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Lisk-Silva alerts launched
On the fourth anniversary of the Lisk sisters' disappearance, the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office kicks off a new missing-child alert system named in their memory.
By KARI PUGH
The Free Lance-Star
Date published: 5/2/2001
Lisk-Silva alerts launched
A pickup driver grabbed a little girl from a church parking lot in Dallas two years ago, but was apparently too distracted by his own description blaring from the radio to hold onto his victim.
The alert was broadcast every 15 minutes. The kidnapper abruptly stopped the truck and told the terrified 9-year-old to get out.
The man was never caught, but the girl returned home alive.
On the fourth anniversary of the Lisk sisters' disappearance, the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Office yesterday announced it has created its own missing-child alert system, the first in Virginia.
It's called the Lisk-Silva Plan, named in memory of slain Spotsylvania girls Sofia Silva and Kristin and Kati Lisk.
When a child is reported missing, the Sheriff's Office will notify four local radio stations and Adelphia cable TV Channel 3. Those stations will break with an emergency tone, then broadcast abduction details.
"When we issue a police lookout, it might get out to 60 local law enforcement officers," said Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office. "With the Lisk-Silva plan, we'll reach at least 200,000 residents."
Kristin, 15, and Kati Lisk, 12, were kidnapped from their Spotsylvania home on May 1, 1997. Five days later, a highway worker found their bodies floating in the South Anna River. Forensic evidence linked their killings to the death of 16-year-old Sofia Silva, who was abducted and killed seven months before.
A task force of FBI agents and police detectives have investigated more than 11,000 leads, completed forensic examinations on more than 10,000 pieces of evidence and finished more than 400,000 DNA comparisons without success.
"The more eyes and ears we have out there, the greater our chances of finding these missing children," Sheriff Ron Knight said yesterday.
Kristin and Kati's parents, Ron and Patti Lisk, attended yesterday's kickoff press conference, as did Sofia's family--her mother, Phyliss, father, Umberto, and sister, Pam.
Two men who were instrumental in getting the Lisk-Silva Plan up and running also attended.
Conway Richardson and Harland Geortz both read a Reader's Digest article last year about the Texas alert system. The neighbors decided to act.
Geortz, who heads the Sawhill subdivision's Neighborhood Watch, went to the Sheriff's Office with the idea.
"We certainly don't want this to ever happen again," Richardson said. "I hope and imagine that this will eventually go statewide. Then where's an abductor going to go? He can't run."
The original Amber Alert program is a shattered community's response to tragedy.
Nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was yanked, screaming, from her bike outside her grandmother's Arlington, Texas, house in 1996.
Four days later, her body was found in a drainage ditch. Amber's throat had been slashed. Police still have not found her killer.
Shortly after the killing, police teamed up with local radio and television stations to issue emergency lookouts when a child vanishes.
Today, there are dozens of such alert systems around the country. And they have brought at least 10 children home, Smith said.
"Within the first three hours of a stranger abduction, most of these children are murdered," Smith said. "Time is essential."
The Sheriff's Office won't issue an alert for suspected runaway cases or child-custody disputes.
The system will be activated only when a child 17 or younger is considered missing and endangered.
The broadcast will continue every 15 minutes for four hours after the disappearance. Radio stations WFLS, WYSK, WBQB, WJWY are participating, along with Adelphia.
Read more stories about Spotsylvania
Date published: 5/2/2001
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