California girl is safe with family in Nevada

Martin Griffith

Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.

Issuing an Amber Alert

Criteria for initiating an Amber Alert are based on recommendations from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The three criteria are:

HAWTHORNE -- A 10-year-old California girl allegedly abducted from her bedroom by a family friend was reunited with her family in Reno.

Nichole Taylor Timmons was recovered safely from Hawthorne on Tuesday and taken by an FBI agent to Reno, where she was joined later that night by her mother and an older sister who flew in from Southern California, said Mineral County Sheriff Rocky McKellip.

The location of the reunion was being kept private, McKellip said.

Nichole was found about five hours after an "Amber Alert" was issued, resulting in hundreds of calls from motorists who believed they saw Nichole with Park. The use of the rapid response system has spread following several recent high-profile abductions.

During her time with sheriff's deputies, Nichole appeared unhurt and in good spirits, McKellip said.

"She just acted like a 10-year-old girl," McKellip said. "She was hungry so we got her a pizza and then she was playing on the computer and even wrote a card on it to her mother."

Nichole was found Tuesday when the truck she was riding in was pulled over on a highway about 110 miles south of Reno, more than 300 miles from her Riverside, Calif., home.

Former baby sitter Glenn Park was arrested for investigation of kidnapping and jailed in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Park, 68, had recently been dismissed by the Timmons family as a baby sitter, Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach told reporters in Riverside.

"His services were no longer required here and we believe one of the reasons could be him becoming distraught with the ending of that relationship with the Timmons family," he said.

Nichole disappeared sometime before 7 a.m. Tuesday when her mother, Cheryl Timmons, discovered she was missing from her room, Riverside police Lt. John Wallace said.

"To wake up in the morning and take the blankets off of your child's bed and see empty sheets puts you in another world like you're in a cloud," Timmons said.

McKellip said authorities learned that Nichole and Park spent Monday night or early Tuesday morning at a Hawthorne motel before Park's truck was pulled over on the Walker River Indian Reservation by tribal Police Chief Ray East.

"The girl was visibly upset. She did cry. I think it was a relief for her that everything was finally over," East said.

The rescue of a Nichole was just the latest success for the Amber Alert.

Last week workers at a Los Angeles medical clinic recognized a kidnapped 4-year-old girl after the system was used to spread photos of the child to television stations and other media. And in Texas, an Amber Alert was credited with helping authorities find an infant abducted in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Despite similar successes in the six years since the system was first used, only 15 states currently operate Amber Alert systems. At least two of those have been in use for less than a month.

Politicians, police and broadcasters are scrambling to set up additional systems. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein have jointly proposed legislation to create a national network.

"We've gained incredible momentum," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

"The underlying premise is that time is the enemy in child abduction cases. In 74 percent of cases, the child is dead within three hours," he added.

The system was first implemented in Arlington, Texas, after the 1996 abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman. Nationwide, the alerts are credited with helping rescue at least 26 children since 1996, most in the past two years as more state and local systems have come online.

The alerts are transmitted to law enforcement agencies, television and radio stations through the Emergency Alert System created during the Cold War for use following a nuclear attack. Some states are also flashing alerts to drivers on roadside emergency signs.