agree

or disagree? Well, yes, the mom's out of control. She has no control, right? Can you imagine? I have two children not knowing where they are and for eight months. I mean, we're coming up on a year. What the mom is saying right now makes a lot of sense to me. Guys, also the specter of a mother's and father's worst nightmare. Take a listen to what the mom, Ms. Brazzi, says. Tallahassee has some of the worst sex trafficking in the state. And it's 20 minutes to Georgia.

So yes, yes, I'm concerned. Very concerned. Joining me, Nicole Parton, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Isn't it true that we have learned the night before she goes missing, she and her dad were at home as normal watching TV. No problem. Correct? That is correct.

Yes, ma'am. Now, he then goes to work and there are witnesses that saw them there together chilling and watching TV. Everything was fine. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, correct. Then he goes to work, as usual, at a nearby prison facility. He works at a CI, Correctional Institute.

He goes to work. Everything's fine. Locks the door. She's there. He comes home the next morning, and she's gone. Yes, no. Yes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Now, Nicole Parton, there was one unusual circumstance that happened the night before early in the evening. Didn't the mom show up at the house in that upset, Lori? She did. The mom showed up at the home. And there was an altercation to the point that her father, being protective, called the police and said, can you please come out and remove the mother from the home? The police were not at their home all of the time. This was a good man thing. You know, it's not like the cops were coming out every weekend. This was one incident where the mom showed up, the father did the right thing, called authorities and said, there's an altercation. My daughter is upset. And the police came out and asked the mother to remove herself from the home. Kathleen Murphy joining

me, high profile family lawyer. I'm sure this is not the first time you've seen trouble against warring exes. And the child is the casualty. And these children at age 12 start to find their voice. They haven't quite found their voice, but they don't like that. They're going to want to speak to a judge, speak to their teachers and speak out about what they should not be subjected to. And this little girl probably saw something that traumatized her. Margie Summers with us, paraprofessional in Griffin Middle School, who knows Lori very well. What do you make of it? I believe that it was an upsetting incident because the cops never showed up at their house. For the cops to even have to be called

would have been traumatic in and of itself. And I'm sure after that happened, I'm sure her mind was whirling and she was trying to figure out what to do and how to take it. And she turned to a stranger. Maybe she turned to a stranger to process the experience

or somebody was already predating on her. And at this point, she had nobody to process it with, which made her incredibly vulnerable to anybody who showed love and wanted to talk to her. I feel like Lori may have been overwhelmed even the bad grade she got on the standardized test overwhelmed her and the burden of it was far too great for what's normal and I'm sure the burden of

what she just saw and maybe even felt responsible for would have weighed heavily on her. And I know some kids are overwhelmed. They flee that feeling of being overwhelmed. Dr. Bethany, what do you make of that? Well, I think what's happening with 12-year-olds is that they're slowly reassigning their attachments outside of the home. And this serves a biological function of preparing them to leave home when they're 17, 18 or 19. So already they're looking outside the house. But this little girl, her her primary interest was with her parents. You can imagine your parents fighting and the idea

kids blame themselves. Whenever the parents fight, whenever a parent's neglectful or abusive, I'm not saying these parents were. I hear you. And I would love the opportunity to psychoanalyze Lori Page, the 12-year-old missing girl. But we have to find her first. And right now she's labeled as a runaway. She may have been upset that her mom and dad were having this war. And there was a verbal confrontation.

The cops came over and blah, blah, blah. Okay. But where is she? I mean, is it just me? Jackie, help me. We have to find the girl. I don't need to figure out what she's thinking right now. I need to find her and get her to safety. If she was upset that night and went out and sat on her front porch,

if she went outside in the front yard, where the hay is she now? Now, you heard Margie Summers state that the computer was handed in. So whatever computer she had was not the school computer. But witnesses saw her on a computer watching TV with her dad before she disappeared, before the mom came and raised a ruckus. So where is she now? I think I hear Chris McDonough. Can we psychoanalyze this child later after she's safe?

You're right, Nancy, and this is why the 14 detectives right now are realizing, holy cow. Not one of 14 detectives would come on and make a plea for her? You're right. It's all wrong. It's been eight months since his child disappeared. Right, the critical turning point. I mean, why did you, Margie Summers, have to form the search committee? Why did you have to form the search committee.

Why did you have to go out looking for her? Tell me about that. Because other little girls, there's press conferences, there's rallies, there's news cameras, there's all kinds of attention. And my student, someone I cared about, was getting none. That's not fair. It's not right. A D-A-M-m-n thing no pressers no big searches no guys and women on horseback no canines nothing nothing nothing and luckily the media in my area did take interest in the story and shortly after we asked them to help us two news channels and

the local newspaper all ran stories when uh 14 days after she went missing okay that was eight months ago yes it was eight months ago and nothing's happened since until the last week or so and it's picked up steam again gee i wonder Okay, so were there any sightings of her that night? I do not know. Where was she last seen? Last seen at her home. In the home? Yes, correct.

No neighbors saw her come outside? That's correct. This was in June. June 3. School had just ended. No neighbors saw her outside. Right? Right right do we have any idea nicole parton megan crying chris mcdonough dr bethany kathleen murphy margie summers was a search done of the home to see if any altercation had occurred? Were any windows broken? Was the lot jimmied?

Do we know anything? Was the home even processed? To my knowledge, the home was not processed. But I can tell you what they were thinking, Nancy. What? Okay, when they got there, and this is where I was going, the critical turning point here

is when they look at the father and they say, tell me about your daughter. And he tells them, the critical turning point here is, okay, 12-year-olds don't vanish. At that moment, eight months ago, they should have immediately turned on all of the resources. Because at that point, everybody knows you have a 12-year-old who has vanished. Now, they could have been thinking, well, maybe she ran away. It doesn't matter. Why do thinking. Well maybe she ran away. It doesn't matter.

Why do we keep saying maybe she ran away. I don't give a flying fig. How this whole thing started. Okay go ahead. But it's critical now. When we look eight months later. Back. And we now see resources.

That should have been put on. Within three hours. of this child's disappearance. It should have all been in motion back then and it wasn't. And that's a huge problem. That is a huge problem. Well, not only that, think about this, Chris. Let me throw this wrench into the works. If she's home alone, no one is there to see what she's doing on the Internet. Margie Summers, what do you think about the claim she had no social media presence? She didn't text. She didn't email.

Nothing? I never saw her personally involved with social media, but I will say she was smart. And all of the kids at our middle school are tech savvy. They're issued a computer for the duration of the year. So to think that she wouldn't know how to use a computer or how to get on the Internet would be categorically false. All the children use the Internet every day. And we at Child Help, we're seeing an uptick in human trafficking. It's rampant.

And that's where my head went first as well. Is this Megan crying? Yes, it's Megan. Okay, tell me about that. And why was it stated by the mother that Tallahassee is notorious for sex trafficking? It is close to the Georgia-Florida line, very close, and close to I-75, which takes you all the way from Florida to New York City and beyond. And I'm just thinking we have...

We're on I-10. We are exactly dead center. It runs through the middle of our town. I-10 runs all the way from Jacksonville to California. And she sounds like Lori sounds... I'm sorry, Nancy. No, go ahead, please. What I was going to say is I'm wondering.

I had a girl disappear from a stadium, arena, a football game. And you know how they found her? Her face popped up on an Internet, I want to say dating website, but it was an escort site. This child had been taken and was being pimped out of a hotel. Yeah. That's so sad. And that's why I think education is so important. And we have the Child Help Speak Up Be Safe curriculum, which schools of fascination can implement.

And it teaches kids, I'm old enough to remember the good good touch bad touch and this is um an offshoot of that and we just implemented a um human trafficking prevention curriculum so kids like laurie if this did happen based on megan crying from childhelp.org is saying chris mcdonough we have no indication the child is dead yet. The police still think she didn't have a social media presence. I don't know if she had a phone or not. I don't think she did. So what in the hay do we do now? I mean, if it hadn't been for Margie Summers, there would not have even been a search. Oh, by the way, Margie, where did you search? What did you do during your search? Me and some of the other teachers and staff members from the school got together and we handed out flyers in the immediate area. And then also on other days, I just went to some of the local convenience stores, taped them up there in case she popped in and out for a drink or a snack, somebody would see her um I also asked the police is there a place that we can look

is there anywhere that we need to focus to put flyers and they just had no search parameters at all so I had a couple apartment complexes spoke to the managers gave them flyers in case they saw her in their pool area um on one of the chairs something like like that. But it was really, really hard to know where to look because there's just not any clues in any particular direction. I'm just thinking, you know, about what Margie Somers said, Chris McDonough, this little girl. The teachers got together and did a search for her. It wasn't the police, as I said.

It wasn't ATVs and helicopters and heat-seeking sonar. The teachers got together. Why is this happening to this little girl? Why hasn't anybody championed her? Is it because she's black? Is that it? That nobody cares about a 12-year-old little girl? I mean, look at her, Chris. Nancy, nobody ever, ever wants to see a child injured, hurt, harmed, etc. And in this particular case, what you're doing is the tip of the spear, raising public awareness, continuing is what is necessary.

And, you know, what the cops need to do, and they're long overdue. It's a shame that we're even having this conversation today. Amen. They need to be long overdue. And I am so distraught. I could not get anybody in that area except for Margie Summers to speak up for this child. Nobody. Nobody. Guys, please help us find this child. The tip line to help find Lori is 850-574-TIPS.

850-574-TIPS. Please help us. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.