By DAVE CALDWELL, Staff Writer
Wednesday will mark one year since a little girl with an angel’s face and an electric smile apparently disappeared from a northwest Minot apartment, sparking an Amber Alert and spawning national media coverage.
Reachelle Marie Smith was 3 when she was last seen in the apartment where she lived with her mother, Stephanie Smith, and her mother’s live-in acquaintance Leigh Cowen.
Reachelle was last seen at around 10:30 p.m. on March 16 when she was put to bed by Cowen.
An Amber Alert issued on May 22 after Smith discovered Reachelle was missing, and coverage of the subsequent search for Reachelle was featured on CBS’ “Without a Trace” and “The Morning Show,” as well as Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted.”
Although reports coming in to local law enforcement agencies are becoming less and less frequent with the passage of time, they have not stopped altogether.
“We’ve still been getting leads in from time to time,” said Sgt. Jason Sundbakken of the Minot Police Department, the detective investigating Reachelle’s case. “We’re following up on them as best we can, but sometimes there’s just not enough information to pursue anything on them.”
“We’ve been able to follow up on a lot of the leads that we get and determine that the girl that was observed isn’t the one that we’re looking for,” he said. “We’re plugging away with that, but other than that there really isn’t any massive influx of new information. Hopefully one of these leads will lead us to where we’re looking or what we’re looking for.”
That sentiment was echoed by Capt. Todd Keller, head of the investigations division at the Ward County Sheriff’s Office.“We continually get tips in,” Keller said. “We do follow-up on the leads that we get in.”
Keller said the most recent lead that the department physically followed up on came from a less-than-orthodox source.“
An individual’s brother had a dream that a little girl was put into a drain on their farmstead,” he said. The farm in question is located northeast of Minot, in McHenry County, Keller said. “We did go up and check that. It’s an old well – it has a pipe sticking out of the ground. We didn’t see anything suspicious.”
Keller said the physical location of the area made it more plausible as a potential site where something could’ve been intentionally placed for a year without being noticed.
“It was in a pretty hidden area,” he said. “I think it would be kind of hard for anyone to just happen across it to put somebody in it.”
Keller said law enforcement personnel used flashlights and gave the area a thorough visual inspection before determining nothing suspicious was there.
Sundbakken said that his department gets a lot of tips from psychics, but most are so vague they can’t be followed up on.
“We’re looking for the number four (for example), and by a lake with a boat,” he said. “It could be anywhere. The more detailed ones we get, we look into them as best we can. But we haven’t been able to find anything so far with those tips.”
“A lot of time, they’ll be coordinates Ö latitude and longitude,” he said. “We look it up and we always follow up on them. Ö I’m not going to discount any of that (psychic) stuff, but so far none of those leads have come out.”
Keller said that another lead that seemed potentially promising in the Trestle Valley area in recent months turned up empty as well.
“An individual was walking on his property and saw an area that looked like it had disturbed ground,” he said. “We went out there and dug up that area, but it didn’t reveal anything suspicious.”
Keller said that the majority of tips to the sheriff’s department are things of that nature.
“And we do still want to make people aware — especially with this anniversary coming up — that she is still missing,” he said. “We want to remind them to check their property and report anything suspicious. The time frame now is getting where there might be (vegetation) growth over something. “But anything we get in here, we do go check out.”
Sundbakken believes that the fact that Reachelle has such common features with no real physically distinguishing marks works against her while the search continues.
“That’s a hard thing to overcome,” he said. “She’d be a 4-year-old, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. Which matches both of my own daughters at that age perfectly. They’re very common features. We’ve gotten a lot of tips that they think they saw the girl, and they send a picture and 100 percent of the time — so far — it’s not been Reachelle. But if somebody has a question, get a picture and send it off. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Sundbakken said that despite the passage of time, he’s not ready to give up hope anytime soon.
“You’ve got to (hold out hope),” he said. “I said it before and I’ll say it again Ö I’d just as soon follow up on 1,000 leads that turn out not to be her as overlook one that turned out to be a valid lead that will lead to someplace to find her. “The minute you give up hope on finding anything, you’ve just given up. And I’m not willing to do that until we come up with some conclusive answer.
“You can’t let her down, and you can’t let the family down by doing that.”
Family stays in touch
With the passage of nearly a year, Reachelle’s biological mother, Samantha Smith, has moved to Arizona, but remains very involved in the case, according to Sgt. Jason Sundbakken of the Minot Police Department. He said he also maintains contact with Leigh Cowen’s mother in Kansas, as well as family members of Reachelle’s biological father in Colorado.
“I talk to (the father’s) mother very frequently,” he said Friday. “And I got a call from (Samantha) last night. They’re constantly calling and asking if there’s anything new, and what’s going on with the case. It’s nice that they’re keeping tabs on things.”
“As far as Mr. Cowen’s mom, I speak with her from time to time as well,” he said. Sundbakken said that the working theory is that Cowen most likely knew what happened to Reachelle and had some level of involvement, and killed himself either out of guilt or to cover up something.
“(Cowen’s mother is) still very upset about the fact that she feels that her son may have been involved in the disappearance, and she’s very concerned about that,” Sundbakken said. “She really did love that little girl, and she would like to come up with a conclusion just as much as everybody else.”
Background on Reachelle Smith’s disappearance
- Reachelle Smith is put to bed at around 10:30 p.m. on May 16. - Leigh Cowen tells Reachelle’s custodial mother, Stephanie Smith, with whom he is living, that Reachelle is staying with his mother at her residence at Minot Air Force Base.
- Cowen tells Smith on May 19 that his mother’s car has broken down and Reachelle is still at the base.
- Cowen steals a van from Smith’s residence in the early morning hours of May 22. When Smith discovers the missing van, she goes to the home of Cowen’s mother at Minot AFB, but discovers that Cowen’s mother had moved to Wichita, Kan., the week before. Smith contacts the Minot Police Department to report Reachelle missing. An Amber Alert is issued that quickly goes nationwide.
- Kansas authorities search the home of Cowen’s mother in Wichita, but turn up no evidence that Reachelle had ever been there.
- Cowen’s body is found in the stolen van on a gravel road at the Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Minot. Cowen apparently committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning after hooking a hose to the exhaust pipe.
- Subsequent searches are conducted, including massive coordinated searches of area parks, horseback searches of rural areas and wildlife refuges and even the draining of a portion of the Souris River near the Smith residence. None turn up any concrete evidence in the little girl’s disappearance.
Where to get more/give information
Reachelle Smith is listed on the Web site of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (www.missingkids.com) as well as being featured on the Web site for Fox network’s “America’s Most Wanted” at (www.amw.com).
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