BY TANYA ALBERT and JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Mary Jennifer Love
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COLERAIN TOWNSHIP -- At Sunday school, Mary Jennifer Love's nickname is "the hugger," because the 6-year-old reaches out to everyone she encounters. Neighbors say the dainty girl is "an angel" -- the epitome of innocence. But they fear it's those same loving, caring qualities that could have led her to danger.
The 3-foot-6 Colerain Township girl never came home for dinner with her parents and six siblings Wednesday night. Despite authorities' extensive searching and questioning, Mary was still missing late Friday and her family and neighbors were growing more weary as the day went on.
In hope of Mary's safe return, they tied pink ribbons around trees lining the family's apartment complex and around car antennas. On a tree in front of Mary's front door, neighbors tied three pink ribbons around a missing-person flier with her picture on it.
Neighbors Drake Allen, James Mathews and Brandi Combs place a flier iwth Mary Love's picture behind a pink ribbon.
(Craig Ruttle photo)
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"We're just holding on and hoping," Mary's mother, Carol Williams, 35, said Friday. "I've got to keep that hope alive." "I want my baby," Mary's father Mark Williams, 39, said again Friday. "I better get her back."
Police late Friday weren't saying Mary was abducted. They were still pursuing every angle possible -- from her wandering and getting lost to a tip that a man driving a tan van snatched her.
Neighbors in her apartment village, though, believe the girl was kidnapped. Grassy areas outside the two-story brick apartments are usually filled with children playing, but they were empty Friday. And if children stepped too far off the front porch, their mothers ushered them back indoors.
"She didn't see no strangers," neighbor Tammy Davis, 29, said of Mary's friendliness. "The first time I met her, it's like it scared me. It was like talking to my grandmother. . . . If I had a bad day, she would put her hand on my arm and say "It's going to be OK.' "
TO HELP
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Anyone with information should call the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department at 825-1500.
A fund has been set up for Mary Jennifer Love. Donations can be made at any Fifth Third Bank to account number 40261635.
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After scouring the area Thursday, investigators -- including FBI agents involved because abduction is one possibility -- were back at the Springwood Village apartment complex Friday knocking on doors.
Authorities re-interviewed residents to see whether they remembered any other details and tried to talk to people they may have missed their first time through, said Col. Daniel Wolfangel, spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department.
"It's a process of elimination," he said.
Investigators also followed up on leads from the 35 to 40 phone calls they received about the case. On Thursday, police used search dogs and ruled out the possibility that Mary was in the 100 acres of thick woods behind her apartment. They conducted routine interviews with family members because relatives know Mary's habits the best, Col. Wolfangel said. Friday afternoon, search dogs again went over a couple areas to make sure that nothing was missed.
While police continued to search, neighbors, family and friends prayed and recalled the girl they so desperately want to return home unharmed.
In many ways, Mary is a typical girl headed into the first grade. "She was a very friendly child, very accepting of everyone," said Amy Raymond, Mary's kindergarten teacher at Taylor Elementary. "She was always willing to help out in school and just wanted a lot of love and attention."
Mary asks her 14-year-old sister, Janelle Love, constant questions. "She talks a lot. She's curious," Janelle said.
She plays school outside with a 13-year-old neighbor. She likes to play video games; to hum her favorite song, "It's All About Me" by artists Mya and Sisqo; and to read books, especially the Berenstain Bears.
Mary also likes to rollerskate with her 5-year-old brother. "She couldn't skate very good at first, but she practiced and she was out there with her brother all the time," Jeanette Love said while standing on the sidewalk where her granddaughter had played on many times before.
Over and over, people said Mary acts like a little granny with her sunny disposition and sweetness.
"She would sit out here," Miss Davis said, pointing to a chair, "and when she would sit down she would cross her legs like a lady. And she always had her Bible with her on the way to church."
Mary spends every Sunday at Immanuel Baptist Church, where she is a member of the Eager Beavers program for children ages 2 to 6. It is there where they call her "the hugger."
"She's a very loving girl and very cooperative," said Alice Sergent, head of the Eager Beavers program. "She has leadership qualifications. Whether it's passing out crayons or something else, she always wants to help."
The church members are helping her now.
They've started a prayer chain for her safe return, and churches across Ohio and the country are praying for her and her family.
Those prayers are in addition to the outpouring of prayers and volunteer efforts from neighbors who don't even know Mary or her family. Neighbors are producing fliers asking "Have you seen me?"
"I've prayed and I've asked God to bring her home," said Miss Davis, who said Mary is like one of her own children. "When prayers go up, blessings go down. The blessing will be our Mary."
Her family, which neighbors said has always been a close-knit, loving family, continues to comfort one another. Her maternal grandmother, who spent part of Friday morning scrubbing down the front door, said they're doing a lot of cleaning inside to pass time.
Her paternal grandmother, Terisa Williams of Dayton, Ohio, says she keeps having flashbacks to the Samantha Ritchie case in that town. The little girl was not found alive.
"Everybody was out looking and everyone thought they would find her," she said. "When they found her, she was dead. That's one of my greatest fears."
