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DNA Tests on Boy Found in Chicago Could Take Weeks

Aired April 29, 2003 - 13:01   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Evanston, Illinois, there is a child in foster care who cannot tell his caretakers exactly who he is. Hundreds of miles away, a family in North Carolina has high hopes today that that child in suburban Chicago is their long-lost boy, a boy named Tristen "Buddy" Myers.
Melissa Buscher has Buddy's story from Roseboro, North Carolina. She is with our CNN affiliate, WRAL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BUSCHER, WRAL CORRESPONDENT: It's the call Sergeant Darold Cox has been waiting for for two and a half years.

SGT. DAROLD COX, SAMPSON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: He said, We think we've found your child.

BUSCHER: That child is Tristen Myers, known to his family as Buddy. The 4-year-old disappeared after walking outside his Sampson County home in October 2000. An exhaustive search came up empty. Sheriff's investigators have checked out more than a thousand tips.

COX: Even leads to Alaska.

BUSCHER: But now, Sergeant Cox says he's working his most promising lead yet. It's from Chicago, and involves a man recently arrested there with a young boy in the car.

COX: He was stopped in a traffic stop. He was a wanted person, so they incarcerated him, took this young little boy into custody.

BUSCHER: The man says the boy's name is Eli Quick, but he couldn't name any of the boy's family members. Police called in social services, who placed him in foster care. The social worker has been trying to confirm the boy's identity, and worries he may have been brainwashed. The social worker's search led her to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site, and then Buddy's picture.

DONNA MYERS, AUNT OF TRISTEN MYERS: If it's not him, he's got a twin.

BUSCHER: Buddy's aunt can't help but get her hopes up. Look at the pictures -- first, when Buddy disappeared, then a computer- enhanced photo of what he may look like today and now the picture of Eli Quick.

MYERS: There's so many things that point to that it's him that I'm just praying it is.

BUSCHER: The ears, the chin, and both boys have similar scarring and speech impediments. Sampson detectives have sent DNA samples from Buddy's mother to Chicago for comparison. It could be six weeks before they get an answer. His aunt says Buddy's big boy bed is waiting.

MYERS: One day is too long for me. I'd like to know now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Joining us now with more to talk about this, CNN's Mike Brooks, a formal law enforcement official, now covering these matters for CNN. Mike, good to have you with us. First of all, DNA testing. I still don't understand why it takes so long to get a match one way or another, a test, back.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I spoke with Sergeant Cox from Sampson County Sheriff's Department just a short time ago, Miles, and he said that a company called Lab Corp -- Lab Corporation of America, based out of Burlington, North Carolina, are the ones doing the DNA comparison. They took blood about two weeks ago from the mother, from this child's supposed mother, and then they took a swab on the inside of the cheek from the boy, and they'll take the comparison.

But that's a good question. We just saw a case, the Laci Peterson case, where they had DNA that was not even as good as these two samples, and it came back within four days. But most labs, what they'll do is they'll say four to six weeks just to put it as a ballpark, and just to say that is the most time it would take to do a DNA comparison. But they can kind of do a down and dirty in about four or five days, and maybe they can do that, put a rush on it, and hopefully get something back. They've done it in other cases. I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do it in this case.

O'BRIEN: And whenever it comes back, the certainty level is in the high 90s, isn't it?

BROOKS: It is in the high 90s, and it's compared, 1 in about 10 billion if you will, with a good sample. And here, we've got blood and we have got tissue scrapings from the inside of the cheek. So they should be good matches for both the -- either mitochondrial or nuclear DNA.

O'BRIEN: Much better than lotto odds, anyhow.

BROOKS: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about this person who brought this boy into the hospital in Illinois. What do we know about him, if anything? Are police hot on his trail?

BROOKS: Well, apparently, on February 3, he was arrested by Evanston Police on a warrant out of Chicago for theft. So -- and his name was Ricky Quick, born 10/12/69 with an address in Chicago, on Claremont (ph), an apartment in Chicago. Now, he dropped the boy off. The boy apparently was fairly dirty, and it kind of raised the attention of the people in the hospital, and they called the family services in Evanston to come out and take custody of this boy, because he wanted him -- he said that the boy had been acting strangely.

But he, also, seemed to be in a big hurry and wanted to get out of there. Well, he got arrested, but now they don't know where he is. I just tried to call the FBI, the FBI, North Carolina apparently is involved in this case now. And I think what they wanted to do was, they wanted to make sure that this boy was the one missing from North Carolina before they put any warrants out again, for this person, if they decide to go ahead and put a warrant out for him. If they do, they'll put it out for, possibly, kidnapping. But they wanted to make a possible and positive identification, I should say, on this boy before they put anything out, more, probably on this Ricky Quick.

O'BRIEN: First things first. OK. CNN's Mike Brooks, thanks. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired April 29, 2003 - 13:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Evanston, Illinois, there is a child in foster care who cannot tell his caretakers exactly who he is. Hundreds of miles away, a family in North Carolina has high hopes today that that child in suburban Chicago is their long-lost boy, a boy named Tristen "Buddy" Myers.
Melissa Buscher has Buddy's story from Roseboro, North Carolina. She is with our CNN affiliate, WRAL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BUSCHER, WRAL CORRESPONDENT: It's the call Sergeant Darold Cox has been waiting for for two and a half years.

SGT. DAROLD COX, SAMPSON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: He said, We think we've found your child.

BUSCHER: That child is Tristen Myers, known to his family as Buddy. The 4-year-old disappeared after walking outside his Sampson County home in October 2000. An exhaustive search came up empty. Sheriff's investigators have checked out more than a thousand tips.

COX: Even leads to Alaska.

BUSCHER: But now, Sergeant Cox says he's working his most promising lead yet. It's from Chicago, and involves a man recently arrested there with a young boy in the car.

COX: He was stopped in a traffic stop. He was a wanted person, so they incarcerated him, took this young little boy into custody.

BUSCHER: The man says the boy's name is Eli Quick, but he couldn't name any of the boy's family members. Police called in social services, who placed him in foster care. The social worker has been trying to confirm the boy's identity, and worries he may have been brainwashed. The social worker's search led her to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site, and then Buddy's picture.

DONNA MYERS, AUNT OF TRISTEN MYERS: If it's not him, he's got a twin.

BUSCHER: Buddy's aunt can't help but get her hopes up. Look at the pictures -- first, when Buddy disappeared, then a computer- enhanced photo of what he may look like today and now the picture of Eli Quick.

MYERS: There's so many things that point to that it's him that I'm just praying it is.

BUSCHER: The ears, the chin, and both boys have similar scarring and speech impediments. Sampson detectives have sent DNA samples from Buddy's mother to Chicago for comparison. It could be six weeks before they get an answer. His aunt says Buddy's big boy bed is waiting.

MYERS: One day is too long for me. I'd like to know now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Joining us now with more to talk about this, CNN's Mike Brooks, a formal law enforcement official, now covering these matters for CNN. Mike, good to have you with us. First of all, DNA testing. I still don't understand why it takes so long to get a match one way or another, a test, back.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I spoke with Sergeant Cox from Sampson County Sheriff's Department just a short time ago, Miles, and he said that a company called Lab Corp -- Lab Corporation of America, based out of Burlington, North Carolina, are the ones doing the DNA comparison. They took blood about two weeks ago from the mother, from this child's supposed mother, and then they took a swab on the inside of the cheek from the boy, and they'll take the comparison.

But that's a good question. We just saw a case, the Laci Peterson case, where they had DNA that was not even as good as these two samples, and it came back within four days. But most labs, what they'll do is they'll say four to six weeks just to put it as a ballpark, and just to say that is the most time it would take to do a DNA comparison. But they can kind of do a down and dirty in about four or five days, and maybe they can do that, put a rush on it, and hopefully get something back. They've done it in other cases. I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do it in this case.

O'BRIEN: And whenever it comes back, the certainty level is in the high 90s, isn't it?

BROOKS: It is in the high 90s, and it's compared, 1 in about 10 billion if you will, with a good sample. And here, we've got blood and we have got tissue scrapings from the inside of the cheek. So they should be good matches for both the -- either mitochondrial or nuclear DNA.

O'BRIEN: Much better than lotto odds, anyhow.

BROOKS: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about this person who brought this boy into the hospital in Illinois. What do we know about him, if anything? Are police hot on his trail?

BROOKS: Well, apparently, on February 3, he was arrested by Evanston Police on a warrant out of Chicago for theft. So -- and his name was Ricky Quick, born 10/12/69 with an address in Chicago, on Claremont (ph), an apartment in Chicago. Now, he dropped the boy off. The boy apparently was fairly dirty, and it kind of raised the attention of the people in the hospital, and they called the family services in Evanston to come out and take custody of this boy, because he wanted him -- he said that the boy had been acting strangely.

But he, also, seemed to be in a big hurry and wanted to get out of there. Well, he got arrested, but now they don't know where he is. I just tried to call the FBI, the FBI, North Carolina apparently is involved in this case now. And I think what they wanted to do was, they wanted to make sure that this boy was the one missing from North Carolina before they put any warrants out again, for this person, if they decide to go ahead and put a warrant out for him. If they do, they'll put it out for, possibly, kidnapping. But they wanted to make a possible and positive identification, I should say, on this boy before they put anything out, more, probably on this Ricky Quick.

O'BRIEN: First things first. OK. CNN's Mike Brooks, thanks. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com