Amber Alert - Florida 7 year old missing

Please pray for this little girl. and pray that she wasn't abducted by sick people just before halloween date.

[link to today.msnbc.msn.com]

By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 1 hour, 55 minutes ago
The grief-stricken mother of a missing 7-year-old Florida girl delivered an impassioned plea Wednesday both to Somer Thompson and to whomever knows where she is to bring her home.

“Please bring her back to us,” Diena Thompson said through her choked-back sobs during an interview from Clay County, Fla., with TODAY’s Erin Burnett. “She belongs with her family. She belongs with us. She belongs with her twin brother, please bring her home.”

To her daughter, who went missing Monday afternoon on her way home from school, Thompson directed another plea: “Somer, you’re not in trouble. I know you’re scared. Just come home.”


Joining Thompson was Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler, who is coordinating a massive search for Somer that includes deputies, civilians and volunteers from a nearby military base on foot, on horseback and in helicopter. Dogs and divers have also been employed. His department has issued an Amber Alert and is working under the assumption that foul play is involved.

“We need a break in this case,” Beseler told Burnett. “We need a tip. We need a phone call. Somebody knows where Somer is. We need that person to call us.”

Walking home from school
“She’s creative. She’s smart ... She likes to talk. She liked to be around people and kids. She likes to talk. She’s just wonderful,” said her mother, who added, “This is not happening. It’s just surreal.”

Somer is 3 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 65 pounds and has long brown hair which was pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing a cranberry jumpsuit with pink striped sleeves and carrying a black, pink and white backpack with a skull and hearts on it when she disappeared.

Somer was walking home from Grove Park Elementary School around 2:45 p.m. on Monday with her twin brother, older sister and some friends when she reportedly got in an argument and ran ahead. Her siblings expected to find her at home ahead of them, but when they arrived, she wasn’t there.

A little squabble
Diena Thompson was working when her children came home, but a family friend who spoke to NBC News said that another friend, Sean Patten, was waiting at the Thompson home for the children. It is reportedly a close neighborhood and some 100 kids walk home from the school every day. The Thompson home is about a mile from the school.

“They told me that she got into a little squabble with a little classmate,” Diena Thompson said. “Her older sister told her to quit fighting and she got mad about that.”

The other kids didn’t think anything of it when she ran ahead, as Somer had been walking home since kindergarten and knew the way home well.


TODAY
Somer, here with her twin brother, walked about a mile home from school every day.
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When Somer didn’t arrive home, Patten reportedly exchanged text messages with Diena Thompson, who immediately left work and came home. Patten said she flagged down a police car and the search began almost immediately. At 9 p.m., when police were convinced she was missing and suspected that Somer had been abducted, an Amber Alert was issued.

Foul play suspected
Police reported more than 100 Clay County deputies, law enforcement officers from neighboring counties, the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are involved in the search. They spent Monday afternoon and night and Tuesday scouring the little girl’s neighborhood. Sgt. Dan Mahla, a Clay County detective, said horses, dogs, divers and helicopters have been used in the search.

“She is an endangered missing child. We do suspect foul play,” Mahla said. “We believe it is foul play because she did not come home,” he said.

Beseler added that 10 days ago, the Orange Park Police Department received a call about some people in a blue Nissan trying to lure a girl into their car. The police report said a 5-year-old girl on a bicycle was riding about a block from where Somer was last seen.
TODAY
Neighbors held a candlight vigil Tuesday night.
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The sheriff told Burnett Wednesday that the car and the people in it have been located and that authorities have ruled them out as possible suspects.

As of Wednesday morning police had interviewed 57 registered sex offenders in a 3-mile radius of Somer’s home and checked out about half of some 150 leads that have been called in. Police said they were expanding their search to a 5-mile area and would question 14 additional registered sex offenders within that radius.

Beseler said the search would continue today with volunteers locking arms and scouring wooded areas.