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Recovered Bloomfield toddler ‘doing very well,’ sheriff says
Audio Clip Set
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Sheriff Thomas Altiere said Monday he’s been told Rainn Peterson, the toddler found Sunday evening after going missing for two days from her North Bloomfield home, is “doing very well, a little dehydrated.”
Altiere said the girl, 26 months old, was still at St. Joseph Warren Hospital on Monday. The hospital was not releasing information on her.
Rainn was living with her great-grandparents and two brothers at their home on state Route 45 in North Bloomfield when she went missing Friday evening.
Victor Sutton of North Bloomfield, one of hundreds of volunteer searchers, found Rainn in a field he owns along Peck-Leach Road, about a half mile from her home.
Altiere said Sutton apparently was with two other men and found the girl asleep at 6:23 p.m., just before dark.
In his 911 call, Sutton described Rainn as having “flies all over her, but she’s OK.”
Altiere said Rainn was wet, but that he is not enough of an expert to say whether her condition is consistent with having been outdoors without a coat during those 48 hours.
The investigation will continue to determine whether the girl was, in fact, alone throughout those two days, Altiere said. Trumbull County Children Services is assisting with the investigation “per usual,” said Tim Schaffner, CSB executive director.
Getting information from Rainn may difficult, Altiere said, because she speaks only a few words.
“Hey, I found Baby Rainn, and she’s alive,” Sutton said at the start of the 911 call. Sutton was calm as he explained his location, and the dispatcher directed deputies and ambulance personnel to Sutton’s location just east of state Route 45.
When it became clear that the two-day ordeal of the missing girl was over, emotions started to flow.
“Oh, I just got goosebumps,” the dispatcher told Sutton.
“Oh my God, me too,” Sutton said. “I couldn’t give up on this kid, thank God.”
Sutton, using a four-wheeler Sunday, looked for the girl Saturday and Sunday.
“Oh my gosh, talk about luck,” Sutton said to the dispatcher as they waited for help to arrive.
In the recording, Sutton could be heard making small talk with the girl. “You’re OK, sweetheart. I swear you’re going to be OK.”
Sutton held the girl after asking the dispatcher if it was OK to pick her up.
“Hi, baby. Hi, baby. You’re so pretty. You’re doing good, darling,” he said, adding to the dispatcher, “She’s tough.”
Altiere told reporters Monday he started to doubt about 4 p.m. Sunday that Rainn Peterson would be found alive and had started to talk about quitting the search when it got dark, around 7 p.m.
Rainn would have had to walk through some thick brush to get to the location where she was found, Altiere said.
Trumbull County Family Court indicated Monday that records regarding the custody of children is not public and would not provide information on why Rainn Peterson does not live with her mother, Brandi Peterson, 24.
Brandi Peterson, however, and her husband, Nicholas S. Martin, 29, of Cleveland, have been named in several Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office reports in recent years relating to domestic issues.
The FBI, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Marshals Violent Crime Task Force were among the many law-enforcement agencies joining the search with the sheriff’s office.
Altiere estimated the cost of the search could reach a half million dollars when considering all of the agencies involved.