Kienan Hebert, 3, safe! Canada

[HairOfTheDog]

Wonderful news!

Looking forward to getting more details from the family at today's presser.

This brief article says Kienan was not hurt and that LE is still looking for Hopley, whom they believe abducted the boy.

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/artic...ound-alive

[Fibonacci Prima]

Big relief, and lots of happy about this. Hopefully he wasnt further harmed and the perp will be off the streets for good now.

[Mickeymouse]

Thank God he was returned alive! Does anyone have anymore details? Who returned him?

[mom4]

I bet its just a matter of time. I am sure police know the phone number and possibly an address from where the 911 call came in.

[Lady Cop]

this is stunning in its rarity! i am joyful indeed for Kienan and his family. his history indicated hopley may have wanted a pet.

hopley is not in custody yet, i hope he does the right thing again, and offs himself.

i want to know more about how he got in the house and spirited the child off. a full house.

he also got in and returned the child, nobody home.
RCMP may never release that information.


current roadblocks in search of hopley




Kienan playing today!

[Adub]

Thank God he was returned alive! Does anyone have anymore details? Who returned him?

From what I have read, God did it.

[Lady Cop]

i hope it's true he wasn't abused. he appears normal in photo, i am so glad!! this is one of almost no cases i recall that have had this outcome, i am overjoyed. good on RCMP!! now get this guy back in prison where he needs to be.

Vancouver Sun

Acting mayor Sharon Fraser said Kienan appears to be unaffected by his four-day ordeal.

Fraser, who visited the Hebert family Sunday morning, said Kienan was playing Frisbee with his dad Paul and shooting silly string on the lawn.

"It's just like having a miracle happen," said Fraser. "Little Kienan is so unbelievably content and happy. It's like [he knows], 'So now I'm home and I can go back to playing'."

Fraser noted that Kienan has been to the hospital, and there is "no signs of any kind of physical or any type of abuse whatsoever."



today

[Lady Cop]

Toronto Sun criticizes the RCMP. i'm sure others have as well. it appears hopley is a ghost in the darkness.


CALGARY - To be any more under the nose of RCMP, Randall Hopley would have to be a police moustache.

That's assuming Hopley really is the criminal mastermind who managed to vanish with a Sparwood, B.C., tot, eluding officers over a frantic five-day manhunt before returning the boy to the scene of the crime.

Inexplicably, and unbelievably, the story has a happy ending - at least for now.

With so many expecting tragedy and heartache, we instead have the near-miracle of a child returned unharmed to his overjoyed family after the kidnapper decided to bring little Kienan Hebert back.

The sigh of relief is understandable.

The failure to nab the creep behind this nightmare is not.

"Maybe he's invisible," is the sarcastic quip of Hopley's Sparwood, B.C., landlord, Orville Sheets.

It's humour barbed with criticism for Mounties handling the kidnapping case, where a man described as a simpleton managed to waltz back to the scene of the crime, unchallenged, and then escape.

"They have 50 people standing around during the day and no one watching at night," said Sheets, repeating what so many in the southeast B.C. town are wondering.

Despite 60 RCMP officers working the kidnapping case, there was apparently no one posted at the Hebert home. That's where Kienan was found at 3 a.m., sitting alone on a couch with a blanket.

With his family staying with neighbours, the house was empty - begging the question: Who was monitoring the place for activity, or standing by in case the abductor decided to make contact by phone?

No one, it seems.

It took a 911 call from the alleged child-snatcher to alert RCMP to the boy's safe return, at which point police sprang into action, setting up roadblocks and once again scouring the Sparwood area.

Too late. Whoever it was who took Hebert - and RCMP are adamant it was the 46-year-old ex-convict - made a clean getaway after dumping the boy.

At what time Hebert was actually dropped off, is unknown - the call placed to the emergency line was probably dialed in only when the elusive abductor felt safe to do so.

Of course, it's all conjecture, given a wall of silence from the RCMP.

If the police had any pre-emptive hint of the child's return, they aren't saying. Indeed, the RCMP aren't saying much of anything, testily dodging questions about police tactics at Sunday's press conference.

One thing is certain - the Mounties had no one poised to pounce on the kidnapper as he fled the scene for the second time in five days.

Maybe they were caught by surprise. Possibly, they assumed the worst and had dropped their guard, expecting a gruesome answer to the abduction mystery would come in weeks, or possibly months.

We can't say, because the Mounties refuse to explain.

The RCMP have plenty to say about Hebert's return - actually thanking the kidnapper for being so decent - but nothing to offer the countless parents left to fret over their own children.

A boy safely returned doesn't absolve the criminal who snatched him, and Mounties need to spend less time praising the kidnapper and more time reassuring the community of police competence.

There's the cloudy issue of a second attempted child abduction in Sparwood the same day Hebert vanished, which was somehow foiled - again, details are frustratingly vague.

Sunday



a local's comments about hopley:

Randall Hopley's life was pretty much over the moment he was born. He was intellectually disabled, functionally illiterate, and very socially awkward. His mother put him in foster care but kept all of his siblings. He has obviously dysmorphic facial features suggestive of some sort of congenital syndrome in addition to prenatal alcohol exposure.

[Lady Cop]

i agree that hopley should have been kept confined. i can't pick on Canada because we are just as negligent.

i will say this...the father asked all websites and news outlets to remove all photos of Kienen...yet he allows more to be taken and published, along with his daughter: below. i'm not removing the photos. the child was the object of an Amber Alert and will remain in this thread. thankfully safe. unprecedented.

as of right now, hopley is still not in custody.


Montreal Gazette
SPARWOOD, B.C. — Paul Hebert issued a scathing attack on the criminal justice system that freed Randall Hopley, the man sought by police for the abduction of his three-year-old toddler.

The suspected kidnapper — a 46-year-old convicted sex offender with a long history of theft and break and enter — has evaded police since Kienan vanished from his bed on Wednesday morning.

Kienan's father, Paul Hebert, sat down with the media on Monday, the day after his son had been returned, unharmed, to the home from which he had been stolen.

He sat on a worn brown armchair. It was the place he found Kienan sleeping, wrapped in blankets on Sunday morning.

"How many people have felt (what it was like) to win the lotto? That wouldn't even compare. Finding Kienan sleeping was a meltdown. I felt a piece of my body go numb and I had no control," Paul Hebert said.

The father held his son for only a minute before handing the child to his mother.

Kienan said nothing.

"He just held on tight," he said.

Of course, all is not back to normal at the Hebert house.

Bedtime is hard, the father said. "There's trauma in the home," he said. "The kids have seen their brother get snatched."

And although Kienan could be seen just a day after his abduction playing on the lawn with his brothers and sisters, the boy seems nervous around new people.

It's something Hebert said the family would have to work on with the aid of professionals.

"We're kinda hoping it was like a road trip for him for four days and he was with some strangers," Hebert said.

The father said he has already forgiven Hopley, but he offered pointed condemnation of the criminal justice system that failed to help the suspect.

"Hopley, you know, Hopley was taken in because he had a problem and he had a record having a problem. Now Hopley is out for a reason. Because someone didn't do their job right, and it was not the police," Hebert said.

"The judges and the system failed us. Hopley needs help and the system didn't give him the help he needed and because of that, we have been affected. Our rights have been taken away and our family got hurt.

"If a doctor can get malpractice, why can't a judge?"

The Heberts, who have eight children, moved into their new home in November. The tidy residence with wood floors and family pictures on the walls sits in a mostly empty subdivision with few bushes and no mature trees. The fence had yet to be installed.

On the night of the kidnapping, Hebert said a door was unlocked.

The family is, otherwise, quite careful, he said.

[Harvest Moon]

The Heberts, who have eight children, moved into their new home in November. The tidy residence with wood floors and family pictures on the walls sits in a mostly empty subdivision with few bushes and no mature trees. The fence had yet to be installed.

On the night of the kidnapping, Hebert said a door was unlocked.

The family is, otherwise, quite careful, he said.[/b]

So is the father saying that a door was left unlocked or that he found it unlocked? I read it to mean that they went to sleep with the door unlocked. The woman who reported an illegal entry into her home on the same night, had left her door unlocked when she went out because her porch light was out, and, she didn't want to fumble around with keys in the door in the dark. I get the feeling these people are more worried about bears or other wildlife than the potential threat from another human being. And, how many other porch lights are "out" in that neighborhood?

Edited to add: Has anybody heard why the child was still not talking at 3 years old? Does he have learning disabilities or autism? If that picture was taken in the last two days, what are those scratches on his face? I didn't notice them on the photos taken yesterday morning when he was playing with his father and cousins in the yard. He certainly is adorable.

[Lady Cop]

i'm not sure it was meant that the child literally did not speak. i suspect it meant he couldn't give a good description of the abductor at his age.

using choppers today to search for hopley:

[Cracker]

[b]

a local's comments about hopley:

Randall Hopley's life was pretty much over the moment he was born. He was intellectually disabled, functionally illiterate, and very socially awkward. His mother put him in foster care but kept all of his siblings. He has obviously dysmorphic facial features suggestive of some sort of congenital syndrome in addition to prenatal alcohol exposure.

I don't think people realize how many babies are born each year with FASD. If he showed the facial features of alcohol exposure, he has the brain damage associated with it. Look it up sometime. People with "railroad track" ears always catch my attention because I instantly know what happened to them.

Mothers are rarely prosecuted for drinking while pregnant. They just take the baby. If the stupid whore wanted the baby, she wouldn't drink in the first place, so it is really a win-win for the dumb bitches of the world.

I hope they catch the guy, but if he does have FASD, he'll get a pass on the conviction like other disabled criminals. It pays to be retarded sometimes. In America, it pays to be retarded all the time (SSDI for life).

[Lady Cop]

CBC
Tactical forces from Alberta and across B.C. have arrived in Sparwood, B.C. to join about 60 officers already searching for suspected child abductor Randall Peter Hopley, 46.
Moskaluk said he was also unable to release details of how police intend to find Hopley, as long as the search is underway.

“We must all remember that this is an ongoing investigation,” he said.

"Everything we say, and everything we do right now will have a direct effect and consequence as to the next outcomes we have in Sparwood, British Columbia, so we are being very, very cautious as to what we can say right now, what we are doing, why we are doing it. We all have to work together," he said.It does appear that police are changing other tactics as well. The road blocks that surrounded the town in recent days were no longer in place on Monday morning.

[flcraxr]

I'm so glad he was found, but this situation sounds very odd.

"Questions swirl about Kienan Hebert’s mysterious reappearance at home

September 13, 2011
12:10am EST

Police in Sparwood B.C. say they “facilitated” the return of a 3-year-old boy who was abducted for five days.

The statement went some way to answering the question that was on everyone’s mind in the B.C. town: How did Kienan Hebert’s abductor successfully return the child to his home without being detected by police?

RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dan Moskaluk was reported as stating Monday that police “facilitated” the boy’s return, but would not elaborate. Moskaluk noted that when Kienan’s parents made a public plea for their child’s return, there was mention of a safe place where that could be done.

Police received an anonymous 911 call around 3 a.m. Sunday telling them the boy was back at his parents’ home, five days after being abducted. Police found Kienan on the couch holding his blanket.

His safe return has left many perplexed Experts say it was an unprecedented twist.

“The community is relieved in a significant way because most children aren’t that fortunate,” Lois Halko, a town councillor, told the Toronto Star in a telephone interview.

But people are shocked, she adds, by how the abductor escaped capture when he returned to the original crime scene. “There is a lot of speculation,” she said. “There are all kinds of conspiracy theories — suggestions that the police tolerated that kind of return.”

The child’s father, Paul Hebert, fueled the speculation Monday by saying the family’s home was intentionally left unlocked before Kienan reappeared. Hebert declined to comment about why, or whether the police offered him any advice on the topic.

“We asked him to bring him back to a safe place, and he brought him back to our house,” Hebert said.

Hebert notes the family reached out to the suspect and asked that Kienan be returned to a safe place, and the doors were left unlocked for that purpose.

Hebert said Kienan seemed to be okay after the ordeal.

“Kienan’s still a little bit offset. If you’re a stranger, he won’t come and talk to you. But he’s doing really good; he’s happy to be home.”

The RCMP have said Kienan's disappearance was a case of abduction. Convicted sex offender Randall Hopley, 46, remains the sole suspect.

Glen Woods, former director of behavioural sciences for the RCMP, described the case as an “anomaly.”

“It’s very unusual for someone to go through the trouble of abducting and then returning a child,” he told the Star in a phone interview from Ottawa.

But even pedophile abductors are “not all necessarily psychopaths. Some of them do have remorse,” Woods added. In this case, he speculated the abductor may have “returned the child before it got to anything more serious.”

“It’s very unusual, but perhaps the personality of this guy is such that he was feeling remorse, and when he saw the pleas from the parents, that was enough to get him to return the child.”

Woods said Sparwood RCMP had little reason to keep an eye on the house where the child was eventually returned, given that most kidnappings of this kind end badly. Still, in a small community like Sparwood, “it would have been relatively easy to keep an eye on the house.”

Sharon Fraser, the Acting Mayor in the coal mining town of 4,000, doesn’t blame the RCMP for not revealing their methods. But like a growing number of residents, she remains perplexed and would like some answers.

“I’ve known this man for years,” Fraser said of the suspect in a phone interview with the Toronto Star on Monday. “The suspect is the kind of guy he could be standing beside you one minute and then he takes off on his bicycle and you wouldn’t even realize he was gone. He’s like Houdini.”

After the boy’s return, the police tape was placed around the entire block. Later in the day investigators were scouring the house once again for more forensic evidence.

Hopley, 46, has a criminal record dating back to the 1980s, when he served a two-year federal prison sentence after he was convicted of sexual assault.

In 2007, he was charged with break and enter, unlawful confinement and attempted abduction, and the indictment for the case indicated the victim was under 16 years old.

B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch has confirmed Hopley pleaded guilty to break and enter and was sentenced to 18 months in jail, while the other charges were stayed. Crown spokesman Neil MacKenzie said Hopley admitted at trial that he attempted to abduct a 10-year-old boy, who was in foster care at the time. Hopley claimed he was acting on behalf of the child’s parents.

With Kienan safe, the hunt for Hopley continues.

RCMP officers stopped hundreds of vehicles at roadblocks, checking in back seats and ordering drivers to pop their trunks to make sure that Hopley was not catching a ride.

Moskaluk had a message for him. “Randall, if you’re listening, you need to reach out to the police,” he said."

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/artic...ce-at-home

[mom4]

They caught one of the suspects as there were two.
You can here them searching the house here. Not sure which guy they caught. All they said is one got away.
http://radioreference.commnetivity.com/a...eedId=6483

[mom4]

Randall Hopley is captured!!!!
http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/C...algaryHome

[Lady Cop]

excellent news. i want to know more about an alleged accomplice.
Police in Sparwood said 46-year-old Hopley is the sole suspect in the kidnapping of Kienan.


ctvcalgary.ca

Randall Hopley, the man who allegedly abducted three year old Kienan Hebert from his home only to return him five days later, has been captured on Tuesday.

RCMP found Hopley hiding at a gravel pit near Crowsnest Pass at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

A K-9 team from Kelowna is credited with capturing Hopley, who tracked him to the area.

Hopley was brought back to Sparwood in police custody soon afterwards.

[mom4]

Article about the police having helicopters out looking for an accomplice
http://www.globalnews.ca/Pages/Story.aspx?id=6442480936

[Lady Cop]

reports are conflicting about an accomplice. maybe someone helped hide him. i don't know. Sparwood Police say he was sole suspect. i am just glad he's in custody. forever i hope.

[flcraxr]

This is old but it does gives more details re: the earlier attempted abduction and why they linked this with Hopley. How did they have the suspects footprints matched at the time alluded to here? I'm also interested to learn about Keinan's ability to speak and why would the suspect know about it? From this quote below "And as you know, and we know, he can't speak."


"Kienan Hebert abductor attempted abduction of another child
Officials say it happened around the same time Kienan Hebert's abduction
Calgary Herald September 11, 2011

As the family of a missing three-year-old begged for his safe return, police in British Columbia said the kidnapper tried to lure another Sparwood child just hours before Kienan Hebert was snatched from his bed.

Police wouldn't divulge when they found out about the earlier abduction attempt, nor why it took almost four days to determine that Kienan was abducted.

However, the confirmation has destroyed any hopes the family may have held about the child sleepwalking away from his home Wednesday morning.

"Investigators can state that this is a case of child abduction. It is not a matter of a child walking away from the home. Kienan was abducted," said RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dan Moskaluk

"The person who abducted Kienan . . . did enter the Hebert home and removed Kienan from the house."

The family addressed the abductor directly through media Saturday while sitting at a folding table under a makeshift white tent set up on a gravel lot outside the Sparwood firehall.

"We're speaking to whoever has Kienan right now.

{snip}

"Kienan is only three years old right now. And as you know, and we know, he can't speak. He can't tell us who you are," he said. "This is your chance, right now, to get away. All we want is for Kienan to come back with us and to be safe in our arms again."

{SNIP}

While police wouldn't offer any insight about the earlier abduction attempt, Michelle Kaus, who lives less than a block away from Heberts, said her home in Sparwood - about 240 kilometres southwest of Calgary - was broken into the same night Kienan was taken.

Police later told the mother of two that the suspect's footprint was found in her garage. Her children had not been home at the time of the break-in and nothing was stolen except an iPod filled with photos.

"It's really hard to accept that we had a psycho in our house touching our things," she said. "I haven't gone through the kids' stuff, so I don't know if he's taken any toys."

Kaus's children, a son, 4, and a daughter, 2, were visiting their dad in Elkford Tuesday night, leaving the mother free to go out with a friend.

"I left the door unlocked because the outside lights were out and I didn't want to be fumbling in the dark with my keys," she said, adding: "Stupid."

When she got home, the door was locked. She climbed on to her balcony, but that door also was locked.

Finally, she managed to sneak in the garage by pressing the dooropener in her car.

It was only later she and her friend realized the break-and-enter suspect must have been hiding in the downstairs bedroom or laundry room at the time, waiting for the opportunity to flee the home.

{SNIP}

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Kienan...z1XssDFEaM