Tracie Dean is one of the most alert and persistent women I've ever heard of.
After traveling through Evergreen, Alabama, she acted on a hunch that a little girl she saw for a few minutes in a convenience store there was being sexually abused. She took down the license plate of the car the three-year-old girl got into and spent four days making telephone calls to authorities. She even drove back to Evergreen from Atlanta to review the store's security video.
While watching the store's tape, a deputy came in. He believed her instincts and agreed to investigate.
The combination of intuition and persistence was much needed, as it turned out the man in the store with the girl is a convicted sex offender. Jack Wiley and his girlfriend Glenna Faye Cavender, the girl's mother, are now behind bars with bonds set at $3 million and $2 million respectively. The mother has confessed.
"It was just in my heart," Dean said. "It was a God thing. I just knew. I felt it with my heart."
Dean said the young girl is still on her mind. "There is no happy ending to this story," she said. "A 3-year-old girl getting raped does not have a happy ending. It may be a better ending, but not a happy ending."
Dean is the general manager of the Jim Ellis Audi dealer in Atlanta. She spends her life selling. She was having trouble selling this one, but she finally did it. She sold someone on her gut feeling about this little girl.
"In sales, you have to meet eight 'No's' to meet a 'Yes,'" Dean said.
She got her "Yes." And now, she hopes, the little girl will have a chance at life.
I read an article in the paper once about a man who came out of a store and saw another man putting a kid in a truck. The thought flashed through his mind "This isn't right." He started running towards the truck, and hollered to the child "Do you know that man?" The boy shook his head no. The man in the truck pushed the kid out of the truck and tore off.
Then the boy's mother came out of the store. It had been an abduction.
The man who'd interrupted it said that if he never did anything else, he knew for sure he'd done one worthwhile thing in his life.
Tracie Dean will know that too.
Posted by floridacracker at January 26, 2006 10:21 PMSuch a sick POS. Reading stuff like that makes my blood boil.
Thank God for this person who did what they did. Too many people these days don't want to get "involved"...and that's a shame.
Posted by: Trambo at January 26, 2006 10:43 PMI'll tell you now, there's no way I would have been as persistent as this woman was. She asked herself "Am I crazy?" but kept going. I would have asked myself the same thing then quit.
Posted by: Donnah at January 26, 2006 10:45 PMHad an incident here two weeks ago tonight, but of course it wasn't a life or death thing, but I caught someone lurking between the stairways here. Being the gentleman I am, I offered two choices. I call an ambulance or the police, as it mattered not to me. :)
Posted by: Trambo at January 26, 2006 11:11 PMThanks for this one, Donnah. I'm reporting it back to Dymphna -- she'll be interested.
I wonder how many child-molestation stories pop up in the news on any given day. Sometimes the local news seems like it's nothing else but that.
Posted by: Baron Bodissey at January 27, 2006 08:39 AMI think it is wonderful that Dean had a part in ending the young girl's nightmare. And I think BOTH the man and the mother ought to be executed. But. . . .
"In sales, you have to meet eight 'No's' to meet a 'Yes,'" Dean said.
I wonder how many men's lives she will destroy before she hits her next "Yes."
Posted by: Arcs at January 27, 2006 11:10 AMWhat a weird thing to say.
Posted by: Donnah at January 27, 2006 11:35 AM"I wonder how many men's lives she will destroy before she hits her next 'Yes.'"
The impression I got from the story was that the yesses and nos referred to investigating authorities, not to suspects. If she were randomly picking people to follow around in the hopes that eventually she'd find a molester/rapist, then sure. But if she's going from cop to cop trying to get one to investigate the one dude she suspects, that's a completely different story.
Anyway, thanks for that story, Donnah.
Posted by: Sobek at January 27, 2006 11:47 AMYes, that's why I selected that part, as an illustration of her persistence in this case.
She comes from a family of cops, which I think played a part in her suspicions, and she's a saleswoman, which would play into her persistence.
It really would have to take a combination of both for this story to have the conclusion it did.
This lady did what we all hope we would do in a similar situation. She's right on 1 in 9 works, and it is apparent that she is discussing how many phones she had to ring to get herself heard. She's an American!
nuf sed
She was talking about how persistent she had to be to get someone to take her seriously, not about how many such situations she had flagged.
A great lady who did a great thing.
Posted by: MaxedOutMama at January 27, 2006 04:27 PMHi. I work with Tracie Dean and she is also a close personal friend of mine. She is an amazing person and what she did does not suprise me at all. This is just the kind of person she is. And knowing about this story for days before it even broke on the news, I can assure you the no and yes thing DID have to do with all the roadblocks she encountered to get someone to simply listen to her story and act.
Posted by: Hal at January 27, 2006 10:20 PMHi Hal, thanks for visiting with us. I am just impressed as all get out with Miss Tracie Lee. Hug her neck for me, will you?
Over at this spot, there's a persistent soul who seems to think she's dangerous:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/154113.php
In a way, I agree. She's dangerous like cops are to robbers.
Posted by: Donnah at January 27, 2006 10:54 PMI Love You for what you did Tracie. It takes lots of courage and patience to act so persistently. I am always on the look out for predators. I was molested several times as a child by relatives and family friends and I guess that makes me more aware and immediately recognize somebody who has been abused physically or sexually.
God put you in the right place.
Great going Tracie ! I wish more of us had the cojones to do what you did...followed through and came out with a couple survivors! I know one thing...you are definitely my hero !
Posted by: Christine at January 28, 2006 05:29 AMKudos to Tracie! An ordinary person doing the extraordinary to help a child... yes, that's hero material! :)
Posted by: pam at January 28, 2006 12:50 PMguess Sobek doesn't have kids
Posted by: emily at February 1, 2006 02:23 AMretract that about Sobek...meant Arcs..sorry Sobek
Posted by: emily at February 1, 2006 02:24 AM