Gazette, The (Colorado Springs): Moms praise neighbors for helping find girls

Just like that, 4-year-olds Katie and Cassy were gone.

Their families wouldn't see them again for about two hours as police, neighbors and students and staff from a nearby school launched a search in a west Colorado Springs neighborhood.

The next day, their parents would relive part of the anguish as they watched news reports of a 5-year-old autistic Woodland Park boy who was missing overnight. Ryan Boller was found safe Friday evening.

"I empathize with those parents," said Dawn Gifford, Cassy's mother. "My children are my life. I've never felt so helpless, empty and lost when I didn't know where my baby was."

It was another happy ending - the girls were found about a half- block away playing in a back yard with a little boy.

The selflessness with which people helped without even being asked has left the mothers in awe - and speechless at times as they recall it.

The girls, who live across the street from each other, were in Katie's front yard on Dale Street when they wandered off Thursday afternoon.

Pam Schroeder, Katie's mother, saw them walking across the street to her yard. She went outside, and they had vanished within seconds.

A puppy was with the girls but returned home without them.

"You want to think good of people, but all of the bad things run through your mind," Schroeder said Saturday. "I never felt so helpless in my life."

Gifford hopped in her van "and drove and drove and drove."

Students and staff at the Bijou Alternative Program on Walnut Street helped look for the girls. Neighbors joined in.

"I didn't know these people," Schroeder said. "They were acting like it was no big deal. They don't know how much it means to two moms who were frantic."

A security guard at the school gave Schroeder $20 for gas money so she could keep driving around.

"One lady I met had to be in her 70s and was just out walking," Schroeder said.

"My neighbors got out on four-wheelers and went up into the foothills. I've only lived here since November and didn't know them. I know my neighbors now."

A staff member at Bijou Alternative found the girls at 2:46 p.m.

"Then they wouldn't even get in the truck with this gentleman who found them, so he walked them home," Gifford said.

"They knew not to get into a truck with a stranger."

Once found, both girls were scared at the sight of so many police officers, their mothers said.

"Are you mad at me? Are the policemen going to arrest me?" Katie asked her mother.

Cassy said: "I love you, Mommy. I'm so sorry. I'm scared."

"She thought she was going to be arrested," Gifford said. "I just thanked God they were back.

"I don't know what to say," Gifford added. "I'd like to thank everybody who put their effort in."

Monday, the students - who Schroeder said "didn't even want credit" for helping - will get a thank you from her in the form of eight Blackjack pizzas.

Even Blackjack, she said, was touched by the story and offered to sell her the pizzas for $4 each.

"It really restores your faith in humanity," she said.