RCMP not saying how Kienan Hebert was returned
Posted Sep 13, 2011 10:37:41 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SPARWOOD (NEWS1130) – Mounties still aren’t sure how three-year-old Kienan Hebert made it back into his Sparwood home unharmed over the weekend.
Police issued an Amber Alert after Kienan vanished from the home sometime on Tuesday evening and he was mysteriously returned in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Corporal Dan Moskaluk is urging Sparwood parents to be extra careful with their kids until 46-year-old suspect Randall Hopley is caught.
“Certainly, heightened vigilance must continue and not only for their well-being and everybody’s safety but to assist us in locating Randall in a safe manner.”
There is a one theory on why the suspect has been so hard to catch. “Randall, I’m sure in a small community, he’s probably scoured every inch of this valley and knows it very well, knows how to get around quite well and not necessarily using roads,” adds Moskaluk.
Police believe Hopley was driving a brown 1987 Toyota Camry but Moskaluk says there’s a good chance he’s now getting around in another car.
Family speaks out
Kienan is home, but his abduction last week continues to have an impact on his family. The three-year-old’s family has lashed-out at the justice system.
Paul Hebert seemed so calm talking about the abduction last week, but says he broke down when he saw Kienan on the family couch. Hebert says all eight of his children have been traumatized by this event.
Kienan has difficulty around strangers, and bedtime is difficult for all the children, knowing their brother was taken from the family home in the middle of the night.
Hebert says the justice system failed to help the man accused of taking his son, and it failed his family. He’s putting all the blame on judges and has dismissed criticism of police investigating the case, even though his neighbours and many others have wondered aloud why no one has been caught.
Amber Alert app
A new smartphone app designed to help in the search for missing children got its first real-time test last week after Kienan was abducted.
The Missing Children’s Society of Canada says the app is a modified version of Poynt, which uses GPS technology to help people locate businesses and other services. The child-find version can be used to send alerts on missing children and suspects with the push of a button.
The Society says its app was actually scheduled to go live yesterday. There was going to be an announcement in Courtenay on what would have been the 33rd birthday of Lindsey Nicholls, who disappeared in 1993 at the age of 14.
Instead, the app went live on Wednesday after the Amber Alert was issued about Kienan’s disappearance. An alert was sent to 7,000 users in BC and Alberta. It’s the first time Poynt technology has been used in the search for a missing child.
The app gives the Missing Children’s Society control over who gets an alert after a missing-child report. And information can be sent to people within a radius as small as one kilometre around the area where a child was last seen, or it can be sent over a wider region. The Society says it has access to 1 million Poynt users in Canada. Currently, there are 10 million users in eight countries.
It’s unknown if use of the app after Kienan’s disappearance had any influence on the outcome of the boy’s case. The Missing Children’s Society is seeking approval to become an official broadcaster of Amber Alerts.
