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CNN LIVE TODAY
Panel Investigates Disappearance of Florida 5-Year-Old
Aired May 8, 2002 - 12:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In Florida this afternoon, a special blue-ribbon panel meets for the first time, investigating the case of the missing 5-year-old girl, Rilya Wilson. She vanished while under state supervision in Miami.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The woman regarded as Rilya Wilson's grandmother is convinced the little girl is out there, somewhere.
GERALYN GRAHAM, RILYA WILSON'S CARETAKER: Whoever may have her, and I know somebody does, they need to remember one thing. You can't hide her forever.
CANDIOTTI: She is just as sure police will not find a DNA match between Rilya and a little girl in Kansas City known as Precious Doe, an unidentified youngster found murdered last year, who had a birthmark on one of her shoulders.
(on camera): Rilya has no birthmark.
GRAHAM: No. I bathed that child every day. There is no birthmark there.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): A few weeks after a caseworker's last recorded visit with Rilya at this house in January, 2001, Graham says a social worker showed up after she reported Rilya was having behavior problems.
(on camera): Did you suspect anything odd about this?
GRAHAM: No. There was no reason for me to. She knew everything that was going on.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The worker said she was taking away Rilya for tests.
GRAHAM: I hugged Rilya and kissed and told her she would be coming back home in a few days, and I walked to the car with them and stood and watched them drive off.
CANDIOTTI: It was the last time she saw Rilya. For months and months, she says she kept calling the state, but got nowhere. Graham says Rilya's caseworker, who failed to show up for required monthly visits and is now under investigation for faking Rilya's reports, told her not to worry.
(on camera): Do you understand how outsiders look in on this and say, man, I'd be banging on their door. Forget the phone calls.
GRAHAM: I went down there two times, but I didn't get any more results than I got on the phone.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Finally last month, an unexpected call, a social worker coming over to talk about Rilya.
GRAHAM: We were assuming she was bringing Rilya with her.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): And so?
GRAHAM: Well, I don't know who was more surprised, me or her.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): The state has raised questions about why Graham continued to receive $241 a month for both children in her care, even after Rilya was gone. She claims the state told her to keep accepting the checks.
GRAHAM: If we took Rilya off the system, it would be so hard to get her back on, and since she is going to be coming back to you, leave it like it is.
CANDIOTTI: Police call Geralyn Graham a witness, adding no one has been ruled out as a suspect. In the 1980s, she did time for food stamp fraud. She knows some people wonder.
(on camera): Could she have had something to do with the child's disappearance?
GRAHAM: I have never done anything violent in my life. I have never been involved in anything violent in my life.
CANDIOTTI: There has been a suggestion that the child was too hard to take care of. That you couldn't -- it was just too much of a burden. That perhaps she got rid of the child.
GRAHAM: Yes, yes.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Despite a very cold trail, Graham refuses to give in to fear.
(on camera): But have you prepared yourself? What if something bad has happened?
GRAHAM: I can't. I can't. She is not dead. She is not dead.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): For now, Rilya Wilson remains listed as missing while police treat her case as a possible homicide.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CANDIOTTI: And in just a couple of hours, a blue ribbon-panel appointed by Florida Governor Jeb Bush is going to be holding its first meeting.
Its job is to rate the performance of Florida's Child Welfare Agency here in Miami Dade County. The agency itself rates its performance in this case as abysmal. Now, the report is due in just a couple of weeks, but all of this has yet to answer a critical question: Where is 5-year-old Rilya Wilson?
Back to you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And, Susan, you can't help but ask. You wonder if this will trigger reforms within the child welfare system. Has there been talk about any specifics at all?
CANDIOTTI: Well, sadly, this is a very troubled agency here in the state of Florida. And we have heard about reforms many, many times in the past.
And now you have yet another horrible incident that has come up. So, among other things, they are talking about new legislation to make it a crime to falsify documents, including child visitation documents. We will see if something like that happens.
PHILLIPS: Susan Candiotti, thanks so much.
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