FL- In Somer Thompson case, rumors become a big problem

11-12-2009 Florida:

by Dana Treen

Bloggers spread stories, and ruling them out takes valuable time away from the investigation.

As with any high-profile case, the intense search for a killer in the slaying of 7-year-old Somer Thompson has generated rumors and speculation that can be costly and a frustrating distraction to investigators.

Once, after a swirl of suspicions about a blue Nissan’s possible connection to the case were found to be untrue, calls about the vehicle continued in the Clay County case, Sheriff Rick Beseler said.

“We got 79 additional tips about the blue Nissan after we already said we were not looking for it,” he said.

Other false alarms included a connection to a sex offender arrested in Georgia and suspicions generated by mistakes in a police report.

“You spend a lot of time and energy chasing leads when you have completely eliminated them,” Beseler said.

Rumors, often magnified by bloggers who become attracted to crime cases, usually steal valuable time that could be spent in the field, said Bruce Herring, director of the Institute of Police Technology and Management, which contracts with the University of North Florida and provides law enforcement agencies with instruction.

“Most of it is negative,” he said of the impact.

Not always, though. Perpetrators as well as the curious read those entries, he said.

“Tidbits come that lead to a bad guy once in a while,” Herring said.

That means it can be risky to ignore tips.

And high levels of exposure keep the public’s attention focused on the case.

A flood of calls
Roughly 3,375 tips have poured into the Clay County Sheriff’s Office since the Orange Park girl disappeared Oct. 19 as she was going home from Grove Park Elementary School. The first-grader’s body was found two days later in a Georgia landfill.

No arrests have been made.

The report of the blue Nissan, which had been linked to an apparent abduction attempt of a 5-year-old girl a little more than a week before Somer disappeared, drew wide interest. A woman who believed she foiled the kidnapping was part of a Sheriff’s Office news briefing where she recounted helping the crying girl who said she was being lured into the vehicle.

The suspicions were dismissed when detectives later learned the Nissan was being driven by an officer with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who stopped after thinking the girl had nearly been struck by a car.

But the calls didn’t stop and Beseler worries the confusion could lead to something being missed.

“Potentially someone could have real information and say, 'Oh, they are not looking for a black van; they are looking for a blue Nissan,’ ” he said.

Quashing rumors
In another case that has gripped Northeast Florida, investigators decided to ignore rumors they knew were untrue, but found it important to quickly quash the fast-growing ones.

The Putnam County disappearance of 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings in February generated wild speculation, including a claim that her body had been found. Lt. Johnny Greenwood of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said that allowing that to go unaddressed would have been irresponsible.

“We had to respond,” Greenwood said in an e-mail.

Haleigh, whose sixth birthday was in August, remains missing.

In the Clay County case, a mistake on a police report set off one wave of suspicion.

The day Somer disappeared, a deputy who was among those who responded to the missing girl’s home was called away to an unrelated armed robbery. He arrived at the second scene and caught four suspects, Beseler said. When the officer wrote the report, he forgot to change the address on the call, resulting in armed robbery arrests mistakenly tied to the Thompson home.

“The public sees that and goes ballistic,” Beseler said. “People on blogs and all over the country were writing all these theories. We worked and tried to put that rumor out for several days.”

The nature of the case has also meant attention has been focused on sex offenders. One of those men, who worked on a renovation crew months earlier at a house near where Somer was last seen as she walked home, has been interviewed. Another, whose name was on the initial police report after a woman thought she spotted him near Orange Park, was in Texas. When he discovered he had incorrectly been mentioned in the case, he nervously went to authorities there to say he was not near Florida.

Arrest in Georgia
Speculation has come from other places as well.

When Georgia authorities arrested a sex offender from Florida who had moved to Albany, they notified the Clay County Sheriff’s Office.

In the Oct. 26 arrest, the man — whose crimes in Florida were in Hillsborough County — was charged with attempting to entice a child. Beseler said the man is not a suspect in the Somer case.

Herring, who has worked on other high-profile cases, said as cases drag on the potential grows for investigators and the agency to be accused of being inept or covering something up.

“Early on, you have a whole lot of public opinion in your favor,” he said. That support can disappear later.

“The public starts to get impatient,” he said.

Last week, a crisis-management team within the department began offering services to employees who may feel overwhelmed.

“I’m still optimistic — very optimistic — we are going to solve this case,” Beseler said. “Will it be in a couple of days? No.” ..Source..