Kienan Hebert’s return home is as remarkable as it is fortunate.
Twelve hours after the abducted three-year-old boy’s family made an emotional plea to his captor, a 911 call was received at 3 a.m. Sunday that he was back in his home, where he was found sleeping with the three blankets that went missing with him four days before.
Questions remain how this occurred, how an abductor could return to the scene of the crime undetected and escape arrest.
The unfenced Sparwood property is in a new subdivision with only one road in and out.
Police, in response to criticism that the suspect, Randall Hopley, remains at large, are only admitting they “facilitated” the return.
The family had vacated the house and was staying with neighbours. They left the doors unlocked.
Police, who had previously been monitoring the area, were nowhere to be seen.
And that’s the way it had to be.
If the suspect felt in danger, he might have run, and maybe Kienan wouldn’t be back with his family right now.
The boy’s safety was all that mattered.
The fact he was returned and is safe after being abducted, as police have said, is rare.
Revealing much more about how this was accomplished would only benefit other potential abductors.
What’s more important is the health and happiness of Kienan and his family. Their ordeal is not over.
And now that police have arrested their lone suspect – a convicted sex offender with a long list of break-and-enters, who admitted in court to trying to remove another child from a house in 2007 – we can look at fixing the justice system that allows people like him to roam free.
– Black Press