Cops Investigate Strange 911 Call

NATO AIR

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Jun 25, 2004
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i hope this little girl is okay... it really sounds like a TV show mystery. if its a hoax, its one hell of a convincing one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6083341/

Police in N.J. investigate strange 911 call
Cops hunt for 4-year-old who said mother wasn't breathing
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:59 p.m. ET Sept. 23, 2004PATERSON, N.J. - “

My mommy got hit,” the tiny voice on the other end of the 911 call said. The girl said mommy was in the bathroom and wasn’t breathing.

A dispatcher kept the girl on the call as long as she could, but the child finally hung up after five minutes, saying she was tired. Authorities could not trace the call — made from a cell phone — and have run into a series of dead ends in their search for the girl.

“The worst-case scenario is there’s a 4-year-old girl home alone and her mother is injured,” said Paterson police Capt. Danny Nichols.

The department’s entire 22-member detective squad was working on the case Thursday. Having exhausted numerous leads, including tips from well-meaning callers from as far away as Pennsylvania and Florida, investigators were working with cell phone providers to try to determine the number of the phone and the person to whom it was registered.

“We’ve had 50 to 60 phone calls with all different types of information,” said Detective Lt. Donald Giaquinto. “We’ve even had a psychic call.”

Detectives do not believe the call was a prank because the girl’s voice sounds exactly like that of a scared 4-year-old girl.

Hard-to-trace call
Authorities said the inability to trace the call was the result of two factors: Cell phones are usually more difficult to trace than regular phones, and the girl’s call was fielded by a police line that does not have an enhanced 911 system.

The call came in at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday. The dispatcher asked the girl for identifying information, such as where she goes to school and what her teacher’s name is.

The girl said she is 4 years old, her name is Jessica, and that she lives on the first floor of a white house near a candy store, but didn’t know the name of the shop. She said she goes to either school or day care, and her teacher’s name is Miss Winter.

Police checked with the Paterson school system, as well as local day care outlets, but none had a teacher with a first or last name even close, Sgt. Patrick Murray said. The girl might not even attend school in Paterson, so surrounding districts were also being questioned, police said.

Nowhere on Sparrow Street
The girl told the dispatcher she lives at 150 Sparrow St., but no such address exists. Police visited every house on the street, as well as several others that might sound similar to a child, but no one knew about anything amiss.

Carlos Roman, who was washing his car on Sparrow Street on Thursday morning, said no one in the area knows of a 4-year-old girl, let alone one named Jessica.

Murray said no one has filed a missing persons report that might correspond to the girl or her mother; local hospitals also have been checked, to no avail.

The dispatcher repeatedly asked the girl to stay on the line until police arrived at her door, at one point even asking her to sing the alphabet to keep her talking.

Shortly after the girl sang the A-B-C song, the line clicked dead.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 
Maybe I'm technologically impaired, but how hard can this be?

I have caller ID at my house... when I call home using my cell phone, my number comes up. It shouldnt be that hard for a 9-1-1 system to get the cellular number and trace that number to the wireless provider and get a name and address from there.

Am I missing something here?
 
lilcountriegal said:
Maybe I'm technologically impaired, but how hard can this be?

I have caller ID at my house... when I call home using my cell phone, my number comes up. It shouldnt be that hard for a 9-1-1 system to get the cellular number and trace that number to the wireless provider and get a name and address from there.

Am I missing something here?

that would make sense but sometimes numbers are blocked (my g/f is FDNY EMS and she says sometimes they cannot trace the calls)
 
NATO AIR said:
that would make sense but sometimes numbers are blocked (my g/f is FDNY EMS and she says sometimes they cannot trace the calls)

i agree... but telephone systems are equipped with "anonymous call block" which I have on my phone. Occasionally I get something marked "unknown caller", but for the most part, if someone with an unlisted number tries to call, they will need to unblock their number before the call will even go through.

One would think a 9-1-1 dispatch center would have this type of system set up. :dunno:
 
they may not have had the funding...

who knows? yikes, this is a big mystery.

you're right though... common sense would have this not even being a news story and the little girl found. sadly, i guess common sense is in way short supply in this part of NJ.
 
I'd sure like an update on this story if/when it happens. I have a 4-year-old daughter myself and I cant imagine the hell that poor little girl is going through if she is truly stuck in a house with her sick/dying/dead mother.
 
lilcountriegal said:
i agree... but telephone systems are equipped with "anonymous call block" which I have on my phone. Occasionally I get something marked "unknown caller", but for the most part, if someone with an unlisted number tries to call, they will need to unblock their number before the call will even go through.

One would think a 9-1-1 dispatch center would have this type of system set up. :dunno:

The article said they did not have an updated system, so chances are the call didn't show a number, only that it came from a cell phone. The older caller ids were the same way, it would just say cellular phone or pay phone but not give a number. Regardless of the system they have, blocking a number isn't on option for 9-1-1.
 
Jimmyeatworld said:
The article said they did not have an updated system, so chances are the call didn't show a number, only that it came from a cell phone. The older caller ids were the same way, it would just say cellular phone or pay phone but not give a number. Regardless of the system they have, blocking a number isn't on option for 9-1-1.

I just assumed "updated system" was the one where when the call is placed, 911 dispatchers immediately get the name, telephone number, and address. When they say "not updated" I assumed they would at least be able to receive the telephone number.

I'm in rural Pennsylvania. I live in a town with a population of 1,000. Even our 911 dispatch center has the updated version... I just couldnt imagine a county system still operating with "blind calls" coming in for emergency dispatches.
 
Emergency Call From 4-Year-Old Was Hoax

By JOHN P. McALPIN

PATERSON, N.J. (AP) - A 911 call that triggered a desperate search for an unidentified 4-year-old girl in distress was a hoax, authorities said Saturday.

The caller told a dispatcher Tuesday evening that her mother ``got hit'' and was in the bathroom and not breathing. The dispatcher kept the girl on the line as long as she could, but the child hung up after five minutes, saying she was tired.

Authorities initially believed the call was authentic because the voice sounded exactly like that of a scared little girl.

But Paterson Police Chief Lawrence Spagnola said investigators have now reviewed an enhanced copy of the 911 tape and found several inconsistencies, including the fact that the caller gave one phone number to state police but was unable to give the same number to the city police dispatcher.


``We are looking into this right now. It's a hoax,'' Spagnola said.


The girl said she lived at 150 Sparrow St., but no such address exists. Police visited every house on Sparrow Street, as well as several others that might sound similar to a child, but no one reported anything out of the ordinary.


Investigators also checked schools and hospitals, but found no clues as to the whereabouts of the girl or her mother.


Authorities at first could not trace the call - made from a cell phone. They now suspect the caller used a 2-year-old prepaid phone card that was only able to dial 911 and placed the call from Irvington, N.J.


The Paterson Police Department's entire 22-member detective squad worked on the case, which included exhausting tips that poured in from around the country.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/cri...tory/0001/20040925/1433262554.htm&floc=NW_1-T
 

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