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jamesonadmin
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Oct-02-02, 05:11 PM (EST)
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"Kynande Bennett - SC/NC"
 
   WHITEVILLE, N.C. - Relatives pleaded for the safe return of a missing 4-year-old as
investigators crossed state lines and began digging for evidence in the woods near the
young girl's home.

FBI agents from Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, S.C., along with state and local law
enforcement officers, concentrated their searches Tuesday in a wooded area behind the
public housing unit in Conway, S.C. That's wheree the missing girl, Kynande Bennett,
lives with her mother, 24-year-old Vartasha McCullough.

Investigators could be seen digging, measuring and photographing in an area about 50 feet
off the highway in woods adjacent to the housing development.

It was unknown what, if anything, investigators recovered from the site.

Kynande was reported missing Sunday in Whiteville when her mother said she
disappeared at Kmart. Kynande had traveled with her mother and father, Kevin Bennett,
to visit Bennett's brother in Whiteville on Sunday.

No one has been charged or arrested in the girl's disappearance.

McCullough reported to Whiteville police that her daughter was missing. She told police
that she entered the Kmart store about 5 p.m. Sunday, assuming her daughter was right
there with her.

She retrieved a shopping cart and when she turned to lift her daughter into it, she was
gone. McCullough then told store employees that her daughter was missing, and
employees searched the store. Police notified more than an hour later, about 6:15 p.m.

Volunteers searching for the girl were joined Tuesday by Kynande's great-grandmother,
Bertha Bennett, 79, and great-aunt Ester Gause, 53, who traveled from Loris, S.C., to pick
up fliers so they could spread the word in Loris and Tabor City.

"She's a sweet little girl," Gause said. "I never dreamed it would strike my family."

Bennett pleaded that if someone has her great-granddaughter, "Please bring her back.
Please, please, please bring her back safe. She's an innocent child. She don't deserve
this."

Gause added: "I pray and pray and pray that she'll be OK."


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jamesonadmin
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Oct-03-02, 02:46 PM (EST)
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1. "RE: Kynande Bennett - SC/NC"
In response to message #0
 
   Family appeals for girl's return

By Amy E. Turnbull
Staff Writer
amy.turnbull@wilmingtonstar.com

WHITEVILLE - As law enforcement
grew quieter here Wednesday, not
revealing the tenor of their investigation,
the family of a missing 4-year-old spoke
publicly for the first time.

With tears streaking down her smooth
cheeks, Vartasha "Tasha" McCullough told
the story of the last time she saw her
daughter, Kynande Bennett.

The pair came to Whiteville with
Kynande's father, Kevin Bennett of Loris,
S.C., to visit his brother. They dropped Mr.
Bennett off at his brother's, then headed to
the Kmart store to get Kynande a snack.

"Do you want some Froot Loops?" Ms.
McCullough asked her daughter as they
crossed the parking lot and entered the
store around 5 p.m. Sunday.

"No, ma'am," she recalled her daughter saying.

Ms. McCullough said she strayed off course for a second to get a shopping
cart, and when she turned to lift Kynande into the seat, she was gone. Ms.
McCullough, 24, of Conway, S.C., said she looked to her left and right, then
went to the parking lot and looked between cars and into her truck, all the while
calling "Kynande!"

Nothing.

Ms. McCullough went back in the store, where personnel called for Kynande
over the intercom system, but again, nothing.

Whiteville Police searched a half-mile radius of the store for Kynande late
Sunday, but the child seemed to have disappeared.

In the days since Sunday, Kynande's parents seemed to disappear, but they
underwent lie-detector tests and intensive interviews from state, local and
federal law enforcement agents.

Mr. Bennett still hadn't emerged by Wednesday afternoon, although he kept in
touch with volunteers from the Community United Effort's Center for Missing
Persons stationed in Whiteville, saying he was going to get there as soon as the
police were finished with him.

Before facing media representatives awaiting her Wednesday afternoon in
Whiteville, Ms. McCullough sat on the sofa in the Hallsboro living room of Bob
and Rosemary Powell, whose son Chase Powell, 19, disappeared earlier this
year and was later discovered dead in a remote field. The Powells have since
supported the CUE Center and have helped with this week's search. Ms.
McCullough rocked on the sofa with her arms folded over her stomach. At
times she cried quietly, covering her face, and at times she stared ahead without
blinking, almost as if she were frozen in a horrible nightmare with her eyes wide
open.

She said she hadn't eaten, slept or drunk since Sunday.

"Your heart is cool," she said, trying to describe her feelings. "Your body is
cool. You can't think. … They tell me 'don't cry,' but you don't know how I
feel," she continued, her sobs growing more intense. "That's my child."

Investigators won't tell what direction they're heading, but Ms. McCullough said
they have accused her of killing her child, of knowing who killed her child and
of covering up something sinister.

Her story of their suspicions seems to be borne out by the fact that investigative
efforts have centered on Conway.

"It's my understanding everybody's in our sister state, which is good," Whiteville
Police Lt. Glenda George said Wednesday. Police in Conway would only say
they were conducting interviews.

By investigating in Conway instead of Whiteville where the child was reported
missing, law enforcement has spoken volumes about what they suspect
happened to Kynande.

"They should be up here looking for my child in Whiteville," Ms. McCullough
said. She insisted she and Mr. Bennett came to Whiteville with their child
Sunday, and she took the child to Kmart, where she was snatched.

Surveillance cameras at the store weren't working that day, and police have
said no witnesses reported seeing Ms. McCullough enter the store with a child.

Ms. McCullough said a man told Mr. Bennett he had seen Kynande in the toy
department of Kmart but that the man hasn't been located.

Kynande had to have been snatched, her mother added, because she wasn't
friendly with strangers, and she was well-mannered. She would have asked her
mother's permission to go, Ms. McCullough said.

She urged whoever has her daughter to drop her off in a safe place.

"I won't press no charges. I want my child home," she said, adding a message
for the police: "My child is out there. I don't know where she at. …I just want
this to end. They don't know how I feel."

Ms. McCullough - a certified nursing assistant who works in an Horry County
nursing home during the day and is in school for an associate's degree in early
childhood development at night – was joined at the Powell residence by Mr.
Bennett's mother, Ophelia Bennett.

Mrs. Bennett repeated her mantra with a bowed head and through tears
Wednesday afternoon: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."

She said since Sunday she has told her 12 other grandchildren to hold onto their
mothers. Mrs. Bennett described her feelings as "nothing but pain, honey.
Nothing but pain and hurt. Jesus says don't let my heart be troubled – it's so
hard - so I got to go that way."

About an hour later, just as her news conference was wrapping up in
Whiteville, Ms. McCullough broke down, wailing, kicking and screaming for her
daughter. Her face wracked with pain, Ms. McCullough needed say no more.

Wednesday night, she collapsed and was taken to the hospital by CUE
volunteers, according to Monica Caison, founder of the CUE Center.

Law enforcement will continue their investigation today while CUE Center
volunteers search for Kynande.

Amy Turnbull: 343-2389

amy.turnbull@wilmingtonstar.com


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jamesonadmin
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Oct-07-02, 09:23 AM (EST)
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2. "update"
In response to message #1
 
  
200 pray for happy ending
By Dawn Bryant
The Sun News
WHITEVILLE, N.C. — A week after a 4-year-old Conway girl disappeared,
searches in two states, questions posed to her parents and the distribution
of hundreds of fliers haven't brought her home.

But the community hasn't given up on finding Kynande Bennett, gathering
Sunday night for a candlelight vigil meant to mark the end of the
exhausting week and show hope that the ordeal will have a happy ending.

After seven days of searching, relatives, friends and volunteers renewed
their efforts Sunday with song, prayer and candles that cast a glow along
Virgil Street in Whiteville, where Vartasha McCollough reported her
daughter missing from a Kmart on Sept. 29. Nearly 200 people, including
busloads of relatives and friends from Georgetown, asked God to help heal
the hurt.

"Whatever it is, God's got it," said the Rev. James Smith.
"God is going to bring this thing to the light. God will bring this to a close."

Relatives begged the crowd to give any information to help find Kynande as
volunteers announced plans for another service in the coming days.
Volunteers in Georgetown, where McCollough and Kynande lived before
moving to Conway this summer, planned to start tying yellow ribbons on
trees around town today.

"We will not stop hoping and praying until she is found," said Thomasina
Herman, McCollough's second cousin.

"We always hold out hope that they are out there," said Monica Caison,
director of the Community United Effort Center for Missing Persons, a
Wilmington-based group that has searched for Kynande for the past week.

Law enforcement officials didn't share any new information on their efforts
during the weekend.

Officers have searched areas near the store, McCollough's home and
nearby property. They've questioned the parents, Kevin Bennett of Loris
and McCollough of Conway.

Although the search began in Whiteville, police said last week they have no
evidence Kynande was in North Carolina. The focus of the investigation
shifted to South Carolina.

"We are still working," said Capt. Larry Schilling of the Conway Police
Department. "We want to find the child, and we are working as hard as we
can."

Conway police have been getting tips since the investigation started, but
Schilling declined to say how many or whether they have been credible
leads.

Calls to CUE's missing persons line have been light, with volunteers taking
about 15 tips last week, Caison said. A typical missing child case generates
between 30 and 50 calls daily, she said.

Caison blames the discrepancy in Kynande's case on the lack of national
media attention, which she says is crucial because Kynande could be
outside the Carolinas.

"It's just been very frustrating because we just don't know anything,"
Caison said.

Contact DAWN BRYANT at 626-0296 or dbryant

@thesunnews.com.



email this |
print this


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jamesonadmin
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Oct-08-02, 05:42 PM (EST)
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3. "Parents suspects"
In response to message #2
 
  

Posted on Tue, Oct. 08, 2002

Parents now suspects in case of missing
Conway girl
From staff reports
Conway police announced Tuesday morning the parents of a missing
4-year-old Conway girl are suspects in her disappearance.

Chief Sam Hendrick said the "available information did not support the
information given by the mother" regarding Kynande Bennett's alleged
disappearance from a Kmart in Whiteville, N.C., on Sept. 29, as Vartasha
McCullough had first reported to police there.

Kynande's parents, McCullough and Kevin Bennett, were not in police
custody or had not been charged with any crime, but Hendrick said he
anticipated an arrest in the case. He declined to say who might be charged,
but said the parents are equal suspects.


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jamesonadmin
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Oct-20-02, 04:17 PM (EST)
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4. "10/14/2002"
In response to message #0
 
   More than 100 pray at missing girl's vigil
By Tonya Root
The Sun News

GEORGETOWN — More than 100 people took home yellow and white bows
Sunday from a candlelight prayer vigil held for missing 4-year-old Kynande
Bennett.

"The yellow symbolizes a missing person and the white the hope of a safe
return," said Jean Brown, Georgetown County school board member.

The group gathered at St. Stephen AME Church in Georgetown, which is
where Kynande and her mother, Vartasha McCollough, attended services
before moving to Conway this summer. The crowd sang several songs and
prayed for the child's safe return.

"We live in a nation where children are not often protected," said the Rev.
Phil Thrailkill of Duncan United Methodist Church in Georgetown. "Lord,
would you reveal what has happened to this little girl; we pray to find her
alive and well."

McCollough reported her daughter missing Sept. 29 from a Whiteville, N.C.,
Kmart.

Conway police searched McCollough's home at 2004 E. Neely Drive on
Sept. 30 for blood and other physical evidence and later named her, as well
as Kynande's father, Kevin Bennett, as suspects.

Bennett and McCollough sat together in the front row at the vigil, but they
declined to be interviewed after the service.

Both parents have said they
had no part in the child's disappearance.

No charges have been filed in the case and police said Friday they expect a
long-term investigation.

The last time anyone saw the girl was two days before she was reported
missing, when a Conway convenience store recorded the girl and her
mother on a surveillance camera, Conway police said.

Investigators are awaiting forensic evidence test results from the State Law
Enforcement Division in Columbia.

The investigation is currently being led by Conway police. Police in
Whiteville said they found no evidence the child was in their town. Conway
police have asked for help from anyone who saw Kynande before she was
reported missing.

"We are begging, please bring her back," Thomasena Herman, a family
spokeswoman, said Sunday. "We will not stop hoping and praying until she
is found."

Contact TONYA ROOT at 626-0306, 1-800-568-1800, Ext. 306, or
troot@thesunnews.com.


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