BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Brandy Warner
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A Madisonville girl who boarded the wrong school bus Wednesday afternoon has been missing since soon after she disembarked, prompting an intense search of the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood where she was last seen.
Brandy Warner, 13, boarded the wrong bus when she left Shroder Paideia School in Kennedy Heights, said her mother, Vanessa Brown. Brandy exited the bus at Sycamore and East Liberty streets in Over-the-Rhine about 4 p.m., found a pay phone at a convenience store and called her mother for a ride home.
Mrs. Brown told police she sent Brandy's grandfather to retrieve her. The girl, still on the phone to her mother, said she thought she spotted her grandfather on his way and assured Mrs. Brown that she'd be home shortly.
That was the last time Mrs. Brown talked to her daughter.
The convenience store employees said they saw the girl talking on the pay phone but didn't see her leave, Cincinnati Police Division spokesman Lt. Roger Wolf said.
But relatives who circulated her picture downtown discovered one man who said he saw her alone, with a book bag, at Tower Place Mall about 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Family friends have been posting fliers with Brandy's picture in Over-the-Rhine and downtown. The girl's stepfather, Avery Brown, spent last night and this morning searching for her, Mrs. Brown said. The family also is working with Tri-State Search and Rescue.
Mrs. Brown's employer, Intrieve Inc., is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to Brandy's safe return.
Lt. Wolf said most missing-person cases involve runaways or people who simply don't want to be found. In fact, Brandy's mother said her daughter ran away two weeks ago and was gone for one night; she was still "on punishment" for that incident when she disappeared. But Mrs. Brown fears the worst. An avid reader and award-winning essayist who wants to be a teacher, Brandy was excited about starting a new school, her mother said.
"I just pray that she's safe and nothing's been done to her," the mother of three said. "If she's OK, I don't know why she hasn't called by now. I'm thinking she got picked up by the wrong person."
Mrs. Brown said she sifted through the stuffed animals and looked among the purses, sunglasses and other typical teen-age clutter in her daughter's bedroom, but didn't find anything to suggest the girl's disappearance was premeditated.
Shroder Paideia Principal Raymond Spicher said administrators at the 635-student middle school "are following proper procedure" regarding Brandy's disappearance. That requires officials to contact their school resource officer -- a Cincinnati police officer assigned to a school -- to ensure that a missing-person report was filed, Cincinnati Public Schools spokeswoman Eileen Houston-Stewart said.
District officials also are investigating whether and why Brandy boarded the wrong bus, Ms. Houston-Stewart said. About 10 school buses -- excluding buses for special-education students -- transport students to and from Shroder Paideia, Mr. Spicher said. Metro provides busing for the district's middle- and high-schoolers, Ms. Houston-Stewart said. Students receive a Metro bus pass with bus-route maps in a back-to-school mailer every summer.
"The school is concerned and the principal is concerned -- we want to make sure that we did everything right to get her where she needed to go," Ms. Houston-Stewart said.
The girl is described as African-American, 5-feet-2-inches tall, 130 pounds, with black, shoulder-length hair. She was last seen wearing a brown-and-navy striped, V-neck, short-sleeved dress and black heels. Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call police at 352-3505.
