The Binder that Ties

It started as I saw a white binder resting, open and unattended on a stone wall of a neighbor’s yard. Nearby and half-hidden from sight was a lanky Latino teenager, standing in a small grouping of trees.

The two together, caused me to give pause to what I was seeing and to investigate. By this time I had to turn my truck around in order to return to the intersection of Alena and Nightingale.

After exiting my truck and starting to pick up note paper from the street and the sidewalk, I asked the teen, who was still tucked behind a pine tree, if they were his. He answered, saying they weren’t.

I continued picking up the paper as he slowly migrated to the sidewalk, then across the street. And before I could get all the pages collected, be had disappeared.

Among the papers I located a name and then an address. The notebook belonged to a girl who lives across Pyramid Highway on Jedediah Smith.

From where I was standing to the school at the corner of Alena and Eagle Canyon or the high school across Eagle Canyon, was a northerly direction. Meanwhile to get to Jed Smith from the either school, was an eastbound trip.

So what was it doing there — and moreover — where was the binders owner?

I decided to make a quick check of the stand of trees and shrubs as I suddenly feared a body may be hidden in the brush.

But after a thorough check, I was satisfied that my fear was simply that — a fear.  There was no one laying injured or dead, hidden in the landscape of the yard.

My next action was to take the notebook to the address listed inside. Once there, some three to four miles away, I met with the mother of the teen-girl who owned the binder.

She invited me in and then proceeded to tell me a strange and frightening story. First her 14-year-old daughter had reported the binder missing a few weeks before, then he daughter was the focus of a possible sexual attack involving a drugging.

The teenager told her parents and Washoe County School Police confirmed that the girl had awakened in a ditch, half-naked and without any idea how she ended up there. She told authorities that she and two other friends had been given something to drink prior to her losing her memory.

The girl’s mother also told me that there are cell-phone pictures of a sexual nature involving the girl being forwarded throughout Spanish Springs High School. And now for the frightening part: the school district police told the parents that they’d handle the situation.

It’s frightening because the mother has heard little to nothing regarding process or setbacks to the investigation. Even more disconcerting is the fact that she and her daughter have been summoned to attend therapy to explore the child’s misuse of alcohol since she was discovered to have had a .12-percent BAC when she first called to report what had happened to her.

This situation has piqued my curiosity. I have some very basic questions I’d like to know the answers too, but no one is talking to me as it doesn’t involve my child.

The first and foremost question needing answered is this: is the district school police conducting an active investigation into the possibility that this girl may have suffered a sexual assault or is the school district as a whole, content to simply allow her to attend therapy sessions aimed at alcohol abuse?

Finally, further investigation is warranted in regard to the once-lost binder. Who had it, why and how did it come to being found where it was and of course, where does the Latino teen fit in to all of this?

There is no such thing as coincidence when it comes to situation like this one.  I will continue to follow-up on this incident.