CALEIGH ANNE HARRISON - 2 yo - Rockport MA

There are new developments tonight into the investigation into a missing toddler in Massachusetts.

The Department of Children and Families confirms they are investigating the family of Caleigh Anne Harrison.

Last
week, Rockport and the state police team investigating the case filed a
civil report on behalf of the toddler's older sister.

The filing with DCF represents an allegation of potential neglect.

DCF has received that report and will investigate.

Two-year-old Caleigh was at Long Beach with her mother and sister when she disappeared.

Her mother says she turned away for a few moments when she went to retrieve a ball.

http://www.necn.com/05/21/12/DCF-will-investigate-family-of-missing-M/landing.html?blockID=711598&feedID=4753

Anthony Harrison, father of missing Gloucester 2 1/2-year-old Caleigh
Harrison, says he thinks a state Department of Children and Families
investigation into the safety of their 4-year-old daughter, Elizabeth,
"in some sense ... has brought me and Allison closer together, because
we're united in a bigger cause and that's our kids."


Harrison, referring to Allison Hammond, his estranged wife and
Caleigh's mother, was speaking Tuesday afternoon to the Times,
immediately following his initial interview with a DCF investigator.
Hammond had been interviewed Monday by the DCF — all as part of a civil
investigation into potential neglect or a need for child services
stemming from a so-called 51A report filed on behalf of Caleigh's older
sister, Lizzie.


The DCF probe is an investigation which, Anthony Harrison fears, he
himself inadvertently triggered when he voiced his concerns to Rockport
police last Thursday morning about his estranged wife's "state of mind."
Hammond, 4-year-old Elizabeth and 2-year-old Caleigh — all of
Gloucester — were on an outing at Long Beach when Caleigh disappeared
shortly after noon, and shortly after high tide, on Thursday, April 19.


"I was worried," says Harrison, "that maybe Allison has had some kind
of break from reality. For the first few days after Caleigh disappeared,
she was hysterical, crying. And then, all of a sudden, she said she was
done with it, she couldn't cry anymore, that if she kept on crying,
she'd be of no use to Lizzie.


"Then it was like, she just shut down, not a tear, no emotion," he said
Tuesday. "And that's not like her. So I thought, is she headed for a
breakdown? I didn't know I'd trigger this whole thing just by saying
something to the police."


Harrison — who described his interview with the DCF investigator as
"very basic stuff about me and Allison and our relationship with each
other and our relationship with our kids" — said that, up until the day
Caleigh vanished, he'd never worried about his children's welfare while
in the care of their mother.


"Allison was a great mom," he maintains, "always doing stuff with the
kids, arts 'n' crafts and playing with them and taking them places."


Harrison said the breakup of the couple's marriage last September had
been devastating to him, and led to his arrest in Gloucester last
January on charges of disturbing the peace.


Harrison says he takes full responsibility for his arrest. Christmas
had been rough without his family, he says, and "it was hard coming home
to an empty house."


"I went out to a bar and I drank too much, and I left my keys in the
bar because of the drinking," he related. "I took a cab home, and when I
got home I realized I didn't have my keys and so I fell asleep — and
when I woke up, the cops were there, and I wasn't happy about that."


Harrison, who ultimately had to be restrained by police with pepper
spray, has been sober in the months since the incident. He was handed a
year's probation for charges, and "if all goes well, the charges will be
dropped at the end of the year."


Anthony Harrison's emotional disposition has, since his daughter's
disappearance, been painfully clear to the public at large, and the
marked contrast between his evident anguish and his estranged wife's
cool, detached demeanor has been the subject of much commentary among
friends and family, as well as onlookers. Hammond acknowledged in an
interview with the Times last Friday that she has gone out of her way
not to show emotions, to "hold it together," for the sake of 4-year-old
Lizzie.


Although Hammond's love for her children has never been questioned, her ability to discipline them has.


"Allison has always been loose, relaxed, with the kids," her
sister-in-law, Catherine Curcuru, said in an earlier interview with the
Times.


Hammond could not be reached for a comment following her interview with
the DCF investigator, but Harrison maintains that — DCF probe to the
contrary — he is not about to judge his wife. He said that, like
himself, Allison's primary concern is not with the state probe, but with
their daughters' happiness.


Both parents use the plural when referring to their daughters, and both
use the present tense when speaking of Caleigh. What bothers him, says
Anthony Harrison, is how this investigation has taken the focus off the
other investigation, which is still about finding Caleigh.


"The media," he says, "is making it seem like I've filed charges against Allison, but all we want is to bring Caleigh home."


He said the couple is united in their "frustration" over the police
concentrating their extensive rescue efforts on a sea search, while
giving "short shrift" to land efforts in the event Caleigh was abducted.


From day one, says Harrison, he has always considered abduction to be a
very real possibility. When Allison first called him, crying
hysterically — "when I was flying toward the beach on the highway, when I
was praying for the phone to ring and for it to be Allison, telling me
she'd found Caleigh," he says, "every car I passed, I was thinking
Caleigh could be in that car, Caleigh could be in that car."


When he got to the beach, says Harrison, he went straight to the side
of Saratoga Creek, which flows into the ocean at the end of Long Beach,
looking for some trace of his tiny daughter.


"There was nothing," he says. "The sand on the side of the creek was
intact, there was nothing, not even footprints, that indicated she'd
gone into the water. So why were they only looking in the water?"


This, and not the DCF investigation, is what most concerns the parents
and family of Caleigh and Lizzie Harrison. The next steps in the DCF
investigation, he says, will be interviewing Lizzie's teachers and
doctor and those who are close with her.


Like Hammond, he said he believes "the only thing they'll find is that we're good parents who a bad thing has happened to."


Lizzie, Harrison knows, needs more professional help than she is
receiving. But so far, he says, the family has been more concerned with
just stabilizing the little girl.


"Thank God," he says, "for the family that we have, that Lizzie has. I
don't know how people who don't have a family like ours could ever get
through this."


He has not, he says, gone past April 19. He and his father , his
brothers and brother-in-laws, and friends have, he says, gone down to
Long Beach countless times, and tried to relive the moments in which
Caleigh disappeared.


"We stand up there on that retaining wall," he says, "and we look down
and what we see is what Allison would have seen. That is the creek, and
there is no way, if that's where Caleigh was, that Allison would not
have seen Caleigh in the water."


He makes the observation which many family members have made about
Caleigh — noting that she did not really like the water, that she is the
kind of child who is happier sitting on the beach, playing with a pail
and shovel. And, like Hammond, he maintains that Allison and Lizzie were
not, as initially reported, left at the edge of the swirling tidal
creek, but 40 yards or so away, playing in the rocks on the beach.


This summer, says Harrison, he and "the family" will be back on the
beaches of Cape Ann and maybe beyond, spreading the word about child
beach and water safety.


They'll also be handing out little pink bracelets, with white lettering that says, "Help Caleigh Come Home."
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/archive/x1647282923/Dad-focuses-on-Caleighs-return

Amber alert issues hover over Caleigh case

By Joann Mackenzie Staff Writer
May 30, 2012

"Do I think they should have issued an Amber Alert?" said Ron Kimmence. "How about 150 percent, yes."

Kimmence, who identifies himself as "a close friend of the family" of Caleigh Harrison, who vanished from Rockport's Long Beach on April 19, was speaking at the townwide candlelight vigil held for the toddler on May 11, at Gloucester's Fishermen's Memorial.

Kimmence is not alone in wondering why the police never activated an Amber Alert for 21/2-year-old Caleigh Harrison.

Like members of Caleigh's own family, many of the young parents who turned up in droves at the candlelight vigil that night said they wondered aloud from Day One why police had not immediately issued an Amber Alert when Caleigh disappeared while on an outing with her mother, Allison Hammond, and her 4-year-old sister, Elizabeth.

For many here on Cape Ann, the Caleigh Harrison case has not only been deeply distressing, but deeply disturbing. Apart from anything else, it has been a learning curve into the protocol surrounding the disappearance of a child — a learning curve that has given rise to many questions, including the use of the national Amber Alert system.

"Most people," says Maureen Flatley, of the Boston-based nonprofit Mission for the Missing, "assume that the Amber Alert is automatic when a child disappears, but that's just not so."

For an Amber Alert to be activated, explained Flatley, who has worked closely with Caleigh Harrison's family over the weeks since her disappearance, criteria has to be met, an abduction has to be witnessed.

That came as a shock to Caleigh's family, who, like "most people" had assumed the Amber Alert was automatic. On April 19, they learned the hard way that they were sadly mistaken.

"When I was flying toward that beach on the highway, every car I passed, I was thinking Caleigh could be in that car," recalled Caleigh's father, Anthony Harrison, in an earlier Times interview.

Like the rest of his family, Harrison could not understand why the police seemed to jump so quickly to the conclusion that Caleigh had been swept out to sea during the few brief moments her mother, Hammond, was off retrieving an errant tennis ball.

"Police said they couldn't issue an Amber Alert because there was no evidence of an abduction," Catherine Curcuru, Caleigh's aunt and godmother, told the Times previously. "But when you think of it, there was no evidence — and there's still no evidence — that she was in the water, either. So why automatically rule out abduction?"

Police had not, in fact, ruled out the possibility that Caleigh had been abducted. Both in cruisers and on foot with police dogs, Rockport officers and State Police troopers worked together, scouring the land, cottages, roads and neighborhoods surrounding Long Beach.

The problem, as far as family members were concerned, was that compared to the massive, weeklong sea search involving dive teams using sonar equipment, the land search seemed like a token effort.

The problem, as far as police were concerned — as State Police spokesman David Procopio steadfastly maintained — was that Caleigh's disappearance "did not meet the criteria established in the Amber Alert guidelines."

First and foremost, those guidelines, as stated on the official Amber Alert website, "require law enforcement to confirm an abduction prior to issuing an alert ... as well as descriptive information about the suspect and the suspect's vehicle."

The key word here, even more than "suspect," is "vehicle."

The Amber Alert system relies largely on vehicular identification for its success. Absent a description of a vehicle, suspect, or an eyewitness account of an abduction, an Amber Alert could not be activated by Rockport Police or State Police responding to Long Beach on April 19.

Issuing alerts in the absence of significant information that an abduction has occurred could, according to the Amber Alert website, lead to abuse of the system. An astounding 2,300 American adults and chidren are reported missing every day, it further notes, hence, overuse of this nationwide system could easily undermine its effectiveness.

Named for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas, in 1996, the Amber Alert System was established in Massachusetts in 2002. Over the years, it has saved an estimated 250 children, according to the Amber Alert website — managed, like the system itself, by an arm of the federal U.S. Department of Justice.

Today, in observance of Massachusetts Missing Children's Day, the family of Caleigh Harrison will join the family of another Massachusetts girl who vanished without a trace —the family of 16-year old Molly Bish, who disappeared on June 27, 2000, from the parking lot of the park where she worked as a lifeguard. Molly's family has invited Caleigh's family to join them at Boston State House for a 12th annual ceremony remembering "those missing and murdered and the families still missing them."

The Bish family are fierce advocates of the Amber Alert, and were instrumental in bringing it to Massachusetts. But had the system existed in Massachusetts at the time of Molly Bish's disappearance, it would not have fit the criteria for activation.

Although her mother had noted a suspicious looking car in the parking lot where she left her daughter, nobody had actually witnessed Molly's abduction. Molly Bish's remains were found in 2003 just five miles from where she was last seen.

Not a trace of Caleigh Harrison has been found in the five weeks since she was last seen.

No footprints, no articles of clothing — nothing by way of a clue or a lead has materialized, either from the sea or land searches to indicate what may have happened to the child her family calls "the light of our lives."

Meanwhile, Caleigh's older sister Lizzie — now almost 5, and the only one with Caleigh on the empty stretch of beach when she vanished — continues to speak of a man, a dark man wearing a white shirt and smelling of cigarettes, who'd appeared mysteriously that day on the beach, according to the family.

He, not the sea, took Caleigh, Lizzie Harrison reportedly claims.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x1561295396/Amber-alert-issues-hover-over-Caleigh-case

Family of Caleigh Anne Harrison to team up with Molly Bish’s family at Gloucester child safety event
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/06/27/family-caleigh-anne-harrison-team-with-molly-bish-family-gloucester-child-safety-event/0QOpYkS9cyhN22KUJpqd8L/story.html

The father of a 2-year-old
Gloucester girl who disappeared from a Rockport beach in April says he
now accepts that his daughter was swept out to sea.
Anthony
Harrison said Monday that he reached the conclusion after a group
called Mission for the Missing investigated the case. The nonprofit is a
volunteer group of law enforcement investigators and crime analysts who
help search for missing children.

Harrison
and other family members had said they thought 2-year-old Caleigh
Harrison was abducted, despite police saying there was no evidence of an
abduction. The little's girl's 4-year-old sister had talked of a
strange man on the beach.

Caleigh disappeared after her mother left her children briefly to retrieve a ball that bounced over a wall.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/07/17/gloucester_dad_says_daughter_likely_swept_away/

To my knowledge no uninvolved adult has confirmed seeing both girls with the mother that morning. I am no oceanographer but the searches in the water were quick to happen and were extensive. Did the other daughter just make up the story about the man? Could she have been told to say that? That was theory A proposed by the parents. Then a group feeds them theory B so they jump on that bandwagon. This way they've got experts saying what they feel happened.

My initial feeling is that a terrible accident happened; that she was swept off to sea and one day her body will wash up somewhere. But, if what her mother said was true, and then she could see her kids every step of the way to get the ball, and she only turned around for a sec to grab the ball, I don't know how she could either get kidnapped or swept out to sea. I don't know... I don't get the feeling that the mom hurt this baby, but I don't know why I feel that way. It's just a real odd case.

Oh, I've seen a 5 year old get "brainwashed" into saying something that was untrue. It's a horrible experience. THe kid's entire demeaner changes under the weight to uphold a lie. It's hard to keep a kid lying like that. THey break pretty easy. Adults don't usually try to make it too elaborate because the preschooler has to be able to remember the story the same way multiple times over.

Caleigh Harrison: Pink pants found in ocean may belong to missing toddler

11/12/2012
Police are investigating a pair of toddler pants that were found at
Good Harbor Beach on Friday to see if they belong to a missing
two-year-old. The pants were found about a mile south, from where the
child was last seen on April 19, on the northern end of Rockport Beach,
reports Boston.com.

Caleigh Harrison, 2, and her sister were playing at the beach when,
Alllison Hammond, Caleigh's mother went around a sea wall to retrieve a
ball she was tossing for the family dog. When she came back around
Caleigh was missing.

The police searched the Rockport end of Long Beach in Massachusetts, off Sea View Street and cottages and vehicles for several days, but could not find Caleigh.
"We started the search on the beach and every cottage on the beach,
every car on the beach, we've gone through the creek behind the beach
and we have two helicopters here now searching for her," said Chief Jim
Doyle of the Rockport Fire Department at the time.

Authorities later determined that Caleigh had been swept out to sea
and not a victim of an abduction, but up until Friday, there was no
clues that happened. In fact, many doubted Hammond's story and
speculated that Caleigh may have been a victim of foul play. Even if
the pink Capri pants can be verified to belong to Caleigh, it may or may
not solve the mystery of Caleigh's disappearance.

"The pants are consistent in size, color, and style with those that
Caleigh Harrison was wearing when she disappeared while playing on
Rockport's Long Beach," State Police spokesman David Procopio said in a
statement. "The pants have been shown to members of the child's family,
but we have not yet confirmed that they were those worn by Caleigh."


http://www.examiner.com/article/caleigh-harrison-pink-pants-found-ocean-may-belong-to-missing-toddler?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Pants found on beach may be those of toddler

11/12/2012
Authorities have recovered a pair of pink capri pants that Caleigh
Harrison, the 2-year-old girl who was reported missing from a Rockport
beach in the spring, may have been wearing on the day she disappeared,
officials said Monday.

The pants were found among ocean debris on the northern end of Good
Harbor Beach in Gloucester by a person walking along the shore, State
Police spokesman David Procopio said in a prepared statement.

“The pants are consistent in size, color, and style with those that
Caleigh Harrison was wearing when she disappeared while playing on
Rockport’s Long Beach,” Procopio said. “The pants have been shown to
members of the child’s family but we have not yet confirmed that they
were those worn by Caleigh.”

He later added, “There is a detail related to the design of the pants
— which I do not want to specify — that we are hoping to confirm as
being present when worn by Caleigh.”
He said investigators will examine the pants for physical evidence,
such as a strand of hair, but analysts believe it is unlikely that they
can recover trace DNA, because the pants had been in the water for an
extended period of time.

The toddler was last seen on April 19 about a mile south from where the pants were found. Her mother, Allison Hammond, told the Globe that
she took Caleigh, along with Caleigh’s 4-year-old sister, Elizabeth, to
the beach and they were playing fetch with their family dog.

Hammond could not be reached for comment on Monday.

On the day her daughter disappeared, Hammond said, she accidentally
threw a ball too far over a sea wall and left the girls alone on the
beach for about two minutes to retrieve it.

When Hammond returned moments later, she said, Caleigh had vanished.

No evidence of foul play connected to Caleigh’s disappearance was
found during multiple searches for her. State Police concluded that the
girl had been swept out to sea in a rushing current and drowned.
Earlier this year, investigators ruled out abduction even after
Elizabeth told a friend that “a mean man took Caleigh.” Anthony
Harrison, the girls’ father, believes Elizabeth told the story out of
fear of getting in trouble for not protecting her sister.

Mission for the Missing,
a nonprofit organization that helps search for missing children and
adults, conducted its own investigation, but ended up agreeing with the
State Police opinion that she had been swept out to sea.

In July, Anthony Harrison also told The Associated Press that he
accepted the theory that Caleigh had been taken by the sea. He could not
be reached Monday.

Maureen Flatley, a volunteer with Mission for the Missing, said she
met with members of the Harrison family Monday, and they “feel a pretty
high degree of certainty” that the pants belonged to Caleigh.

“They feel a mix of almost relief, but also incredible sadness,” Flatley said.

She said her organization is planning to send a search team,
including dogs and possibly divers, to the beach Wednesday in hopes of
finding more evidence that may shed light on Caleigh’s disappearance.

Procopio said that as of Monday, State Police had no plans to search the beach again.

Flatley also said the Harrisons have accepted the notion that Caleigh was probably swept out to sea.

“The Harrisons, I think, have really come to terms with the
likelihood that [Caleigh] had come to the water,” she said. “There was
complete unanimity among the experts.”

Paul F. Murphy, vice chairman of the Rockport Board of Selectmen,
said Monday that he hopes the discovery of the pants, if confirmed to be
Caleigh’s, will help bring some closure to her family.

“The story and the situation affected everyone,” he said. “It was
heart-wrenching from the moment she went missing to the present time.
Our hearts are heavy here.”
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/11/12/pants-that-may-have-been-worn-missing-toddler-caleigh-harrison-wash-good-harbor-beach-police-say/OIGnFuduC18V9kBN7okIOK/story.html

It's easy to be off guard for even a second but that's all it takes.
I would have had the kids come with me to retrieve the ball or just leave it. The child is more important.

NEVER leave your child ALONE for one second, NEVER.
NEVER assume your child is safe, KNOW.

It's sad. If she is dead I hope they find the body now for closure. Finding the pants in the water is not a good sign and I do think she is dead no matter what happened.


William

I agree William. According to the article the mother went over a wall and left the kids for 2 minutes which probably was even longer. You can't leave a 2 year old alone at all especially around water. It does sound like she was taken away by the ocean. So sad. This is an excerpt from the article above:

"On the day her daughter disappeared, Hammond said, she accidentally threw a ball too far over a sea wall and left the girls alone on the beach for about two minutes to retrieve it.

When Hammond returned moments later, she said, Caleigh had vanished."