A 12 year old Virginia girl who has been missing for a week was found unharmed after being picked up, along with her abductor, at the Richmond District Safeway out at Ocean Beach this afternoon.
Brittany Mae Smith was last seen on video surveillance footage in Salem, Virginia at a Wal-mart where she and her abductor, 32-year-old Jeffrey Scott Easley, were buying camping supplies. He was the boyfriend of Brittany’s mother, who had been found murdered on Monday.
Since their appearance at Wal-mart, police had lost track of the pair. Until this afternoon when they were seen around 2pm shopping at the Ocean Beach Safeway.
Easley and Smith were recognized by a Safeway employee who had seen a report on CNN about the murder and abduction. The employee made the connection when they were seen panhandling outside the store.
Police were notified and the two were picked up and taken to the Richmond District Police Station, where Easley was placed in custody.
Earlier this week, police in Roanoke, Virginia issued an arrest warrant for Easley on a charge of abduction. Warrants previously were issued for credit card fraud and credit card larceny after Easley used Tina Smith’s card at Wal-Mart.
Sarah B.
According to CNN, with a headline story, a Safeway clerk at 48th/Fulton recognized the pair after seeing a report on CNN. Kudos to the clerk, and perhaps that person will be revealed, credited, and speak to us. It takes a keen eye to even think that somebody missing in Virginia would show up at a Safeway next to the Pacific Ocean, especially “Virginia police did not know how the pair reached California.” The Amber Alert was only issued Monday and was not publicly widespread here.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/10/virginia.missing.child/index.html
In the CNN story, it claimed that the tent that the two bought at Walmart was found. Was it in Golden Gate Park??
According to KRON a store customer called the police after she saw the suspect and victim sitting next to the shopping carts/water machine just outside the entrance. Nice job observant SF resident!!
Hey SAFEWAY – How about instructing your security guard guard to actually go outside the store on occasion and ask the beggars to leave (or call the police if they do not leave)? These transients sit there next to your shopping carts far too often harrassing customers. The money they collect from YOUR premises also allow them to live in our park. You want to remodel that store…how about being a good neighbor first. And while you are at it please pick up the trash your customers leave all over your sidewalks and parking lot.
Hopefully the police will step up sweeps in west GG Park & Rec/Park will continue to clear out much of the overgrown brush that make the area attractive to sketchy folks.
I went down there this morning thinking there might be something different… but no. still a bunch of stinking bums at the entrance, aggressively harassing patrons for money. jeez I would have thought today maybe there would be some cops down there to scare them away for one day
I don’t look at this webpage very often because it seems like it often caters to a communal cesspool of petty mean-spiritedness. Reading the narrowly simplistic and selfish things that my neighbors post here sometimes make me wish that I had more money to live in a different neighborhood, at least until I go outside of my house and interact with people in public spaces who aren’t such curmudgeons. It is telling that what really gets people enraged here is not that a girl got abducted. Rather for you guys, the worst part about this whole story is that when at face value, what would appear to be a family seeking alms to buy something to eat, in front of a store that sells food, they weren’t arrested or forced out of your view.
Nate, tell us what you really think.
nate, don’t let the door hit you on your way out. take as many drunk stinking bums demanding money from out front of safeway with you as you can when you go