Tweet
<span style="font-style: italic">Whatta pikni sweet sah ... </span> 
<span style="font-size: 8pt">
The Wall Street Journal</span>
<span style="font-size: 17pt">
<span style="font-weight: bold">A 7-Year-Old's Cold Trail
</span></span>
By JOEL STONINGTON
On a snowy night in January, 7-year-old Patrick Alford went missing. <span style="color: #FF0000">Within 90 minutes, Jeffrey Maddrey began to search</span>.
Four months later, he's still looking.
Mr. Maddrey, 39, is the commanding officer of the precinct covering the crime-ridden East New York section of Brooklyn. He and the precinct's chief of detectives, Lt. John Tennant, 44, have seen it all. <span style="color: #FF0000"><span style="font-weight: bold">Yet the Alford case haunts them, and they now regard it as the most important in their decades-long careers.</span></span>
Police said it is among the most intense searches in recent history with 9,100 apartments at 214 buildings canvassed and 14,000 people interviewed.
<span style="color: #FF0000">They've even devoted a situation room to Patrick at the precinct house.</span> Maps and photographs cover the walls. On the main table, a chart connects at least 40 people related to the case, from Patrick's mother to a member of the Bonanno crime family.
At the top of the chart is a photo that has been distributed throughout the city: a little boy with his shirt buttoned to the top and a breakout smile. His photo was shown twice on "America's Most Wanted," though police said it generated few leads.
On Jan. 22, a night where East New York already had seen two shootings and a murder, police say Patrick walked out of the home of his foster mother, Librada Moran, in Starrett City, a housing project close enough to see and hear the planes departing and landing at Kennedy Airport. Almost right away, officers started knocking on doors. Soon, every resident in the 6,100 apartments of Starrett City had been interviewed.
"I spent a lot of time there," Mr. Maddrey said, trailing off. "Hours… hours. I was doing 12- to 14-hour days for 13 days straight."
There have been three searches of marshes nearby with more than 100 officers, dogs and helicopters. Bullhorn trucks drove around the neighborhood for days.
Gesturing at the chart, Mr. Tennant says those with pictures have been arrested. Only a few don't have pictures. "You have everything in there," said Mr. Tennant. "Drug dealers, prostitutes and even a gangster."
Mr. Maddrey and Mr. Tennant each have three children. The search for Patrick consumes them—and their families.
"Every day when I come home, 'Daddy, did you find that kid yet?' " Mr. Tennant said. "They come up with theories about it and I feel horrible. I'm like, 'I'm getting enough pressure at work.' "
Currently, police are working on three theories: Patrick is with family members who wanted him back after he was placed with a foster mother, the child died in the cold, or he was abducted.
"I believe my son is alive," said Jennifer Rodriguez, Patrick's mother. "It's hard for me to make it through the day but I try to stay strong and have faith." Ms. Rodriguez was temporarily jailed by a Staten Island judge who didn't believe Ms. Rodriguez's story about the disappearance.
Police said Patrick had threatened to run away to find his mother after being placed at the foster home.
Police are in contact with Ms. Rodriguez every day and numerous other family members, including her aunt, Blanca Toledo.
"They came to my house so many times," Ms. Toledo said. "I'm like, 'You guys are wasting your time. He's not here.' "
She said that Patrick used to stay over at her house and that she still keeps a drawer with his clothes.
"I just pray that he's in good hands," Ms. Toledo said. "You think about molestation, abuse, all the horrible things, I just pray."
The police are applying muscle. When Patrick's relatives were interviewed in Maryland, police noticed a shotgun on the floor and called local police to get a search warrant.
After arrests were made, Tennant said offers were made of leniency for information on the boy but the relatives couldn't provide.
"There's leverage on a lot of people in here," said Mr. Tennant. "Most of the people on this...chart have some problem we can exploit."
The 75th Precinct, with more than 500 officers, is larger than the police forces in many cities. It also has the highest violent-crime rate in New York City, with 24 murders and 84 shootings reported last year.
While out doing interviews for the Alford case a week after the disappearance, Mr. Maddrey, for example, says he drove into a shootout and made three arrests.
Hence, the decision to keep resources on the case has been difficult.
In the beginning, 30 officers were assigned and the city pitched in dozens more. But Mr. Maddrey recently had to reduce the number down to four officers working the case. The situation room is feeling larger—and lonelier.
Mr. Tennant goes back over leads. His detectives call each person on the chart, and keep calling again and again.
When a one report came back about an unaccompanied 7-year-old on a bus in Staten Island, police reviewed days worth of video footage from the Staten Island Ferry.
"I don't think we're going to stop," said Mr. Maddrey.
"We're always going to keep resources on it until we can figure it out."
Write to Joel Stonington at [email protected]
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
<span style="font-size: 8pt">
The Wall Street Journal</span>
<span style="font-size: 17pt">
<span style="font-weight: bold">A 7-Year-Old's Cold Trail
</span></span>
By JOEL STONINGTON
On a snowy night in January, 7-year-old Patrick Alford went missing. <span style="color: #FF0000">Within 90 minutes, Jeffrey Maddrey began to search</span>.
Four months later, he's still looking.
Mr. Maddrey, 39, is the commanding officer of the precinct covering the crime-ridden East New York section of Brooklyn. He and the precinct's chief of detectives, Lt. John Tennant, 44, have seen it all. <span style="color: #FF0000"><span style="font-weight: bold">Yet the Alford case haunts them, and they now regard it as the most important in their decades-long careers.</span></span>
Police said it is among the most intense searches in recent history with 9,100 apartments at 214 buildings canvassed and 14,000 people interviewed.
<span style="color: #FF0000">They've even devoted a situation room to Patrick at the precinct house.</span> Maps and photographs cover the walls. On the main table, a chart connects at least 40 people related to the case, from Patrick's mother to a member of the Bonanno crime family.
At the top of the chart is a photo that has been distributed throughout the city: a little boy with his shirt buttoned to the top and a breakout smile. His photo was shown twice on "America's Most Wanted," though police said it generated few leads.
On Jan. 22, a night where East New York already had seen two shootings and a murder, police say Patrick walked out of the home of his foster mother, Librada Moran, in Starrett City, a housing project close enough to see and hear the planes departing and landing at Kennedy Airport. Almost right away, officers started knocking on doors. Soon, every resident in the 6,100 apartments of Starrett City had been interviewed.
"I spent a lot of time there," Mr. Maddrey said, trailing off. "Hours… hours. I was doing 12- to 14-hour days for 13 days straight."
There have been three searches of marshes nearby with more than 100 officers, dogs and helicopters. Bullhorn trucks drove around the neighborhood for days.
Gesturing at the chart, Mr. Tennant says those with pictures have been arrested. Only a few don't have pictures. "You have everything in there," said Mr. Tennant. "Drug dealers, prostitutes and even a gangster."
Mr. Maddrey and Mr. Tennant each have three children. The search for Patrick consumes them—and their families.
"Every day when I come home, 'Daddy, did you find that kid yet?' " Mr. Tennant said. "They come up with theories about it and I feel horrible. I'm like, 'I'm getting enough pressure at work.' "
Currently, police are working on three theories: Patrick is with family members who wanted him back after he was placed with a foster mother, the child died in the cold, or he was abducted.
"I believe my son is alive," said Jennifer Rodriguez, Patrick's mother. "It's hard for me to make it through the day but I try to stay strong and have faith." Ms. Rodriguez was temporarily jailed by a Staten Island judge who didn't believe Ms. Rodriguez's story about the disappearance.
Police said Patrick had threatened to run away to find his mother after being placed at the foster home.
Police are in contact with Ms. Rodriguez every day and numerous other family members, including her aunt, Blanca Toledo.
"They came to my house so many times," Ms. Toledo said. "I'm like, 'You guys are wasting your time. He's not here.' "
She said that Patrick used to stay over at her house and that she still keeps a drawer with his clothes.
"I just pray that he's in good hands," Ms. Toledo said. "You think about molestation, abuse, all the horrible things, I just pray."
The police are applying muscle. When Patrick's relatives were interviewed in Maryland, police noticed a shotgun on the floor and called local police to get a search warrant.
After arrests were made, Tennant said offers were made of leniency for information on the boy but the relatives couldn't provide.
"There's leverage on a lot of people in here," said Mr. Tennant. "Most of the people on this...chart have some problem we can exploit."
The 75th Precinct, with more than 500 officers, is larger than the police forces in many cities. It also has the highest violent-crime rate in New York City, with 24 murders and 84 shootings reported last year.
While out doing interviews for the Alford case a week after the disappearance, Mr. Maddrey, for example, says he drove into a shootout and made three arrests.
Hence, the decision to keep resources on the case has been difficult.
In the beginning, 30 officers were assigned and the city pitched in dozens more. But Mr. Maddrey recently had to reduce the number down to four officers working the case. The situation room is feeling larger—and lonelier.
Mr. Tennant goes back over leads. His detectives call each person on the chart, and keep calling again and again.
When a one report came back about an unaccompanied 7-year-old on a bus in Staten Island, police reviewed days worth of video footage from the Staten Island Ferry.
"I don't think we're going to stop," said Mr. Maddrey.
"We're always going to keep resources on it until we can figure it out."
Write to Joel Stonington at [email protected]
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved