She was 11 years old.
Eleven. That beautiful scary cusp between childhood and adolescense when you still want to play with dolls and also consider your first bra.
Eleven. The horizon between childhood and oh what lays ahead.
And today, instead, she is dead.
Police found the body today of an 11-year-old girl who was snatched from her Wicomico County, Md., bedroom Wednesday night, allegedly by a registered sex offender who is already under arrest in her disappearance.
Source ~ ABC News
They found her body on Christmas Day.
A day when she should have been opening presents.
Thomas J. Leggs Jr., 30, is charged with burglary and with kidnapping Sarah H. Foxwell, according to Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis.
At a news conference late this afternoon, Lewis announced that Sarah's body had been found at approximately 4 p.m., but gave few other details.
Source ~ ABC News
Thousands of people turned out on Christmas morning to help investigators search for the girl, police said.
Source ~ ABC News
Because searching for the body of an 11-year-old girl on Christmas Day is how we want to celebrate the holiday. But also because searching for the body of that little girl is the most important thing you could do.
They know think they know who did this. He is Thomas J. Leggs Jr., 30. (thank you rfall)
He is despicable.
Leggs was seen entering the girl's bedroom late Wednesday night by her 6-year-old sister, who described the kidnapper down to the color of his shoes, police said.
"Sarah's sister provided a complete description down to the color of his sneakers, jeans and jacket," Lewis told ABCNews.com. "When we apprehended Lewis in his family home, he was wearing the same exact clothing the sister described."
Source ~ ABC News
For a few years, many years ago, I worked at America’s Most Wanted. Say what you will about the show, it has resulted in the capture of hundreds of seriously bad people and the return to their families of many missing children.
There are stories that stick with you from working on that show, and one of these that stuck with me was this one:
A young woman, about to graduate from high school in Texas, walked down the staircase of her family’s home on Christmas Eve singing O Holy Night. Her mother remembers this because it was the last time she ever saw her. After singing, the young woman left her home and got in a car with her friends; they were bound for a party where they would celebrate Christmas.
She never got there.
She was shot dead by a gang-banger as part of a gang initiation. She was killed because someone had to kill someone else to be made part of a gang. That is why she died at the age of 18.
Her killer escaped to Mexico and was never caught.
I am unable to hear this carol without thinking of her.
And her parents, like those of Sarah Foxwell, will never, ever remember Christmas except as a day of sorrow.
I do not know what goes on the mind of someone who would kidnap a child from her bed, or who would shoot a teen-ager for no reason at all.
I hope I never will.
Thirty years ago, my cousin was killed by a drunk driver on a lonely patch of Tennessee Highway as she drove to her new home to be with her new husband . . .
For all those who mourn tonight, my prayers. May justice come. I do not know what else to say.