Months before 7-month-old girl went missing, baby sitter
e-mailed Gov. Charlie Crist
November 4, 2009
CHIPLEY, FL — Months before a 7-month-old girl disappeared from her family’s home, her baby sitter, Susan Baker, pleaded with the governor to “please, please save that child” from her parents’ alleged pattern of drug use, abuse and “really strange things,” according to an e-mail obtained Tuesday by The News Herald.
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In response — on the third day in the search for little Shannon Dedrick — top officials with the state Department of Children and Families told The News Herald they were revisiting the case to see if they missed signs of danger...
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[From the parents] “The only things they can come up with is exactly what they’re saying: ‘I don’t know.’ ” (reminds me of Misty Croslin)
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...Susan Baker said she received a call from a Child Protective Services worker who said he would investigate...DCF, Digre said he received two reports on the family. The allegations included marijuana use around Shannon and a complaint that she had been shaken...
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Digre said...DCF would be poring over records for any signs they might have missed. Those records would become “totally open” if Shannon is found dead, Digre said.
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Baker identified the mother as Tina Mercer and her boyfriend as Rusty Dedrick. However, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office – which has released little information about the case – would not confirm those names...
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For days, investigators have feared Shannon is hidden in the woods or in one of many trash bins near her family’s trailer on a dirt drive off Brown Street. Dozens of searchers have labored there, hoping to find clues...
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More than 50 people and eight teams of dogs were looking through the woods. Helicopters were flying late into the evening.
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Baker said she had no clue where the girl could be, but she expressed a firm belief that Shannon often went ignored by her parents, who she said lived in the trailer among roaches.
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Baker told of an evening she tried to make Shannon’s parents notice her turning over in her playpen — a rare feat. But “Tina and Rusty couldn’t take their eyes off the TV long enough to see their child turn over,” she said...a night two weeks ago when Mercer sat on a bed and “said she wished that Shannon would disappear because Shannon’s not Rusty’s daughter, and she wished that Shannon was gone, so she could have a baby with Rusty.”
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It disturbed Baker to see Shannon’s parents so uncaring, she said. She claimed there were many times she was allowed to take Shannon away for “as long as I wanted.”
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But a stranger’s abduction was impossible, she said, as the family’s door remained latch-bolted shut every day, and “there was no way in this world that anybody could get in that trailer.”
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