Detroit police Officer MyAngel Richardson was pulling a double-shift when she landed the grueling assignment of finding two kidnapped children whose distraught dad had allegedly just pistol-whipped and tied up their mom in Inkster, then fled in a car with their sons inside.
The dad had a gun and was mentally spiraling, Richardson would learn. So she remained laser focused on finding the brothers, ages 4 and 6.
Detroit police got involved after the boys' grandfather called 911 and said that his son was heading to Rouge Park on the city's east side, and that he was armed, struggling mentally, and had threatened to kill his sons. But as Richardson would eventually learn, the dad and kids were in a cornfield in Ohio, where the father had shot himself
and left his crying children alone.
It was Richardson who first came into contact with the children in a FaceTime phone call, when the 6-year-old boy answered his dad's cell phone.
"My daddy's dead," Richardson recalled the boy telling her while his little brother cried in the background. She could see their father on the ground. He was badly injured and picked up the phone to show her his wounds, she said.
Fearing for the safety of the boys, Richardson told the 6-year-old to grab the phone back and "get away from him as soon as possible."
The boy followed her instructions.
What followed was a harrowing rescue operation, as Richardson stayed on the phone with the boy for at least 30 minutes and calmly guided the barefoot brothers through the muddy cornfields of Ohio, and led to them to safety.
'I told them my name was Angel'
In an exclusive interview with the Free Press, two Detroit police officers from the Sixth Precinct detailed the investigative efforts that went on behind the scenes in tracking down two Inkster boys who were allegedly kidnapped on Wednesday, Oct. 14, from their home. According to police, the dad was upset about a break-up with the mom. So he went to the house, assaulted and tied the mother to a bed, and fled in the woman's car, taking the kids with him.
According to Detroit police, the grandfather - in his call to 911 - said the father was headed to Rouge Park in a silver Kia. So Detroit police converged on the park, searched the area, but didn't find the father.
It was Detroit police officer Seth Beneteau who would ultimately ping the boys' location to the cornfield in Ohio, and lead authorities to the boys, whose father died of the self-inflicted gunshot wound that day.
Beneteau was working the desk at the 6th precinct when he got a call around 10:54 a.m. to help find the boys. He called AT&T, made an emergency request for ping data, and within 20 minutes got the location data. He put the coordinates into Google maps, which revealed the boys were in Norwalk, Ohio, about two hours from downtown Detroit.
"I didn't think it was right at first - it didn't make sense," said Beneteau, who then contacted Norwalk dispatch and directed law enforcement to the cornfields.
By then, he would learn that his colleague, Richardson, was FaceTiming with the children.
Richardson, who was among the officers searching Rouge Park, got the father's cellphone number from the boys' grandfather, who was also at the park. Richardson called the number, but said the father kept hanging up on her, told her to stop calling, all while she could hear the childrens' voices in the background. She then switched to a relative's cellphone and kept calling back. Eventually, the 6-year-old answered her FaceTime call, which gave her a live view into the tragedy that had unfolded.
The dad was on the ground. His children were crying. The gun was within view.
Richardson said she convinced the 6-year-old to grab the phone and leave the scene right away.
"I told them my name was Angel," recalled Richardson, who remained calm and focused as she kept the older brother on the call.
'Do not let your little brother's hand go'
The FaceTime call came with glitches. Sometimes, the call would get dropped as the 6-year-old boy, Richardson recalled, would accidentally hang up when she asked him to share their location.
"He really didn't know how to work the FaceTime. And I'm just trying to get a visual of their location," Richardson said, noting the boy would say things like, "Angel, can I go this way," all while trying to keep his little brother calm.
"The other little boy was just crying and screaming, 'My dad is dead,'" Richardson recalled, noting she stressed to the 6-year-old: "Do not let your little brother's hand go."
The older brother did as told, she said, and stayed calm and steady as he kept the camera on his feet.
"He said, 'Hey, Angel, there's a worm on my foot,'" Richardson recalled. "I said, 'kick it off and keep going.'"
Richardson was trying to keep things light, to keep the boys' minds off their dad. She talked about worms, and asked what their favorite color was, and whether they could see the helicopter, or hear sirens.
"My main focus in my heart was, 'I got to get these babies out of here,'" she said. "They were in the middle of nowhere, with nobody."
Ohio officers rescue the boys: 'Is it okay if I go with them Angel?'
About 30 minutes into the FaceTime call, Richardson saw a tiny dot in the distance in the cornfield. It looked like a person. She told the boy to focus the camera on the dot. It was a law enforcement officer.
"I'm like, 'run to them,'" Richardson recalled, noting the boy and his brother made their way to the Ohio law enforcement officers, and asked: "'Is it okay if I go with them, Angel?'"
Richardson assured the boy he and his brother were in good hands.
"I said, 'give him the phone baby. You're okay. I'm going to see you again,'" Richardson said.
Richardson stayed on the phone with Ohio authorities for another half hour, to make sure the boys were getting medical treatment and help with their trauma.
After seeing the kids off, she had another 20 runs to finish that night. She got home after midnight, took a shower, and went to bed.
"I just thanked God for giving me the strength to help them boys see daylight," said Richardson, who plans on visiting the boys after they get settled in back home.
According to the Huron County Sheriff's office in Ohio, drones and K9s were dispatched to the area to help in the search effort. It was a drone that ultimately located the father. the sheriff's office stated in a press release, noting that while preparations were being made to search the surrounding area, the two boys emerged from the cornfield, just north of the vehicle. The boys did not appear to be injured, and were ultimately released to family following a checkup at a local medical center.
Beneteau, the Detroit officer who used his tech skills to locate the boys, said while he's done many searches for people before, none were as highstakes as this one.
"We were obviously worried he was going to do something to the kids," said Beneteau, noting his hands got a little sweaty while plugging in the coordinates.
"It's definitely a tragedy that he didn't make it," Beneteau said of the father, noting police were hoping to get officers there in time to save the dad. "But I'm definitely glad that the kids are okay, and hopefully they can get through it."
At a press conference Oct. 14, Inkster police Chief Tameka Jenkins called the situation "intense."
“We were working really diligently to make sure that we used every resource we had to locate those children," Jenkins said, without mentioning that it was actually Detroit police who located the children. "We’re just thankful that they were found safe, and unharmed."
While it was Flock cameras that helped track and locate the vehicle, it was the calm and collective work of two young Detroit police officers - both in their 20s - that led to the recovery of the two siblings.
"They could have lost their lives," said Richardson, who recalled the emotional pleas of the 6-year-old that day as he walked through the cornfields. "He said, 'Ae you going to come and get us? Are you going to take us to mommy?' I told him, 'I promise. I got you.'"
Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit cop details FaceTime call with kidnapped boys in Ohio cornfield
