Amber Alert system assailed

Upset residents call for improvements in wake of Lugoff girl’s disappearance

By JASON RYAN

jpryan@thestate.com

Near the auditorium stage at Lugoff-Elgin High School on Sunday sat pictures of youngsters gone missing the past few years, victims of abduction and, often, sexual abuse.

Staring back at the faces were area residents upset over the 10-day disappearance of a Lugoff girl, also sexually assaulted and found alive Sept. 16 outside a dirt bunker in the woods.

Among the photographs were smiling shots of Carlie Brucia and Jessica Lunsford, faces made familiar through news reports of their separate disappearances in Florida in 2004 and 2005.

Most of those pictured were female. And most of them, like Carlie and Jessica, eventually were found dead.

There is outrage in Lugoff because no Amber Alert had been issued for the 14-year-old girl who escaped the booby-trapped bunker by sending a cell-phone text message of her whereabouts to her mother.

Sheriff’s reports said the teen was kidnapped at a bus stop and sexually assaulted. Vinson Filyaw, 46, was arrested Sept. 17 and has been charged in the kidnapping and assault, as well as with impersonating an officer to lure the girl.

On Sunday, about 30 people rallied at the high school for improvements to the Amber Alert system, a series of bulletins issued when a child is abducted.

The system was not activated for the Lugoff teen because investigators believed she might have run away from home.

Many residents at the high school said they didn’t care why she was gone. They argued that an alert was appropriate because she was missing.

“If we’ve lost a child, we want to know where they are and get them back!” one man shouted to the stage.

Speakers at the Predator Patrol Rally, organized by Safety Zone Advocacy Inc., called for more liberal use of the Amber Alert and for communities to be more aware of children’s whereabouts and of the presence of convicted sexual predators.

Judy Cornett, Tampa, Fla.-based president of Safety Zone Advocacy, said the community can influence law enforcement to issue an alert when few facts are known about a child’s disappearance, referencing cases in other states.

“They pushed the issue. That’s what has got to be done,” said Cornett, whose own 11-year-old son was abducted and sexually assaulted in 1992.

Cornett and Elbert West, a Nashville, Tenn., country-music performer who serves on the board of Safety Zone Advocacy, used a folksy approach to deliver their message, tossing out candy. They cursed the area’s clay soil that had stained Cornett’s new boots when she went to take a picture of the bunker that had held the girl — one of five allegedly built by Filyaw.

One woman, who gave only her first name, Tina, addressed the crowd and said she was raped after being abducted 18 years ago from a phone booth on U.S. 1 in Elgin.

“Nobody wants to hear it. I’ve even been told that it doesn’t happen around here,” the woman said. “It does.”

Stay-at-home mom Melia Bailey brought her family to the rally to support the abducted Lugoff teen and to learn how to help prevent similar crimes.

“That’s why we have them here,” she said, pointing to her children. “To support this baby girl. We just want to show people we love her.”

West said the Amber Alert guidelines need tweaking soon because sexual predators will continue to strike. He made reference to the other underground chambers Filyaw allegedly had built in the woods.

“Someone else in this community was getting ready to go to a bunker,” he said.

Reach Ryan at (803) 771-8595.