JULY 24
“We believe this to be an abduction. … We believe that somebody may have this child.” — Chief of Investigations Tom Hackney, 10 hours after Lonzie Barton was reported missing July 24
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Soon after 21-month-old Lonzie Barton was reported abducted, Chief of Investigations Tom Hackney started talking to not just the media, but to the community, as well.
A community that prayed for Lonzie, searched for Lonzie and now grieves for Lonzie.
“This family of this community is really Lonzie’s family and they love him,” Hackney said Monday at a news conference after remains believed to be Lonzie’s were found.
Almost immediately when the search began in July, the community supported the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies that combed through woods, dove into ponds and peered down from helicopters.
Residents brought food, water, sunscreen and hugs for the hundreds of officers searching for the toddler.
They especially supported Hackney. His straight-forward approach made them trust him. His compassion made them feel his heart.
And the veteran investigator’s emotions mirrored what they were feeling.
From hope when the 20-pound boy first went missing to frustration when suspect Ruben Ebron wasn’t cooperating with police to heartbreak on Monday when a small body was pulled from a trash heap.
Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler understands why the community bonded with Hackney.
“I think he got angry a few times at the right moments and showed some passion,” Beseler said.
The sheriff said he did the same thing when he stood before news cameras after 7-year-old Somer Thompson was abducted and killed in 2009.
Beseler promised his department would “find this animal” who abducted Somer on her way home from school and likely killed her so quickly that she was gone before police could be notified she was missing.
The sheriff also praised Hackney for not publicly sharing details that didn’t need to be said, despite the media badgering him for information.
Frank Mackesy, who retired in 2011 as undersheriff at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, worked with Hackney for 15 to 20 years.
“He (Hackney) became a very good spokesman for the sheriff’s office and the community,” he said of how his former colleague has handled this case.
Mackesy knows the emotions of being the public messenger during a missing child investigation. He was updating the media in 1998 when Maddie Clifton disappeared.
Emotions ran higher as the days wore on and the 8-year-old who seemingly vanished from her neighborhood remained missing.
Mackesy said there were a few times while speaking to the media that he could feel himself being overcome with emotion. Publicly he fought back those emotions. He felt it was important to put on a strong face.
Privately, Mackesy said, “I cried many a tear.”
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JULY 25
“We are not working this as a stranger abduction anymore. … I can’t say at this point in time whether Lonzie is alive or dead.” — Hackney
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On the second day of the search, Hackney shared the news that Ebron was lying and not being fully cooperative with officers.
Even worse, Hackney said at a news conference, he wasn’t sure if the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy was alive or dead.
Dozens and dozens of officers were searching, but Ebron held the answers. Hackney wanted those answers. He needed them, he said.
As time ticked away, Hackney said, hope faded that Lonzie would be found alive.
Beseler found himself in a similar spot of lost hope as darkness rolled around the October day Somer disappeared.
“I had that sinking feeling” that was Somer was gone, Beseler said.
But he didn’t show it for a couple of reasons. Primarily, he said, because the killer was likely watching television and he didn’t want to say anything to jeopardize recovering Somer.
Mackesy said before Lonzie was found, waitresses in a restaurant he goes to were still holding out hope he would be found alive. They asked what he thought.
On the outside, he agreed that he hoped for that, as well.
Inside, he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
But, Mackesy said, “It was not my place to rob them of that hope.”
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MONDAY
“I mentioned several times that that little boy didn’t need to be discarded like a piece of trash.” — Hackney
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Massive organized searches for Lonzie were held several days after he disappeared. Nine days later, on Aug. 2, the search was scaled back. But the investigative team kept working to find Lonzie.
The remains being found Monday in the Bayard neighborhood was the first step in justice, Hackney said at a news conference. (He could not be interviewed for this story because the case is still under investigation.)
It also would give Lonzie the chance to “spend his eternity in somewhere that’s peaceful.”
There were a lot of emotions for investigators working the case, Hackney said Monday.
No joy, he said, but a bit of relief and satisfaction.
Beseler learned Somer had been found in a Folkston, Ga. landfill, where trash from Clay County was dumped.
The call over the radio came just as Gov. Charlie Crist arrived to meet with the sheriff about the search.
Beseler sent someone to tell Somer’s mother about the discovery before he shared the news.
“I had never seen so many cameras, so many reporters,” he said of the journalists awaiting news in the case that gained national attention.
Beseler remembers looking at a WJXT TV-4 female reporter when he said, “We found a body.”
The reporter broke down crying. “That just about got me,” Beseler said. “I had to really choke down the emotion to get through the rest of that announcement.”
At that point, it wasn’t confirmed it was Somer.
But, by the time Beseler and State Attorney Angela Corey went to see Somer’s mom, a birthmark like the little girl had was found on the back of the leg on the body.
Telling Diena Thompson was the hardest thing he ever had to do. “She just collapsed into our arms,” he remembered.
Though police didn’t have a suspect, the sheriff knew Somer’s mother was not involved.
“You can’t fake that kind of emotion,” he said.
Beseler promised Thompson he would find who killed her daughter. Five months later, they did.
The Friday before Maddie’s body was found stuffed under a 14-year-old neighbor’s waterbed, police were debating whether to break down the perimeter within her neighborhood and go covert on some suspects they were watching.
Mackesy wanted the perimeter to remain. He didn’t think it had been up long enough and he knew hundreds of people were turning out en masse the next day to help search the area.
The perimeter remained up. Early that next week former Sheriff Nat Glover announced the gruesome discovery.
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THURSDAY
“It touches investigators who do this job. You carry it with you.” — Hackney
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Hackney said as an investigator on a case like Lonzie’s, you find yourself intimately involved with a stranger. Someone whose voice you’ve never heard and whose face you’d never seen before the photograph by the family.
“You know more about their life and their death than you really should or could imagine,” he said.
Mackesy understands those sentiments. Investigators get to know people who were strangers until a crime occurred.
“I’m talking to family and friends and they’re telling me everything about this little girl,” he said.
And that bond remains. When he sees Maddie’s mother and older sister, “they’re usually hugging my neck.”
He remembers the clothes he was wearing when “we found little Maddie” — tan pants, a teal shirt and a matching tie.
He was never able to wear them again.
Plus, Maddie became part of his family. Mackesy typically didn’t bring stories home from work to his family.
“But they all know Maddie’s story,” said Mackesy, now director of safety and security at the University of North Florida.
A child murdered is a sheriff’s worst nightmare, Beseler said.
Ironically, several weeks before Somer’s case, his office did an exercise where the scenario was a child being abducted on the way home from school.
They had even bought a computer and software to manage tips that would be phoned in during a similar case.
“When that worst nightmare happened,” the sheriff said, “we went right into response mode.”
Beseler often speaks to groups about best practices on cases like Somer’s.
During the Lonzie investigation, Hackney often talked about his “little ones” — a 14-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter — who aren’t so little anymore.
He’s certain they wondered why he would wake them up at 2 a.m. after he had put in 12- to 16-hour days looking for Lonzie.
“I did that to hug them,” he said. “… If you don’t take the chance when you have it, you just don’t know when you’re going to have that chance again.”
Hackney said as the case developed in the 12 straight days he spoke about it, he started assuming the responsibility of trying to speak for Lonzie.
Being a voice of concern for the little missing boy and one of comfort for those praying for his safety.
@editormarilyn
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