Cops: Stepdad wanted to trade girl, 5, for meth
Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
Thursday, September 20, 2007
A former stepdad with a long rap sheet is accused of abducting a 5-year-old girl and bartering her freedom in exchange for methamphetamine, then money and finally a reunion with her mom.
It was the kind of harrowing case — an innocent child in harm's way — that disturbs veteran law enforcement officials.
But intense teamwork by federal and local authorities in Colorado and Arizona safely recovered young Jade Dunn at an Aurora residence yesterday and returned her home — 13 days after she vanished from her school in Kingman, Ariz.
Her former stepfather, Virgil Kosmicki, 45, was arrested on drug charges and could face kidnapping charges, Phoenix FBI spokeswoman Deborah McCarley said.
Kosmicki, who has a string of Arizona arrests for drug offenses, aggravated assault and weapons violations, is being held without bail in the Arapahoe County jail pending extradition to Arizona.
"Protecting the lives and safety of our children is a job taken very seriously by the FBI," Denver FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Garrity Jr. said yesterday. "This portentous coordination by various levels of law enforcement denotes the importance of this priority."
Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates, whose agency assisted in the girl's recovery, agreed.
"Child crimes have a very special place in our hearts as children are truly the 'innocent,' " Oates said. "We are grateful that our efforts ... have assisted in returning a child home."
Jade's ordeal began Sept. 6 when Jennifer Dunn called the Mohave County, Ariz., sheriff to report her daughter missing.
Jade had been picked up at school by a once-trusted woman acquaintance on a contact list of people to whom the child could be released. But the woman was not authorized or expected to take Jade that day, the FBI said.
On Sept. 16, Jade's grandmother alerted sheriff's investigators that the woman acquaintance had called to say Jade had been spirited out of Arizona.
The acquaintance began relaying messages to the grandmother from Kosmicki, including the ex-stepfather's reported demand for 2 ounces of methamphetamine in exchange for the girl, McCarley said.
Then Kosmicki allegedly wanted money.
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