Neighbors in the dark about missing Bloomfield girl

BLOOMFIELD, Conn. --When police found a 15-year-old girl alive and locked in a tiny room of a house in nearby West Hartford on Wednesday, they solved a mystery that had baffled them for almost a year.

Neighbors in her middle-class Bloomfield neighborhood, however, are puzzled by another mystery: why neither police nor the girl's family ever told them that she had vanished and was feared murdered.

"If something like that happened to one of my granddaughters, I'd go bananas and go to everyone on the street," said Mary Ann George, the next-door neighbor of the girl's parents.

Police had long suspected that 41-year-old Adam Gault was involved in the girl's disappearance. They found her locked inside a tiny closet-like room inside Gault's house Wednesday, where they were executing a search warrant to gather clues about her disappearance.

Because the girl had a history of running away from home, investigators opted to strike a balance of trying to raise awareness about a teen in trouble without alarming neighbors by hinting that an unknown kidnapper was at work, Bloomfield police Capt. Jeffrey Blatter said.

"Everything throughout this investigation was a balance as to how far we could and should go," Blatter said. "We were trying to be honest, knowing there was always the possibility this was strictly a case of a runaway who'd return soon."

Detectives publicized the girl's disappearance by labeling it a runaway "under unusual circumstances." They posted some flyers and notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who put a notice on its Web site.

The girl's mother said Saturday followed the police department's lead by discussing their daughter's disappearance only with family, friends and longtime clients of their dog care business -- all of whom had known the girl throughout her life and couldn't help but notice her absence and her family's distress.

The Associated Press is not identifying the girl or her parents to protect her identity because police are investigating if she was sexually assaulted.

Police said they feared that the girl had fallen victim to foul play and were shocked to find her alive and unharmed in Gault's house.

Several of her parents' neighbors said they didn't know the girl was missing until news reports Wednesday that she had been found safe.

"I'm dumbfounded," said 18-year resident Orville McFarlane. "I had no idea at all."

Alexandra Thomas, 16, said she thought the girl had moved. She and her sister sometimes had played basketball with the teen.

"It was crazy," said Thomas, of learning Wednesday that her friend had been missing. "I'm still shaking."

Gault and two women living in the house, Ann Murphy, 40, and Kimberly Cray, 26, were charged with conspiracy to commit unlawful restraint, conspiracy to commit risk of injury to a minor and interfering with police.

The girl's mother said this week that she always believed her daughter was alive somewhere, and always were suspicious of Cray and, later, of Gault. The girl had been working with Cray to learn about dog training, but her parents said Saturday they never knew of their daughter's connection with Gault until shortly after her disappearance.

Yet detectives warned them not to confront Gault, family attorney Marc Needelman said.

"They were cautioned not to try to take matters into their own hands, not to interfere, not to do anything that might jeopardize the investigation," he said. "So while natural parental concern and desire was there to run over to check and to see, they resisted that on the advice of the police department."

The girl's parents told The AP on Saturday that holding back was difficult, describing their desire to confront him as "intense."

"You might say it, and want to do it, but really are you helping? You're not helping -- you're not," her mother said.

Instead, they let police set the pace, opened their home to detectives who collected DNA evidence, and tried to keep life as normal as possible for their three sons.

Meanwhile, officers watched Gault's West Hartford home, asked neighbors if they had noticed a teen girl there, and contacted local schools to check whether anyone fitting her description had recently been enrolled.

Cray's attorney, Michael Georgetti, has argued that the girl ran away after Bloomfield police failed to take action on a sexual assault complaint filed before she vanished. He said the teenager lived willingly in Gault's home, attended school and had her own cell phone.

Bloomfield police and the teen's parents rejected those claims.

Police are also investigating if Gault had improper relationships with other underage girls and are examining videos, computer files and other evidence taken from his home. They said other charges are possible.

Bloomfield police said that since Gault's arrest, they have received calls from people inside and outside the state who claim Gault abused them. Authorities are looking into all the allegations.

Police verified that Gault had filed a sexual abuse complaint on the girl's behalf shortly before she disappeared saying she had been abused by a family friend. But there was insufficient evidence, and the complaint was closed, Blatter said.

The girl remains under care of the state Department of Children and Families, but had met several times with her parents and was scheduled to spend part of Saturday with them.

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Associated Press writer Stephanie Reitz in Hartford contributed to this report.