Found body of NC teen presents more questions than answers

According to an article written by Sarah Brumfield of the Associated Press titled Police: Body found in Md. river is missing NC teen, “A tattoo on a body found in a Maryland river was the first indication it might be a North Carolina teen who went missing while visiting relatives over the Christmas holidays, police said Thursday.  Phylicia Barnes, from the small North Carolina city of Monroe, about 25 miles southeast of Charlotte, disappeared Dec. 28 while visiting her older half-siblings in Baltimore. “While this is not the type of information that you wish to tell any parent with missing children, it was the task of law enforcement still.

While this article did cover this story well, it took a turn that proves there are decent people in this world and bad things do happen to good people.  I say that because the article mentioned that when “Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi began describing it as "Baltimore's Natalee Holloway case." And even though “the Barnes case did not get as much attention as the disappearance of the Alabama teen in Aruba, Barnes' mother said in January that she did not feel slighted.  "My daughter is not the only child that's missing. Other children need their time, too," Janice Sallis said. "I appreciate all that has been done for her and us thus far, and it's quality, not quantity, that's important to me."  Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is how grown-ups are supposed to act.  I am sure that Janice Sallis had plenty of opportunity to turn on a dime and raise all sorts of Cain about her child not getting the same coverage and exposure as Natalie Holloway but she kept the focus where it needed to be and that deserves all of our praise.

What the article did not dive more into and where I thought it could have done more was the discovery exposed in this except from the article.  "There was a tattoo that got everybody's attention," Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Terrence Sheridan said at a news conference.  Descriptions of Barnes that circulated since her disappearance included a rose tattoo on her lower right leg.  She was found near the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River with another body of a man.  There were no signs of injury or wounds to Barnes when her body was found, Sheridan said. The cause and how they died have not yet been determined. Neither body had clothes on.”  Since there were no injuries or wounds and they both had no clothes, the law enforcement part of me wonders if it was a case of drinking and skinny dipping which may have caused this accident.  Either way, the truth will soon be known because the Maryland police have promised to spare no expense to find out what really happened.  Another reason why it is the people of this country that makes this nation great.