LITTLE ROCK — First in a series
Jacqueline “Jackie” Cooney stepped into her car, shut the door, then turned to watch her five children as they played in the yard of the family’s Little Rock home.
It was shortly before 5 p.m. on Sept. 10, 1982.
“Bye, Mama. You have a good night,” yelled her 12-year-old daughter, Carmeletta Green.
Carmeletta waved as Jackie pulled away from the house at 2114 Center St., heading toward the Pizza Inn on Rodney Parham Road where she worked the late shift.
That moment would play out in Jackie’s mind many times over the next 27 years.
Jackie’s ex-husband, Kenneth Cooney, was supposed to baby-sit the children that night, but he hadn’t arrived by the time Jackie left for work.
This is part 1 of a 6-part series. View all stories here as they become available.
She hated entrusting her children to Kenneth - even if he had fathered one of them - because he had a quick temper.
But as a single mother in her 20s who could barely make ends meet, Jackie couldn’t afford a sitter, and Kenneth offered to watch the children.
Kenneth, 26, and his nephew Larry Cooneyarrived sometime before the 7:23 p.m. sunset.
Larry, also in his late 20s, often tagged along when Kenneth looked after the children. That night, the men stayed for 20 minutes, then left the children home alone.
That was just fine with Carmeletta.
She didn’t much like Kenneth or the way he treated her mother.
And she loved taking care of her baby brothers and sisters - three of them under age 6.
To those who knew her best, Carmeletta displayed a maturity that belied her preteen 80-pound, 4-foot-9 frame.
She tended to the younger children as if they were her own.
That night, Carmeletta made sure the younger children were asleep, then she crawled into bed with her two sisters, ages 5 and 4.
Map
Neighborhood of abduction -
She placed her glasses on the shelf behind the bed. Nearsighted and with an obvious lazy eye, Carmeletta took them off only to sleep.
By the time Star Trek came on at 10:30 p.m., her 11-year-old brother, Orlando Green, was the only one awake.
As Orlando sat on his mother’s bed watching his favorite show, a loud thud against the side of the house startled him.
Orlando had the uneasy feeling that someone was standing just outside the bedroom window.
MORNING
Returning home from her late shift at Pizza Inn, Jackie stepped onto her front porch about 2:30 a.m.
Though it was dark, she felt safe because her neighborhood was so close to the Governor’s Mansion.
Until she saw the front door ajar.
Oh Lord.
How we got this story
As part of a six-month investigation, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette interviewed 38 people and reviewed dozens of court and police documents to tell Carmeletta Green’s story.
Information about the night Carmeletta disappeared came from interviews with her mother, Jackie Cooney, and her brother, Orlando Green, as well as neighbors who lived on Center Street at the time. Police records and newspapers from 1982 provided additional information about that night.
Information about Carmeletta’s personality and her feelings about Kenneth Cooney came from interviews with her family and friends.
Earlier that night, Orlando had called his mother at work and told her that Kenneth had left the deadbolt sticking out, preventing Orlando from shutting and locking the door. Only Jackie and Kenneth had keys to the lock.
Unable to leave work, Jackie instructed her oldest son to lock the screen door.
Now that she was home, Jackie could see that Orlando had not followed her instructions.
She walked briskly through the dark living room into the bedroom that the five children shared.
Jonathan. Tomerra. Kencia. Orlando. Carme ...
Where’s Carmeletta?
Figuring Carmeletta had fallen asleep watching TV, Jackie walked into her own bedroom.
Carmeletta wasn’t there.
She walked into the kitchen.
Then the laundry room.
Heart racing, she marched back into the children’s bedroom. She noticed Carmeletta’s glasses sitting on the shelf.
Jackie reached for the top bunk.
“Orlando. Wake Up.”
“What?”
“Where’s your sister?”
“She’s in bed,” a groggy Orlando said.
“NO SHE’S NOT.”
ABOUT MISSING CHILDREN
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 800,000 children a year are abducted or disappear. Most are taken by relatives and are found alive, the agency says.
On average, 115 children a year are taken by strangers who hold them overnight, demand ransom or kill them.
The Justice Department notes that the murder of an abducted child is rare, with about 100 cases in the United States each year. Seventy-six percent of those children are killed within three hours after they disappear.
Federal law defines a juvenile as anyone younger than 21.
Carmeletta Green is among more than 2,000 children reported missing nationally since 1982 who are still unaccounted for, according to a National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s database.
The Arkansas Crime Information Center lists five missing and “endangered” juveniles in the state.
In Arkansas only one other child has been missing longer than Carmeletta.
Tony Allen, 16, was reported missing from Fort Smith in October 1978.
Recently published articles about Allen and other Arkansas missing-person cases can be found at www.arkansasonline.com/news/previousfeatures/missing/.
Together, mother and son searched the house again.
They ran outside and began banging on neighbors’ doors. No one had seen Carmeletta.
Jackie felt panic grab her by her middle and rip away any control she thought she had over life - control she’d taken when she decided to have Carmeletta.
Jackie had been just 14 when she got pregnant after a boy she knew raped her. The rape had not been the baby’s fault, Jackie reasoned. She decided to keep the baby.
In a way, the young mother and her baby “Letta” grew up together.
On the September morning in 1982 when Jackie realized her firstborn was missing, salty tears stung her eyes, but she forced back the anguished moans and screams building in her belly.
Stay calm, she told herself.
Help the police find your daughter.
Officers kept asking Jackie what she had done with Carmeletta - as if she’d hidden her daughter.
Though police never considered Jackie a suspect, they say now that they had to ask the questions - just in case.
For Jackie, the memories remain painful even decades later.
“They said I wasn’t emotional enough,” Jackie sobbed, covering her face to veil her grief. “I tried to keep myself together to talk about my child.”
She wanted to suppress her emotions long enough to tell police that she knew exactly who took her baby and why.
Tomorrow: Two suspects emerge.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/06/2009