An internal affairs report released Wednesday by the Cherokee County Sheriff reveals a state of confusion prevailed during the second day of the search for 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, before GBI officials were called in to assist local authorities.
Not only did two deputies fail to report seeing blood in a vacant unit that was later determined to be the crime scene, two city of Canton firefighters also did not report seeing the blood during a separate search of the unit earlier that day.
The report provides the clearest picture yet of how the search for Jorelys unfolded after she was reported missing and explains the delayed reporting of the blood discovery.
To read the full report by the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, click here .
Canton firefighter Sgt. Wess Dixon said when he arrived around 7 a.m. Dec. 3 there was "no span of control" at the command post and he could not tell "who was doing what." And even though an evening had already passed without Jorelys returning home, Dixon and several other searchers told investigators they did not believe the little girl was in danger.
Jorelys' body was found three days after her disappearance in a trash compactor at the complex. Authorities say she was raped, beaten and stabbed to death within two hours of being abducted by Ryan Brunn, a 20-year-old maintenance worker who lived at the complex. Brunn is being held without bond on murder charges at the Cherokee County jail.
A spokesperson for the Canton Police Department, which oversaw the investigation, said Chief Jeff Lance would not comment on another department's internal affairs investigation.
Canton Mayor Gene Hobgood has called for an independent review of how the investigation was handled, but he had not seen the Sheriff's internal affairs report when reached by phone Wednesday. Hobgood praised the Canton Police Department and the agencies that assisted for locating Jorelys' body and bringing charges against her alleged killer within a few days of her disappearance.
"I have no reason at this point to believe that anything was done inappropriately," Hobgood said.
According to the internal investigation, several of the searchers had no inkling of the danger Jorelys was in. Autopsy results reveal that she died within two hours of being abducted near the playground at River Ridge apartment complex. She was reported missing at 5 p.m. Dec. 2.
Deputy Mathew McMullen and other searchers at the scene the morning of Dec. 3 were operating under the assumption they were looking for a little girl who was perhaps hiding in a vacant unit. Cherokee County Search and Rescue team member Tim Carr said he believed that Jorelys was probably with relatives and her mother was not aware.
Dixon and another firefighter, Kendra Chapman, would be the first to encounter blood in vacant apartment no. 10009, which police have since identified as the crime scene. The pair did not report their finding.
They thought some of the dried, brown blood they found in the bathroom was feces. What they did identify as blood did not appear to be "that bad," Dixon told investigators.
Later, Carr, McMullen and a deputy in training, Trent Kuykendall, made the same discovery while searching the building again with a maintenance man from the complex identified only as "Mark."
McMullen told investigators that he never received a briefing about their mission and he thought they were looking for a girl hiding in an empty apartment. The blood was in the last of approximately 25 vacant apartments they searched.
The deputies noticed a king-sized mattress on the floor with some sort of "sticks on top" and an old leather couch. In the bedroom with an attached bathroom, they saw the blood.
McMullen told investigators the door was deadbolted when they entered and he didn't see how anyone could have left it locked without a key. He reportedly did not think it was part of a crime and didn't think it needed to be reported, further speculating that the blood could have come from a "nose bleed" or someone cutting themselves while moving out of the apartment.
McMullen later said he was sorry for the lapse.
"I guess we just came up with our own conclusion there and we just left because we did not find the girl," McMullen told investigators.
The search commanders did not brief McMullen about their mission before the search or debrief him afterward. McMullen said he wasn't even sure who was in charge of the command post when he returned.
The confusion about the deputies' mission, who was in charge, and who was reporting may explain why the blood went unreported until the evening of Dec. 4, when agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrived on the scene and began debriefing the searchers.
The GBI stepped in at the request of Cherokee County Sheriff Roger Garrison. Garrison declined to comment Wednesday about the internal investigation, but he has been critical in the past of the way Canton Police Department's handled the case.
Retired FBI profiler Mark Safarik said when a young child goes missing, investigators should consider that the worst may have happened to the child, especially when more than a day has elapsed. More than three in four abducted children who were murdered were killed within the first three hours, according to one study.
"Even at the outset you always have to have in the back of your mind that the reason the child is missing is because of foul play," Safarik said. "You can't compartmentalize it and say I'm only looking for a living 7-year-old girl. You have to consider all the possibilities."
About the Author
