Ricky Holland Vanished

It is day 122 since the disappearance of Ricky Holland from Williamston, MI. There has been little coverage of the search for Ricky since about mid-July. The only news that has been reported over the past two months are stories of search warrants being served on the parents, Tim and Lisa Holland.

The last search warrant served on them was to obtain fingerprints and hair samples. At that point the detectives investigating the case called Tim and Lisa Holland “persons of interest”. Each time a search warrant has been served, when reporters ask for a comment, Lisa Holland always refers requests for comments to her attorney.

The silence is deafening that is coming from the Holland’s concerning the disappearance of their beloved adopted son.

Today I was reading an account in one of the news stories about a lead detectives had early in the search for Ricky. It had to do with a fruit wrapper found by one of the searchers. This wrapper was found in the vicinity of Haslett Road and M-52 in the city of Perry, MI. The area was close to a market called the Corner Stone Grocery.

Investigators were able to match the manufacturer’s code number and expiration date to the box of fruit snacks located in the Holland home. Unfortunately the manufacturer of the fruit snacks told investigators that the code number would apply to a whole batch of fruit snacks, not just the one box located at the Holland home.

There was a possible sighting of Ricky that day at a Mc Donald’s restaurant 7 miles from the Corner Stone Grocery. Bloodhounds were taken to the location and they were able to pick up Ricky’s scent. They went a little bit into a field across the street from the McDonald’s and then lost the scent so the search was called off in that area.

The story the Holland’s told the police about the morning of Ricky’s disappearance was that Lisa had left to go to the store, forgotten something and returned to the home. She then told Tim to awaken the children and she left again.

Giving the Holland’s a break here considering they are now being called “person’s of interest”, I have thought of a few scenarios of what might have happened to Ricky.

1. Ricky climbed out of his bedroom window and climbed into Lisa’s van and hid. I don’t know if it would be easy to hide in their vehicle without being detected. Suppose the Corner Stone Grocery was Lisa’s destination that morning. Suppose that when she arrived at the market Ricky then climbed out of the vehicle and took off from that location. This would be one explaination for the fruit wrapper being in the area of that market as well as his scent being in the area. I did a search on MapQuest from Douglas Road in Williamston, MI to the address of the Corner Stone Grocery on S. M 52 in Perry, MI. Douglas Road is the named street for the Holland home. The distance is a little under 7 miles and the length of travel time is estimated at 9 minutes.
2. Ricky did hide in the car, then started up the road near the store. He dropped the fruit snack wrapper. During his walk someone tried to pick him up on the road and he ran into the field to try and get away. The person chasing him picked him up and carried him back to their vehicle.
3. Something happened to Ricky during the night. Ricky was taken out of his window and placed into the van and Lisa or Tim Holland took Ricky to that location and dumped his body somewhere. The fruit snack wrapper fell out of the vehicle.

One thing that bothered me about the search was the comment made by Sheriff Wrigglesworth in the early days of the search.

“The big question is, when do we shut it down?” Wriggelsworth said of the search, which was to get under way at 8 a.m. today. “It can’t continue forever.”

Ricky was reported missing on Saturday morning and by Sunday night the Sheriff made the comment above.

On the sixth day of the search this quote came from the undersheriff:

“…Sheriff’s officials say they have no plans to slow or stop the search. “Our own staff budget is not going to be a factor,” Undersheriff Matthew Myers said. “We are going to continue to search out there until we are 80 or 90 percent sure that we’ve covered the area.”…”

How much did the budgetary factors play into the continued search for Ricky? I ran across the minutes to an Ingham County Law Enforcement meeting held on July 14, 2005. A quote from the minutes show that budgetary factors were at least considered and mentioned:

“…Ms. Harrison, Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, updated the Committee on the search for Ricky Holland. Over two-thousand volunteers assisted in the nine-day foot search. The volunteer foot search ended Sunday. The Office believes the area has been searched completely. She then stated the Office is continuing its 24-hour per day search for the young boy. All leads are being documented and followed-up on. Resources are still being poured into this search. Ms. Harrison further stated that many business organizations are donating services and money to assist in the search. Comm. Vickers stated he has been impressed with the Office’s handling of the search for Ricky Holland. The search was very coordinated and the entire Sheriff’s Office should be commended. He further stated the Office could not have conducted such a search without the assistance of volunteers and volunteer organizations. Ms. Harrison stated this search will cost the Office approximately $30,000. This is a very rough cost estimate. Some people will always believe that more can be done in these types of situations. The Office is doing many things to help find the young man. The public is not aware of everything that is being done…”

The unfortunate circumstances of Ricky’s disappearance in my opinion is that they first treated his disappearance as a runaway case. Treating his case in this fashion prevented them from issuing an Amber Alert until it was possibly too late if Ricky was in fact abducted.

Below is a list of public service topics from radio stations in the Michigan area to address Ricky’s disappearance.

“…Issues/Programs Ascertainment
Mid-Michigan Radio Group
WVIC – WJXQ – WQTX – WTXQ
Third Quarter – 2005
July 1st thru September 30
This a listing of Mid-Michigan community issues given special attention by our
stations during the period. That attention includes a mix of :30 and :60 public
service announcements, :15 event announcements, live station personality
appearances and news stories that highlight the issue [in most cases with
interviews with the people actually involved first hand].
9. Keeping Kids Safe:
Ricky Holland disappearance: Ingham County Sheriff’s Department officers talked with WVIC on keeping kids safe after the disappearance of a boy in Williamston.
Chief Deputy Vicky Harrison of the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department joined Mary Turner on July 5 to talk about the disappearance of seven-year-old Ricky Holland from his home in Williamston just a few days before. She and Mary discussed ways to keep your children safe, and conflict resolution ideas to try to prevent kids from running away.
MMRG stations aired news stories for several weeks outlining the efforts of police and volunteers to find the boy, who ran away from home the night of July 1. Chief Deputy Harrison mentioned during an interview that their tip line always got more calls after reports aired on radio and television stations…”

Note, that although the discussion was about Ricky’s disappearance and efforts to find him, the focus was regarding runaways and how to prevent your child from running away from home. They even refer to Ricky as a runaway in the last paragraph.

Most people I spoke with who saw Ricky’s missing poster when it was first released expressed shock and surprise that he was listed as a runaway. Many said it must be a mistake or his age must be wrong; certainly a boy as young as 7 should not or would not be considered a runaway by law enforcement.

The onus of that label rests squarely on the shoulders of Tim and Lisa Holland.

Ricky’s adoptive parents were given polygraphy tests early in the investigation. Law enforcement officials never revealed the results of those examinations to the media. They would only state that it was a standard procedure in missing children cases.

Also, at the time that detectives mentioned the polygraph examinations that were given they also emphasized that they were not focusing on Tim and Lisa Holland as suspects.

However, as the days wore on to weeks, then weeks into months the Holland’s have now been mentioned by law enforcement officials as “persons of interest”.

Just last night I was blogging in the previous entry about no news being released about the investigation into the disappearance of Ricky Holland.
This morning I ran across this story from the Lansing State Journal. By the way, I want to mention that the Lansing State Journal has done wonderfully in covering both the story of Ricky’s disappearance as well as covering the investigation.

A portion of the story from the Lansing State Journal: