Mounties under fire after B.C. toddler’s return
Posted Sep 12, 2011 7:42 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Where was the RCMP? That’s the question many want to know, after a child abductor was able to return three-year-old Kienan Hebert to his Sparwood, B.C. home and leave undetected.
Mounties and community volunteers searched the town for four days, after the toddler was abducted from his bed.
An Amber Alert was issued in British Columbia and then days later in Alberta as the public was told to keep an eye out for 46-year-old suspect Randall Hopley.
Just after 3:00 a.m. Sunday, RCMP received a phone call telling them they could find Kienan at home.
No one was at the Hebert house at the time; the young boy’s family was staying with neighbours.
Officers and Kienan’s father found the boy asleep on the couch, wrapped up in the blankets he had disappeared in.
RCMP Corporal Dan Moskaluk says the boy appears to be in good health and wasn’t physically hurt during the ordeal.
Mounties dodged questions about how this could have happened.
“We have not determined how, so again we will focus on the task at hand at completing this investigation and getting on with other tasks,” said Moskaluk.
According to The Calgary Herald, there’s only one way in and out of the tiny subdivision and Kienan’s abductor would have had to pass the search and rescue command post at the entrance of the suburb.
Moskaluk says sixty officers are working the case, although he wouldn’t confirm if any were in the subdivision at the time of child’s return.
He also wouldn’t say whether the Hebert family home was under surveillance at the time.
Moskaluk admits it’s worrisome the suspect was able to come and go undetected.
