New child abduction response team takes shape in Trumbull

NEWTON FALLS — Miriam Fife will speak to those attending the first meeting of the newly formed Trumbull County Child Abduction Response Team on Monday to tell them first-hand the importance of the work they are pledging themselves to.

Fife, the mother of murder victim Raymond Fife of Warren, says the goal of the CART team — assembling experienced and trained personnel and resources to quickly search for a missing child — is close to her heart because of what happened when her 12-year-old son died in 1985.

The boy was riding his bicycle on a path through a wooded area off Palmyra Road on Warren’s west side on his way to a Boy Scout meeting when he was sexually assaulted, beaten, burned and strangled. Danny Lee Hill and Raymond Combs were later convicted of the murder.

A friend of Raymond Fife’s alerted his family that Raymond was missing about 6 p.m., within about 30 minutes of his abduction, and family members began searching for him immediately. The boy’s father, Isaac Fife, found the boy, unconscious, about 9:30 p.m. The boy died two days later.

Miriam Fife knows that police policies have changed in the years since her son died. But when Raymond disappeared in 1985, her family went to police to report him missing, and police were unwilling to look for him because not enough time had passed.

“In 1985, the response was that he was a 12-year-old boy, and 12-year-olds get sidetracked,” Mrs. Fife said.

For more, read Sunday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com